I
Will Not
Today
on Earth Day we are celebrating by making promises
But
I will not
I will not stop throwing paper on the ground.
I will not stop using plastic bags
I will not go to clean the beaches
I will not stop polluting
I will not do all these things because I
am not polluting the world
It is the grown-ups who are dropping bombs
It is the grown-ups who have to stop
One bomb destroys more than all the paper
& plastic that I can throw in all my
life
It is the grown-ups who should get together
and talk to each other
They should solve problems and stop fighting
and stop wars
They are making acid rain and a hole in
the ozone layer
I
will not listen to the grown-ups!
[Student of class five of Karachi High School
on Earth Day 1991].
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It was in the wee hours of the morning. Propped
up in our beanbags Nuzhat and I chatted while
Zaheer and Ragni clicked away on their keyboards.
I was in Karachi doing a story on Abdul Sattar
Edhi, a man I admired greatly. Nuzhat and I had
a lot of catching up to do, and our stories wandered
in unplanned directions. We talked of when she
and Nafisa Hoodbhoy had started the Peace Committee
in Karachi and as she remembered this story her
bright eyes welled up. Nuzhat was not the sort
of person one could imagine being angry. But as
she recalled the words of this little boy, she
shook with emotion.
It was a week after they had heard the news of
the US dropping a bomb every two minutes on Iraq.
They had talked in school of how the world was
being destroyed, of how the minds of people were
being moulded, of how Pakistanis were looked upon
at airports, but how the work of Edhi went unreported.
She recalled how at the end of her talk, the chief
guest, a woman known for her good work, went up
to the boy and quietly told him off. How the prizes
went to the other kids who had made presentations
that no one could remember.
What can we say to the blind & deaf?
What does education & learning mean?
What should we teach & why do we teach it?
These were questions Nuzhat asked that night.
Questions we continue to ask.
As we put together the work for this festival,
I have been struck by the range of interpretations
of the word ‘resistance’. A word that
fighters against occupation have taken as their
own, gets usurped by occupying forces. To resist,
to challenge, to question, to go against the grain,
to deliberately choose the untrodden path is a
conscious decision. It is a risky route fraught
with danger, but a route we must follow, if change
is to come.
The festival itself continues to buck the trend.
Open air marquees without gates or walls bring
rarely seen work to a wider public. Billboards
on cycle rickshaws take exhibitions to city spaces
that have never known gallery walls. Combining
innovative low cost solutions with state of the
art technology, video conferences link the virtual
with the real, while canvas prints on giant scaffolding
scorn the air conditioned confines of exclusive
openings. Hand tinted prints rub shoulders with
pica droplets on digital media. Fine art, conceptual
work, installations, traditional photojournalism,
coexist in a strange mix, oblivious to attempts
to categorise and label. The future, the present
and the past huddle, sometimes uncomfortably,
to produce a kaleidoscope of images and woven
messages, that question, reflect and celebrate
aspects of our existence.
When globalisation has become a euphemism for
westernisation, it is this dissolution of borders,
this resistance to consumerism, this dream of
a world where the might of a few, can be effectively
challenged, this belief that tanks and stealth
aircraft, and media spin will not subdue an indomitable
spirit, that characterises this festival. It is
this attempt to subvert, through blogs and handbills
and word of mouth, the propaganda machineries
that dominate the airwaves, that the artists have
taken as their inspiration. The festival is a
call to resist, and a declaration of the resistance
to come.
Shahidul Alam, Festival Director
Dhaka, November - 2004
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