THIS year’s Karachi Literature Festival, along with the usual chaos and wonder, offered an abundance of sessions focusing on the state of the cultural milieu of Pakistan.

The festival asked the question whether the rise of culture can be the answer to a more peaceful and progressive Pakistan. In a session titled ‘Can “Creative Pakistan” undo “Unstable Pakistan”?’ journalist-turned-politician Sherry Rehman urged that culture not be burdened with solving Pakistan’s problems, or being mistaken for a “silver bullet, for a political good”. Her suggestion instead was that culture can very likely be harnessed as “soft power,” a means of confronting a “recalcitrant government”. Culture, she added, becomes a strategic priority where governance is in paralysis.

Creative expression and all its feats are plenty, but it also raises the question of how to disseminate it. Jude Kelly, artistic director of the Southbank Centre in London, citing cultural expression as an individual’s right, raised the question of whether “egalitarianism can exist side by side with excellence”. Cultural policy, she stressed, is not just about providing a number of stimulating things for a small number of people; instead, a society’s aim should be that of educating people from the ground up, and encouraging them to make it a part of their everyday lives.

The panellists went on to discuss the means and ways through which a stronger civil society can emerge from a stronger cultural policy. Kelly stressed how culture gives us “moral strength and emotional fortitude, that individually and together we can make change happen. Communities and nations need to harness this role of new narratives and cultural expression, and use that force for the great betterment of everybody in society.” She added how a country needs to believe there is a narrative of hope. Rehman supported this notion and stated that culture becomes “crucial in redefining who we want to be. Authentic self-expression will lead to more tolerance.”

Speaking at another discussion, ‘A Celebration of Literature and Art Festivals,’ Kelly cautioned that a “dangerous deficit” of political belief in the party system can lead to unseemly and dangerous voices to be heard.

Speaking to Books&Authors on the sidelines of the festival, Kelly expanded on how those in a position of power persuade the world that their thinking is dominant. This in turn leads to a reductive way of thinking, leading towards extremism. All around the world there are people who believe in equality and fairness, who believe in cultural spaces where their voice can be heard, and ultimately it’s those voices that need to be louder.

During the same session, as panellists stressed the importance of public platforms for creative expression, Ameena Saiyid pointed out that at this year’s festival the audience was challenging speakers more than usual through meaningful and relevant questions. Keynote speaker Nayantara Sahgal expressed a similar notion in a conversation with Books&Authors, speaking of an “active” and “attentive” audience, that was there to listen instead of observing a “spectacle”.

She stressed the importance of events such as literary festivals as a means of creating independent spaces, and how films, actors, filmmakers and musicians travelling between India and Pakistan can be the “kinds of contacts we can strengthen and renew”. After all, she added, all writers have one country, and that is the country of the imagination.

Karthika V.K., editor and publisher at Harper Collins, India, pointed out how literary festivals have become platforms of free expression, where “controversy is courted”. Creative expression and moral strength were seen as synonymous with gatherings such as literary festivals, where debates on issues that the media regularly shies away from can take place. As Mohammed Hanif pointed out in the session ‘The World as the Author Sees it,’ a journalist’s commitment to his social and moral responsibilities is continually challenged, while reporting in Pakistan, with threats to his life. A novel then becomes a bespoke choice as a “vehicle to escape censorship,” said writer Alex Preston.

Several panellists also stressed how culture can play an important role not only in the intellectual realm, but also within the economic sphere. While Rehman pointed out the “desultory trade” at the Wagah border, lamenting the lack of dialogue between the two countries, she acknowledged that culture “allows states to conduct foreign policy.”

While this year saw plenty of general civil activism along with book reading and writing, and the colourful badges denoting ‘I am Karachi’ on speakers were not amiss, in pointing to a stoic celebration of all that Karachi is and represents, it would have been good to hear more discussions on how to repair the state from within.

Civil society is urged year after year to make themselves heard and to stand steady where the establishment cannot. This year, lively discussions celebrated Pakistan’s achievements within arts and culture, and set out mechanisms of implementing a larger role for this movement. This will no doubt have to suffice until more tangible solutions or methods present themselves.

Jude Kelly, artistic director of the Southbank Centre in London, expanded on how those in a position of power persuade the world that their thinking is dominant. This in turn leads to a reductive way of thinking, leading towards extremism. All around the world there are people who believe in equality and fairness, who believe in cultural spaces where their voice can be heard, and ultimately it’s those voices that need to be louder.