The way it was: Not for faith but for sport
Mian Ijaz Ul Hassan
Ibn Khuldun was wise not to enter into a controversial debate and left matters
touching divinity to the divines and pursued his study of human history without
metaphysical distractions
There was a time I believed most poets were bad. They never ceased to run down
others and brag about their own achievements. Today I am convinced that painters
can be worse.
In the sixties when most writers only attended the funerals of their fellow
writers, the painters made an effort to be present at exhibitions. Those were
good days even though paintings rarely sold. A small Chughtai etching was priced
at two to three hundred rupees in the fifties. If ever an artist managed to sell
a painting at a show it would instantly transform into a spirited evening. The
artists never hesitated to criticise the works on display. Sometimes a close
friend would even go so far as to rebuke the artist and say that things had not
worked out. The main purpose of hanging a show was not just to sell, but make an
impression on the avant-garde. Criticism was frank and candid, though even then
there was no dearth of a few mean remarks in private.
Things are tidier now. No one opens his mouth either in praise or in reprove.
Artists come to a show and saunter around measuring the gallery floor. They
accost familiar forms and discuss inane issues, which have not the remotest
relevance to the exhibits. The charitable few shuffle up to the exhibiting
artist and make a few wise cracks or compliment him for the good frames. Most
artists slip out without a word. A word of praise could upgrade the sales of the
artist on display, which could lead to losing one’s own customers. But public
criticism is shunned because others can counter-attack and devalue the sale of
one’s own stuff. It is safer to murmur and mutter in absentia.
Most art criticism is without substance. The media can easily upgrade,
downgrade, laud or spurn anything. Words are so amenable and promoting puerile
art is no big deal. Art criticism in our press is usually inundated with
high-flaunting phrases and adjectives. Most writers responsible for these
columns cannot even size the backside of a berry. Their writing is presumptuous
and obscure. Soap ads are better because at least their intentions are clear.
They promise to make you fair and beautiful. Contemporary art criticism on the
other hand is intended to baffle. It lays ambiguous claims for the artist who
finds it more profitable to remain silent.
I wish artists would come out and debate and defend their views in the open. The
artists’ observation is obviously more valuable than that of unbaked critics
and half-baked intellectuals. Without denying the valuable role of intellectuals
in encouraging the arts, what the artist and writers have to say about
themselves or about art and literature is intrinsically more pertinent to
creative expression. Unfortunately we seem to have lost our understanding of the
value and purpose of debate and discourse.
Long ago discourse was replaced by manazaraz; in other words, debate was
replaced by duel. The purpose of discourse and dialogue is to exchange ideas to
bring about a better understanding of an issue. The spirit of a duel is to take
a stance, to run through and eliminate opposition. Unfortunately, today, we have
even lost the courage to fight duels. We prefer to shoot in the back. In an open
discourse, where the intention is to share and refine individual knowledge,
everyone gains. No one is the loser. Truth is always far more than the sum-total
of individual knowledge. By challenging an opposition to a duel one can kill it,
but it is only through intellectual dialogue and discourse that a stride forward
can be taken.
It is not, I confess, easy to abandon one’s perceptions. It is a trifle
difficult and can even be painful to forsake inherited beliefs and ideas
acquired over decades of reflection and social practice. It amounts to
abandoning a precious personal possession, which has been traditionally
considered a valuable measure of virtue. I have known people getting sad on
replacing old possessions even when it is only a worthless wristwatch strap. If
a person can develop intimacy with an inanimate utilitarian object, surely it is
much more difficult to discard shared social prejudices and held beliefs,
howsoever outdated. Often a person rejects a counter argument because of
personal vanity or self-interest. Comprehension is based on self-interest. A
person will find issues beneficial to him much easier to comprehend than
propositions which are to his disadvantage. Consciousness after all rests on the
bedrock of class interest.
The Catholic Church spurned evidence presented by Galileo because it was
contrary to the Church’s own doctrine of the universe according to which, the
sun revolved around the earth with the Pope being its centre. Imagine what must
have happened in Rome when they were told that contrary to what Pope believed
the earth was not the centre of the universe but circled the sun. From being
right in the centre of things to be flung far away into a dark cold nook was
naturally considered a blasphemous act by the Pope. The perpetrator of this
heinous crime was instantly sent to the Inquisition and tortured. In order to
continue with his scientific work Galileo recanted and was subsequently
released. Ibn Khuldun was wise not to enter into a controversial debate and left
matters touching divinity to the divines and pursued his study of human history
without metaphysical distractions. He is however sometimes criticised for his
duplicity for not taking a firm position against religious orthodoxy.
In our country the very idea of debate and discourse has been stifled. I
remember when I was pursuing my postgraduate studies in 1960 at Lahore’s
Government College, most students liked to carry books under their arm. This was
their way of showing off that they were better scholars than others. A few years
later I learned that to make an impression, students now carried guns. During my
studies at Government College, I never once saw anyone getting into fisticuffs.
Muscles were flexed, hot words were exchanged, but no one ever attempted to
catch anyone by the collar. Using physical force meant the person had lost the
argument. Today we don’t waste our precious breath in an argument and instead
proceed to kill not for faith but because it has become a popular national
sport.
Talking of sport, for an aside I must tell you what my five-year-old grandson
Mustafa asked the other day, when he saw his father once again glued to the
television, ‘Are they still hitting Baghdad?’
Prof Ijaz-ul-Hassan is a painter, author and a political activist