Sabeen and Perween’s Pakistan

On this last Sunday of April, with the weekend heat wave lashing Karachi, I intend to deflect my thoughts from the after-shocks of the Panama Papers, leaked three weeks ago, and from squabbles on the subject of corruption in high places. Today is April 24, the first death anniversary of Sabeen Mahmud. She was shot dead at a traffic signal in the Defence Housing Authority in Karachi.

Remember Sabeen? If this name means nothing to you, I should not make an attempt to explain the role she had played to stimulate cultural and intellectual activities in the city, as the founder-director of The Second Floor – T2F. On that evening, she was returning home after a seminar on Balochistan was held in her café-cum-bookshop.

Those of us who knew her had loved and respected her as the conscience of Karachi. She stood out among those courageous individuals who were targeted by the evil forces of intolerance and extremism. We can imagine the enemies she had made because of her progressive and liberal views. That they would shamelessly assassinate a young woman was the true measure of the inspiration she had become for Karachi’s social activists.

Why else would she deserve a full-page obituary in one of the world’s leading newsmagazines, ‘The Economist’? Titled ‘Karachi’s wild child’, it noted that she had given Karachi “a place where talk – about art, science, politics, anything – could flow freely, and citizens could get online and organize.” “Don’t just bad-mouth the government,” she would say. “Take charge! Change things!”

So, when we remember Sabeen on her first death anniversary, we realise how desperately Karachi needs that passion and creativity. She was a very precious human being and her first death anniversary brings to mind the enormity of the shock we had suffered. ‘The Economist’ had summed it up well: “The authorities and jihad-makers were all most extremely sorry. Not half as sorry as the artists, poets and thinkers of Karachi, who suddenly found it hard to breathe”.

It is hard to breathe, not just in Karachi but in a national context, for many other reasons. Sabeen’s remembrance is relevant at this time in the larger perspective. As I said at the outset, the nation’s focus has remained on the Panama Papers and on the enormous wealth that appears to have been stashed in offshore accounts. The family of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is particularly in the spotlight. Like the heat in Karachi, and some other parts of the country, the political temperature is rising to a feverish pitch.

It is unlikely that the prime minister’s address to the nation on Friday evening, in which he acceded to the demand to ask the chief justice of the Supreme Court to form a commission to probe the allegations levelled against his family, will bring the temperature down. This is how political games are played in Pakistan, with a lot of sound and fury. Besides, fresh disputes have emerged about corruption and accountability.

Great excitement ensued when Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif was quoted as saying, in an army function, that the ongoing war against terrorism and extremism “cannot bring enduring peace and stability unless the menace of corruption is uprooted”. He stated that the “armed forces will fully support every meaningful effort in that direction”.

In a sense, it was an action replay of an army chief underlining the urgency for across the board accountability. That is how military interventions in the past began, the most recent being that of Pervez Musharraf. But the present situation seems different and on Thursday, a report emerged about the sacking of six senior army officers, including two serving generals, on charges of corruption. Though further details were lacking, the move was seen as a message for the civilian rulers.

Meanwhile, the Election Commission of Pakistan has released the details of the assets of the members of parliament, for 2014-2015. Here is confirmation of the fact that our leaders are filthy rich. One headline said: “Imran joins the billionaire club in Parliament.” His assets are worth Rs1.31 billion. Nawaz Sharif’s assets add up to Rs1.96 billion.

Asif Ali Zardari is, naturally, not on this list but there is little doubt about the extent of his wealth. This means that the leaders of the three main political parties, vying for the support of the ‘awaam’, languishing at the grassroots’ level, are billionaires. Here is an opportunity for a pop singer to compose a ditty on three billionaires in a fountain – like three coins in that old Frank Sinatra song – each one seeking not happiness but power. But ‘just one wish will be granted’.

Coming back to Sabeen, it is obvious that the present state of Pakistani society exemplifies the absence of the ideas and values that the social activist had advanced with such courage and commitment. If we are unable to build Pakistan in that progressive and liberal image, its survival itself will remain uncertain.

In my column last year, ‘The silencing of Sabeen’ (April 26, 2015), I had recalled the violent death of another young woman in Karachi. Perveen Rahman of the Orangi Pilot Project was shot dead on March 13, 2013. Incidentally, Mahera Omar’s documentary on the architect/activist, titled ‘Perween Rahman: The Rebel Optimist’, was screened this Tuesday at Sabeen’s T2F.

I do not have sufficient space to pay an appropriate homage to the life and work of Perween. She had meticulously been documenting the land and the ‘goths’ situated on it around Orangi, and it is believed that this led to her murder. Advocate Faisal Siddiqi said at the screening that “the first two years after her death for us were mainly about keeping the case and ourselves alive”. This should give you some idea about how powerful the land mafia and its associates can be. However, Faisal added: “Those who killed her did not know how powerful she was. She will chase them to the doors of hell!”

Take it as another coincidence that today, on Sabeen’s death anniversary, the Pak Sarzameen Party of Mustafa Kamal is holding its first public meeting in Karachi. It is a battle, in a sense, to liberate the city from the influence of the party that Mustafa Kamal has renounced: the MQM. Many aspects of how this conflict is building have remained in shadows.

But when it comes to creating a plural, progressive, vibrant, peaceful and prosperous society, we need the likes of Sabeen and Perween.

The writer is a senior journalist.

Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com