Breaking the glass ceiling

THE glass ceiling in the corporate world that deprives women of top jobs exists in all fields but in the visual arts it was challenged in Pakistan soon after 1947. In this field where a high premium is put on creativity, nepotism can have no feet. Only a passion to develop talent and a vision to sustain it brings triumph.

Two very important women artists who were instrumental in shaping the blueprint of Pakistan’s art world were Zubeida Agha and Anna Molka Ahmed. Zubeida Agha, with her 1949 show just two years after independence, boldly brought modern art experiments into the public space. The fact that she was lambasted by the art critics of the day did not in any way deter her and she went on to study art in the UK and then returned to become a potent force.

Her art was significant for its radical approach but her untiring effort to establish The Contemporary Art Gallery in Rawalpindi as the springboard for emerging talent from both wings of the country is her most important legacy, vital as it was in the promotion and acknowledgment of artistic innovation in the country.

Anna Molka Ahmed’s sphere of influence was centred round art education. Pakistan owes a great debt to her for preventing the closure of the Fine Arts Department of Punjab University, the only place of higher art education for women. After Partition, when she lost most of her students to the Hindu exodus, to save the department she went knocking on doors to convince parents to send their daughters to her.Anna Molka’s pragmatic vision shaped the department to give the country not just good artists but well-trained art teachers. She felt this would enable her students to support themselves while consolidating art education in the young country. In the absence of exhibitions she set the ball rolling in Lahore by organising many important early shows at the Arts Council, Lahore.

Her own art was thematically diverse for she enjoyed doing portraits as much as monumental canvases on disasters and afterlife subjects. She was probably the only woman artist who ventured into busy bazaars and villages with her students to paint on site.

These feisty and strong-willed authoritative figures were achievers at a time when the social environment was not conducive to working women and far from welcoming for women artists. They struggled every inch of the way to achieve goals and put the first cracks in the glass ceiling above which only male artists could aspire to go. They became role models for a generation of talented women artists who found more opportunities to study as the National College of Arts opened its doors to women and in Karachi two schools were set up in the ’60s.

The collective presence of women artists was recognised at a landmark exhibition in the late 1970s when Ali Imam invited 12 women artists to participate in a show at his Indus Gallery. This momentous event showcased a different sensibility that was to become mainstream in the decades to come.

The crisis in the field of women’s rights sparked off by the controversial Hudood ordinances pushed protestors to the streets in the 1980s and the work of women artists too echoed this outrage and began to take up women’s issues. What was begun tentatively by a few grew into a confident visual expression in which the personal became political in potent iconographies.

For women artists the 1990s and the new century have been about strengthening gender identity while expanding the contextual discourse. Their art has collapsed boundaries between content and material. It has assimilated the popular culture of the bazaar and the street in search of a non-hierarchal creative trajectory. It participated in the revitalisation of a traditional art form, the miniature painting.

In the large body of work that has emerged, women artists do not shy away from using the female nude but it has been without the objectification of the male gaze and often to further the discussion on the female body as a tool in the power agenda of abuse and repression.

Women artists, almost as if returning to a deeply embedded genetic memory, have reclaimed the needlecrafts which were once used to express love and creativity in the domestic domain. It has entered their paintings, sculpture and installations in narratives of personal loss and the collective anxiety and fears of this troubled century.

Art education remained the mainstay and women took the initiative to open institutions in Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore. Today all major art schools in Karachi are headed by women and in Lahore the figure is three out of four. In conservative Peshawar the fine arts department has a woman head. Hundreds of women faculty members and thousands of girl students hold sway as the majority in these institutions.

As art writers, gallerists and curators the statistics are in favour of committed professional women. Women art critics and historians have published the largest number of books in the field in the last decade, just as prolific and informed women author art reviews and columns in broadsheets and monthlies. Recently four women founded the magazine on contemporary art, NuktaArt, to expand the art discourse on issues within the field.

Presently the longest-running gallery in the country, the Indus Gallery, is run by Shahnaz Imam, not just to preserve her husband’s bequest to the art world but also because it has been an integral part of her life for over three decades. As art entrepreneurs, women are the force behind a majority of the galleries in Karachi and the same is true for some art spaces in Lahore and Islamabad.

In the spirit of the pioneers, women in the visual arts in Pakistan continue to challenge the norms through activism and have made important interventions. The Laal Foundation was established by the ceramist Sheherezade to save her artist husband’s legacy when state art institutions were complacent on the issue. ASNA, a three-woman initiative, has hosted three International Ceramics Triennials to give Pakistani ceramists a platform and Vasl, the artists’ collective, had many women among its founders.

This paradigm shift in little over half a century was made possible by women’s inherent ability to adapt to adversity with creative solutions and to use the power of passion to fuel their success. This has been the woman energy that subverts social canons and challenges the patriarchal covenant of the glass ceiling.

asnaclay06@yahoo.com

The democratic march

WE are getting into gear for the run that will tell us whether our elected politicians are capable of bettering their record or whether those who voted them in will have to put their fingers to their ears to block out a triumphant chorus of “I told you so!”

