Turning Anger into Art
Arshi is a house wife who writes poetry about her life in
her small Gulistan-e-Jauhar apartment. When her husband announced he had
married another woman her world fell apart. Her weapon of choice became poetry
- ba tarranum nazms and ghazals in her melodious voice to her husband who is
sternly instructed to sit on the sofa and listen.
The primary function of the arts is their ability to
communicate the complexity of human emotions, either communicating a message or
sharing a response to events. Anger is one of the least understood of human emotions,
mainly because it is difficult to control, can be destructive, and the display
of anger presents a fearful ugliness. But
when Francis Bacon lashes paint onto his canvases, creating screaming, mangled
and often bloodied humans, we can look anger in the eye and try to understand
it from a place of safety.
Expressing anger through art, music or literature, has a
long tradition. While the everyday expression of anger may involve the exchange
of insults or physical violence, art creates subtle narratives that leave a
lasting imprint. Tennyson’s poem The Charge of the Light Brigade, outlasted
newspaper reporting of the Crimean war. To many, Manto’s Partition stories
define the human impact of 1947.
Shah Jahan commissioned the artist Bichitir to paint Emperor
Akbar handing the crown to his grandson Shah Jahan, while his son Jahangir is
overlooked. Although Jahangir did in fact succeed Akbar, Shah Jahan, who
disliked his father and stepmother, Nur Jehan, fearing she would place her son
Shaharyar on the throne, commissioned this painting in triumphant anger three
years after he became emperor, having first ensured Shaharyar was put to death.
Blues singer, Billie Holliday, made
history by singing “Strange Fruit’ on the stage of Café Society in New York in
1939, a metaphor for lynched black people left hanging from trees, paving the
way for Nina Simone’s 1964 "Mississippi Goddam" - a song written
after the killing of four young black girls, which she said was "like
throwing ten bullets back at them".
Habib Jalib recited his protest poem
to a Lahore crowd ‘Aisay dastoor ko, Subh e bay noor ko, Main naheen maanta, Main
naheen jaanta. (This constitution, This dawn without light, I refuse to
accept, I refuse to acknowledge) which became an anthem of rebellion, as did
the veiled threat of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s Lazim
hai ke hum bhi dekhain ge (Its certain that
we, too, shall see), along with its rendition by singer Iqbal Bano, who
appeared defiantly on stage wearing black. Anwar Maqsood disguises his defiance
in humour, the Pakistani public in farcical memes.
Growing out of the West African Griot tradition of story
tellers, poets and musicians, Rage Rap became a music genre of the USA and
Carribean, reflecting the anger of black youth experiencing deep inequalities and
racism, even spreading into Lyari as an alternative to gang warfare.
There are many levels of anger from temper tantrums to moral
outrage. Public anger emerges from a place of care, a longing for a better
life, an attempt to lead society back to compassion. The absence of that anger
would be apathy – a far more destructive state. The key to productive anger is
to replace impulsive action with thoughtful action. Posters, poems and songs
awaken the conscience of those who would dismiss the genocide of Palestinians,
long after the marches are over.
Even at a
personal level, anger can be the pivot of change. Studies show that anger can
enable creative breakthroughs, partly because we break our own rules as the usual
mind pathways are disrupted, making individuals more likely to brainstorm in an
unstructured way, leading to new solutions. Nobel prize winning physicist, Shuji
Nakamura said “Anger is the mother of invention”. Potato chips were the result
of an angry New York chef, George Crum, whose customer kept sending back the
potatoes he said were too thick. Josephine Cochrane, annoyed that her china
tableware was being chipped when washed by hand, invented the dishwasher.
Anger is
often generated by powerlessness, waiting for someone else to fix things. But
when the adrenaline that accompanies anger is harnessed people find are able to
do things they never imagined they could. Maya Angelou said “Bitterness is like
cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.” For
Maya Angelou it was poetry, for others it may be music, dance or poetry, the
catharsis of acting, or drumming. Art that is shared enables a witness to your
emotion.
Trauma
counsellor Tim Fletcher, suggests we ask ourselves "If my anger had a
voice, what would it be trying to tell me?"
Durriya Kazi
Karachi
June 1, 2025
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