uring the past weeks, the city of Lahore has hosted a festival each week and it seems that there are many more to come.

There is almost an epidemic of festivals, all following the same format. And this is happening not only in Lahore but in other cities as well, even in those that complained of no festival being held there. This brings them in line with the developed state of the urban culture in the Twenty-first-Century Pakistan.

One had always lamented that there was not enough cultural activity in the country and that it needed more than it offered. Many saw it as a counter to the extremism that has been stalking the country for 45 years. There has also been a rant about projecting a soft image of Pakistan across the world and a failure on the part of the departments involved in not propagating or projecting the right image.

It is usually the same set of people and if these appear too often mouthing the same formulas that have not dented the position of those on the other side, the argument is being killed by its own blasé. It has to be seen whether the participants have something new or more to say than the ones that have been overexposed all these years without really leaving an impact. As Anwar Maqsood, in one of his talks in one of the festivals, pointed out the number of such festivals has increased. Within the precinct’s people, the erudite ones talk about poetry, music and offer political analysis, while associated acts of violence continue outside. These have gone on unabated. The two have existed side by side, the parallel lines not crossing each other.

It has always been assumed that the two exist as contrary to each other; that the arts can somehow take the steam out of acts that are violent and justified by force. There has been in the last three decades or so a mantra that Pakistan has much more to offer than violence and extremism and that the whole picture is never presented in the sense that Pakistan also offers music, dance, poetry, theatre and related cultural activities.

It has always been touted that Pakistan has a rich culture, its underpinning being pacifist; that people have the ability and the restraint and the passion to debate, talk and resolve their differences through dialogue. The readiness to pick a gun is not a rule but an exception for the greater thrust of society runs counter to it.

It has always been touted that Pakistan has a rich culture and that its underpinning is basically pacifist; that people have the ability and the restraint and the passion to debate, talk and resolve their differences through dialogue. The readiness to pick a gun is not a rule but an exception for the greater thrust of society runs counter to it. The people are generally peaceful and have a way of navigating their issues in a nonviolent way. That violence, if any, only exists on the margins and is not the preferred option for the most.

The assumption that the two are mutually exclusive has proved to be a fallacy. Though Pakistan has a democratic system, the differences that are highlighted and the violence in the argument spewed in words is just one step away from its physical use. There is so much violence or that which provokes a violent response that it appears as a justification for the use of force.

It could be that Pakistan is not one country but many, where the meeting point is becoming a diminishing point. The many strands are there: valid and in equal justification of their existence, neither wanting to budge from their stated positions. It could be that people from all sides have become too smug and relish in the justification of their own point of views. This self-certainty has really been the reason for the breakdown of the social order and with it the natural outflows in politics and culture. In the cocoon of self-satisfaction, the reaching out has suffered.

The oral tradition is too strong to go away. People at these festivals love to hear well-known persons talk about themselves, their work, their views on society and the world. At the same time, if one looks at the number of books being printed/ published, it has stayed stagnant and is woefully low in comparison to the exploding population. The preferred intellectual indulgence, it seems, has remained the heard word rather than the printed one.

The writer is a culture critic based in Lahore.