Post-electoral waffle may well be giving Gen (retd) Musharraf the feeling that if he holds on long enough he will be vindicated. He forgets one thing, though. Many endorsed boycotting elections under his regime’s unconstitutional meanderings. They too would be vindicated. Their entirely different kind of “I told you so” would also reverberate.

The presidentially cherished Article 58-2(b) may put paid to an obstreperous parliament but that tiresome beast civil society lives on outside of that splendid façade. Undoubtedly, civil society has often been put to rout but then it is serving generals who do the needful and reap the bitter fruits.

Pundits could safely intone President Musharraf is a thing of the past but for the fact that he muddies the waters more and more by insisting on keeping his defunct presidency afloat. But the Titanic took time sinking and so please postpone deducing that Democracy 2008 may turn out to be the general’s best revenge. So far so good. Feb 18 has brought us Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif in mutual democratic reinforcement.

Curiously they are deemed part of the electoral result though neither has a parliamentary seat. Mr Asif Zardari is even being recognised as an unavoidable prime minister. Democracy-baiters poke fun at Mian Nawaz Sharif’s ready compliance with a secondary role for his party. Democracy-lovers laud his wisdom. But they also fear a Musharraf-type U-turn on Mr Asif Zardari’s part or a reversion to power-seeking impetuosity on Mian Nawaz’s. Do leopards change their spots and tigers lose their stripes? Give it at least a ten per cent chance.

Unlike in the 1988 elections where Benazir Bhutto made her entrée with a clean slate, nobody has a clean slate this time. That innocent abroad, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, only features as middleman on a family tree. It is difficult deciding what in the collective consciousness we need to remember and what we need to forget. Initially, we look to trust the freshly returned parties’ leaders to recognise and honour the spirit of the popular mandate extended.

The presently vaunted sovereignty of parliament actually devolves on a mandate that is revoked, not by 58-2(b) but when people lose faith and expectation. That is why Gen Musharraf got away with his 1999 counter-coup although 58-2(b) had vanished into cyberspace’s recycle bin. That is why in 1988 Gen Mirza Aslam Beg didn’t step into Gen Zia’s shoes. Let alone the people’s elected representatives, even a dictator and public good faith part at perilous cost. And so if the returned prodigals are sincere in the avowal to serve democracy they need to stay in touch with public opinion and sentiment, and not presume too much on their sovereignty as parliamentarians.

People fear a parliament that becomes a rubber stamp, whether for a military man or a consummate civil politician such as the late Mr Bhutto was. Purported democracy has too often taken the course of one-party or one-man rule. Mian Nawaz Sharif himself made a bid for a fifteenth amendment. Impeccable conduct henceforth is the only way Messrs Zardari and Sharif can make Pakistanis forget their past failings and the failings of those whose mantles fall on their shoulders.

The PPP and the PML-N may check and balance each other healthily or unhealthily. No one thinks the president and his men are immune to nostalgia for the old liaison between the agencies, oligarchs and contemptible political opportunists.

Apart from all that, provincially as well as federally, the MQM may modify its role as kingmaker into a pattern of hunting with the hounds and running with the hare. Bear in mind too the potential of the JUI-F in parliament and the JI outside. Suffice to say, should one or the other mainstreamer so contrive it, the governing coalition can fiddle with components and take a U-turn at any juncture to compromise on principles the voters hold dear.

When they fear parliamentary compromise may all too easily advance vested interests, people look to certain benchmarks: Gen (retd) Musharraf’s legitimacy, and the fine print of what exactly constitutes restoration of the deposed judiciary.

So far, despite the fine sentiments aired, the PPP is sticking to the confines of the NRO-resulting deal with the president. Mr Asif Zardari’s party sycophants and time-servers do him no favour when they seek to depict him (or the now hallowed Benazir Bhutto) as pure as driven snow because the cases are not holding water.

Of course the Zardaris and others have been subject to witch hunts. But where there are witch hunts, there are also magic wands and the Pakistani public recognises both. Mr Asif Zardari faces an uphill task convincing doubters he is not conniving for power, lining pockets or exploiting party passions.

One does not need to be anti PPP to feel Benazir Bhutto’s vile assassination is being milked dry for demagoguery. The best of motives can be attributed to Mr Asif Zardari’s stepping into his wife’s shoes in the crucial post-assassination context. But if he goes too far in them he will begin to resemble Puss in Boots. Old world feudal courtesy and our tradition of respect for grief and the dead have limits both in terms of time and decency. There is only so much speaking the dead Ms Bhutto can do from the grave that the general public will accept. Of course there is a very real Bhutto cultism. It is as unhealthy as MQM cultism or Red Mosque-brand jihadism.

The Bhutto legacy has a democratic duality to put it politely. Democratic fidelity is required. In the context of these post Nov 3, 2007 elections, the sham lies not in nominal yielding about the way into a new parliament. The sham would lie in not honouring avowals to settle for nothing less thereafter than the uncompromising restoration of the deposed, inalienably esteemed, independent judiciary as it stood in its entirety before the downright evil proclamations of Nov 3, 2007.

