Finding our Future in our Past
The Turkish television series, Diliris:Ertugrul, has taken
Pakistan by storm. Setting aside the impact of a gripping script, which is the
staple of all TV series, what impresses is the meticulous research that would
have gone into creating the sets, costumes and cultural etiquette of the
times. Feridun Emecan , a historical
consultant, whose area of expertise is the Ottoman period was engaged . There
has been talk of Mehmet Bozdag, the script writer of Ertugrul, wanting to do a
project in Pakistan. But where are the
cultural references, the images the artifacts to be found? Our history is
almost exclusively the history of war and politics and sceptics would agree
with Napoleon Bonaparte who said, “History is a set of lies agreed upon”.
We see Pakistan as a static society divided into provinces
and tribes, shaken by the two way migrations in 1947. We forget that since 2000
BC, this region has seen wave after wave of invasions and settlers from north
of the Caspian sea, from Persia, China , Central Asia , Greece , the rest of
India, and Arabia. The last invasion this region saw was that of Babar in 1525.
We have had almost 500 years to establish impermeable tribal identities, since
the next invaders, the British, entered India through Calcutta in the east. It is difficult to imagine Bactrians,
Sakas, Achaemenids, Persians, Huns,
Sogdians, Yeuchi, Ionians, Macedonians
crossed our rivers, and travelers from distant countries, traded, made their homes here, intermarried
and added their culture, art and genetics. These unfamiliar names do not make
it into our history books.
We live in the present to escape the past because the past
is always presented in political terms and always contentious. Geneticist David
Reich says in contrast to an India, under the spell of Hindutva passion,
Pakistan doesn’t seem to care very much about the ancient past.
There is no equivalent of R. C. Majumdar’s eleven volume "The History and Culture of
the Indian People". There are no museums like Germany’s Museum of Everyday
Culture. Art and coinage are two sources
that offer some documentation of what people wore and their surroundings and
the objects they used.
Histories were written to preserve the adventures of heroes,
kings, wars, and broad social, political or economic movements. As societies
became more egalitarian social and cultural histories gained momentum
especially after the 60s. Letters,
objects of everyday us, advertising, posters, postcards, cartoons, folk songs
and oral histories, family photographs or scrapbooks became sources for piecing
together past eras.
Antoinetta Procura, a tobacco worker, forced to evacuate
during WWI wrote her life story in
pencil on inside of the wooden trunk she escaped with. It is preserved in an
Italian Historical War Museum. In July
1917 a French railway inspector at Paris’s Gare du Nord station recorded 189 despairing messages scribbled on 43 trains
by troops bringing soldiers back from the western front.
A handful of scholars have documented everyday rural and
urban Pakistani culture. We remain ignorant of the many styles in which pagris are
wrapped, the varying wedding customs, harvesting rituals, the styles of boat
construction, how mithai and achar is made. Old PTV programmes were mostly recorded
over. Urban slang dictionaries need to be compiled, wall chalking documented.
There is a growing nostalgia for the recent past shared on social media by
individuals, but no organized compilations. It is time to revisit the purpose
of Pakistan’s museums, adding everyday artifacts, clothing and ephemeral
popular cultural. Shared cultural memories create a more authentic sense of who
we are, and create opportunities to reconnect with and re-interpret our past.
As Mark Twain said: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but
sometimes it rhymes.”
Durriya Kazi
July 13, 2020
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