Ejaz Asi - Information Designer from Karachi, Pakistan

The speech of Mr. Ali Ahmed Kurd which led the Government to file a complaint and an official letter be sent to the acting registrar of supreme court for the derogatory remarks against government (read Musharraf). My personal views against this are still mixed. If you view the remarks of lawyers during the Supreme Court Seminar chanting “some of the slogans” in isolation, so yeah, they shouldn’t have been chanted that way. Lawyers should have been more graceful in their approach towards asking and demanding more freedom. But if you consider the whole 60years of history of Pakistan and its judiciary wrestling with the military and political parties, I think this is what would be termed as “Natural Outcome” of the events. Anyways, here’re the videos that started it all!

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Have you ever felt that your life is rented, not owned. Did you ever feel like you are on earth on a leased period of time and your weakness, lack of reason and cowardice makes you live life as it is. Well, here’s a song for you:

I haven’t ever really found a place that I call home
I never stick around quite long enough to make it
But if my life is for rent and I don’t learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
Cos nothing I have is truly mine

These are few lines from a great mellow song “Life for Rent” by Dido. Very profoundly thoughtful and yet simplistic to understand ideas have been penned down by Dido. If your life is for rent, you don’t own it.

Even though this post isn’t really about Dido or her song mostly but about the reactions of many people within and outside Karachi on 5/12 Riots.

Ironically, with all the education, awareness and championing the modernity the people of Karachi boast, the fact remains that people are more eloquent and openly blame President Musharraf than Altaf Hussain of MQM. And yet everyone of them desire peace and happiness. How does that happen?

It happens when we forget that there are somethings in life greater and bigger than the life itself. No, they aren’t big buildings or your insurance, or big metropolitan areas filled with hottest chicks and so on nor are they about ruling certain people or having big land. No, none of that. They are integrity, freedom and dignity. It may be an abstract idea for many but when you let your self-esteem be on the line, when you sell yourself, your dignity and your liberty there’s nothing in the world you could buy. You’re living a life that’s up for rent.

When you let others run your life, decide for you, live for you, there’s no point in your living. Dido goes on to further say:

“I’ve always thought
that I would love to live by the sea
To travel the world alone and live more simply
I have no idea what’s happened to that dream
Cos there’s really nothing left here to stop me”

I feel pity sometimes and often times I laugh at an individual’s incapacity to lead his own life. His inability to take over his very own life from the tyranny of others. That an individual could be so so afraid of taking chances and we forget we had our own lives, our own children and that the life is short and that without liberty and dignity, we are nothing but dirt and dust.

Kant in his most famous essay talks about Enlightenment. If you’d read it, you’d laugh at the sorry ass of Musharraf who has come to be notorious for raising the slogans of Moderation and Enlightenment. Well, in a very crude and common man’s manner, he’s a man who came to city with rural thoughts. Kant, on the other hand says,

Enlightenment is man’s leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one’s intelligence without the guidance of another… Through laziness and cowardice a large part of mankind, even after nature has freed them from alien guidance, gladly remain immature. It is because of laziness and cowardice that it is so easy for others to usurp the role of guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor! If I have a book which provides meaning for me, a pastor who has conscience for me, a doctor who will judge my diet for me and so on, then I do not need to exert myself. I do not have any need to think; if I can pay, others will take over the tedious job for me. The guardians who have kindly undertaken the supervision will see to it that by far the largest part of mankind, including the entire ‘beautiful sex,’ should consider the step into maturity, not only as difficult but as very dangerous.”

Yes, bad things can happen, yes security and safety will be at a risk if you raised your voice, if you proclaimed yourself be free but no risk and no danger is greater than the risk and danger of falling into oblivion, of being forgotten as a weakling on whom the humanity felt sorry. There’s no danger and no wound greater than the wounded pride and lost dignity. If there ever was, it should have been invented by now

While many people within Karachi, within Pakistan and outside are still contemplating who is responsible for 12 May Karachi Massacre. It is becoming a fruitless exercise in which we have all so favorably determined to put ourselves in. I ask them, every one of them:
How is it so difficult to understand that the safety, peace and freedom of EVERY ONE is an alienable right of every individual. While many Karachiites sadly harbor the notions of leaving them aside so the fear of confronting their deepest fears should not re-surface again. I ask them, how a simple issue of Violence and Human Life be so fervently dragged into the so-called discussions of political acumen and intellectual analysis of who conspired against who and who didn’t?

