When a society experiences rapid political, technological,
or social change, historians need time to develop a language to describe the
change. The Arts can immediately respond with poetry, music and visual images.
Music is the most easily shared of the arts across a
society. It becomes a historical record of its times from classical
compositions to modern genres like punk, blues, and rap. Arnold Schoenberg's
atonal music compositions reflect the intense anxiety and uncertainty of the
pre WWI Europe. Songs, like "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless
Child", perfectly embody the collective trauma experienced by enslaved
African Americans. The singer
songwriter, Prince, expresses existential dread with his edgy music, ending one
of his songs with a child asking, "Mommy, why does everybody have a
bomb?" Lyari’s female rapper, Eva B, sings Gir Kay He Uthna Seekha Maine (only
after falling did I learn to rise).
The Last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, facing the loss
of his kingdom wrote lagta nahin hai dil mera ujre dayar mein (my heart feels
lost in this uprooted land). In the
violent chaos of Partition, Faiz Ahmed Faiz wrote in August 1947, Woh intezaar tha jiska, yeh woh sahar to nahin
( this is not the dawn that we were waiting for). Indian Classical music has a
rag for every emotion and every time of the day. Raag Marwa is considered the
ultimate expression of deep unease, restlessness and anxiety, performed during
jhutputa or twilight, where day meets night.
In his book, Goliath's Curse: The History and Future of
Societal Collapse, Luke Kemp uses "Goliath" as a term for large
civilizations built on dominance, coercion, and the extraction of labor and
resources. The Curse is that these giant
structures seem invincible with their military might, amassing immense wealth and
causing extreme economic and social inequality. Where there is a Goliath, the
story must include a David. Kemp suggests that citizens can collectively act as
the "Davids" that resist dominant systems, however, the Goliaths usually
destroy themselves by their own hubristic actions.
Studying 440 societies across history, Kemp found that where
there are no Goliaths, communities are able to reset themselves. What history
calls the collapse of empires, becomes freedom for the oppressed, vividly
captured across art, literature, and music which becomes free to express the
lived reality of the average person.
Jean-Francois Millet could paint peasant women picking stray
stalks of wheat after the harvest. Van Gogh could paint sunflowers in a humble
vase. Kalighat painters could mock the Indian upper classes whose power was
usurped by the colonisers. Contemporary Pakistani
miniatures elevate everyday life using the language of high art.
The English Romantic Movement responded to the dehumanizing
effects of the Industrial Revolution personified by poet, William Blake’s,
“Dark Satanic Mills”, by celebrating nature, the vanishing pastoral world, and by
reviving crafts to honour the human soul that could not be mechanized.
Art is never just a passive byproduct of chaos. It fills the
cracks by being relevant, resilient, processing emotions, and unafraid of
breaking traditions to find a new way forward. The art of the unsettled can be
expressed not only in galleries but also through rap, graffiti and T shirt designs.
When an empire
ends, creativity remains alive. Where once it served the palace, it now steps
onto the streets and speaks for the people. It prioritizes telling
the truth of a chaotic moment over an academic standard of perfection.
Art is the most vibrant connecting link across historical
and often lost pre-historical civilisations. The art produced is a bridge
across eons that brings to life a people’s beliefs, skills and lifestyles: the playing
dice of the Indus civilization still used today, 68,000 year old cave paintings
in Indonesia, Nazca Lines in Peru, Egyptian narrative wall paintings, ziggurats
across the world, and the buried terracotta army in China. Displaced First Nations in North America and
Australia fight for respect through their art as a reminder of the theft of
their lands.
Art presents what was broken, what never broke, what
mattered to people, what should matter, and all that survives the storms. It
offers no solutions but makes us remember.
Durriya Kazi
October 3,
2026
Karachi
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