Is the answer to “who conspired” or “who started violence first” and “why did Chief Justice came to Karachi” missed the truth altogether or is it our greatly consuming fear of being victim of the same violence by the same hands and eventual civil anarchy and a war that has allowed our great intellectual minds to heap symbolism upon a simple issue that never asked or called for an explanation and justification of human life, liberty and dignity.

Former vice-president, John Calhoun wrote an article, Keen Mind of South” in which he proclaimed that the natural state of human life is slavery to which then ex-president John Quincy Adams replied in these resounding words:

Now, gentlemen, I must say I differ with the keen minds of the South, and with our president, who apparently shares their views, offering that the natural state of mankind is instead — and I know this is a controversial idea — is freedom. Is freedom. And the proof is the length to which a man, woman, or child will go to regain it, once taken. He will break loose his chains, He will decimate his enemies. He will try and try and try against all odds, against all prejudices, to get home.

Following the same words and ideology of what John Quincy Adams said in 1841 that if we have become so complacent, so gullible and socio-paths that our lives and our fears are of the understanding that let the violence and killing happen as long as its not us, then what do we do with Islam on which this country of Pakistan exist? What do we do with the colleges and universities who try to betray us by instilling the thoughts of “Knowledge is Power” and so on. What more disgrace and insult are we waiting for before we wake up from the slumbre?

Dignity, Liberty and Integrity of your lives are abstract concepts and ideas and yet they are the most natural concepts and ideas than the biggest scientific inventions and biggest homes and largest malls and so on. Without them, there is no sense of purpose and meaning in life.

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I am a fan of historically-based dramas. I enjoy the genre, and Amistad did not disappoint me. It is well shot, the look and feel is quite right, and it pulls no punches in its cruel depiction of the slave trade.

One of my most cherished lines from a movie or a person, for that matter, come from Anthony Hopkins (John Quincy Adams, an ex-president and son of John Adams) in his guest performance which was worth a prize or two:

“… the natural state of mankind is instead - and I know this is a controversial idea - is freedom”

The tag line of the movie goes like this: “Freedom is not given. It is our right at birth. But there are some moments when it must be taken.”

There is so much intricate stuff going on here that fans of Spielberg and his normally in-your-face approach might not grasp the moral ambiguity and more subtle touches that roam beneath the surface. In a year dominated by Titanic this was publicly dismissed as too serious or arty. Yeah, right.
Amistad tells the story of a group of Africans who start a revolt against the crew of the slave ship La Amistad and get adrift for several weeks after this horrible event. Then they are discovered by some American marine officers, who bring the ship into harbor and hand over the slaves to the local authorities. Soon they have to stand trial for this revolt and the fact that they have murdered the crew. But a couple of honorable men, who want to end the slavery in the New World, will defend them with everything that is within their power … even if that means that they will offend some other countries or start a civil war.

Some of the very fine moments of court-room drama can be seen throughout and more importantly at the end of the movie. I can feel people sighing from here. “Oh, no: not a courtroom drama…”. Labelling it as such would be missing the point by a mile. It is so much about context and moral ambiguity, and ultimately the tragic ridicule of the situation. Amistad is also a technical marvel. Janusz Kaminski’s (SPR, Schindler’s List, AI, Minority Report…) photography is superb, a dark study in sepia browns.

Ultimately, Amistad’s greatest strength is that it avoids offering any easy answers and in that sense, does to subconscious issues about race and slavery what Kubrick’s 2001 did to space travel and progress, albeit with more humanity and more accessible drama. It’s a shame this film is never talked about.

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