That is why people are not too concerned about who is prime minister. They are watching out for what parliament does with its sovereignty. Does the new executive derived from the new legislative body want an independent judiciary as much as the common people do?

Out of control

I DO not have a large circle of acquaintances, nor do I go out often and meet people (from various walks of life, as they say). But everyone I come across these days seems to be convinced that for Pakistan the time has come for Habibullah to take over the control.

Now don’t start wondering who this Habibullah is. You’ll never be able to guess. No, he’s not a politician, so there’s no use poring over lists of first, second or even third line leaders of political parties. He’s not a retired bureaucrat and not even a retired general.

He’s not from business or industry either, nor from among the maulvis (thank God!). He’s not even a dakoo from the forests of Sindh. The fact is that this particular Habibullah is not a Pakistani at all, but only a symbol of what the Pakistani goods train needs so badly.

“Goods train? Come on, Hafizur Rahman, one can appreciate your alluding to the Pakistani ship of state, but why compare the poor homeland to a goods train? And what is the mystery of this Habibullah? Who is he anyway that we need him as an engine driver?”

If you have been reading your newspaper carefully, dear reader, you must have come across the Reuter story of some time ago about how a runaway train in India was brought under control by one Habibullah. This was a goods train laden exclusively with cattle and Habibullah was one of the cattle-owners riding along with his cows and buffaloes.

I don’t know what the engine-driver hoped to get from Moradabad when the train stopped there, but as he alighted on to the platform the engine brake gave way and the train slowly steamed off on its own. But, you will ask, where does the comparison of this goods train with Pakistan come in? As the Reuter story says, the train hurtled across the plains of Uttar Pradesh and crossed a large number of stations before Habibullah was alerted to the possibility of a disaster, and jumping from wagon to wagon, he somehow got to the engine and managed to apply the brakes.

To me it seems that the Pakistani goods train too left its driver at a stop called Moradabad (literally the city of hope and wishes) and now that more than sixty years have passed –– over 60 stations whizzing by –– it’s high time that someone like Habibullah dropped on to it from somewhere to take over the controls of this aimless, driver-less train.

As for the passengers of that rudderless train in the story (if I may employ a marine expression for a land vehicle), the poor cattle stood huddled in their wagons, oblivious of what was going on. For them the stations came and went by, meaning nothing.

What were the names of these stations? Were they big towns or small hamlets, busy junctions or just flag-stations standing solitary on the dusty, burning plain of UP? It did not matter to the passengers. For them it was immaterial whether the train was going east or west, north or south, or not going at all. They were there to be sold ultimately to the highest bidder as part of a system of commerce. Sounds remarkably like the people of Pakistan, doesn’t it? These last sixty years have been like sixty stations. They came and went. Some momentous and memorable, others dull and forgettable. The passengers sat huddled together, unaware of the destination of the unhappy train.

Drivers there always were, some genuine and some imposters, some admired and some hated, but the people really didn’t know what was going on and where these drivers wanted the train to go. At one stage, at a turning point, the train broke into two and from then on the two parts went their own separate ways.

The trouble with symbolic comparisons is that some people tend to take them seriously and start looking for the references in real life. You never know, after reading this Cassandra-like column, how many likely Habibullahs may be spotted in all sorts of guises and places. Some may even begin to see themselves as Habibullah who is ultimately going to be the saviour of Pakistan.

You and I are lucky that there is no Habibullah among the known names in our three dozen or so big and small political parties. Not even a living general of that name. One thing is clear. Whoever it’s going to be, has to be from the train’s passengers, the people. The cattle, if you will.

Some nitpickers may argue that Habibullah was not a genuine passenger of the runaway goods train in the manner in which I have portrayed the payload. For the allusion to be complete it should have been one of the cows or buffaloes who should have stopped the train. That’s what I meant just now –– the trouble with metaphors and similes and symbolic comparisons. Some people want to analyse them to shreds.

And for those who may object to relating Pakistan to a goods train full of cattle, let them read ship of state instead of goods train. That will not make things any better. The captains that we have had have not been exactly masters of navigation or models of the traditional concept of captain as one who is the last to leave a sinking ship. As for passengers, you can put anything in the ship in place of the cattle. It will make no difference to the reality.

How to survive the energy crisis

THE loadshedding-driven sleepless nights and disrupted daily routines of last summer are still haunting the people as the weather turns hot. The situation has not improved since last year; indeed all the signs are that it is getting worse.

Credit goes to brave Pakistanis for surviving through the winter despite 10-hour power and gas loadshedding. But in the upcoming summer when the mercury is going to consistently hover round 40°C, occasionally rising to 50°C in some places, a power crisis of a similar order is going to prove unbearable. Last summer the national media reported tragic deaths due to heatstroke and dehydration. The energy crisis in winter forced thousands of industries to shut down operations, affecting industrial production and the livelihoods of thousands of families.

Considering the indispensability of energy — since 1947, per capita electricity dependence in Pakistan has grown 82-fold — the current state of affairs can be regarded as a ‘national crisis’. The quickest and pragmatic solution — multi-gigawatt capacity addition based on local coal and hydropower — will require at least 2-3 years (5-7 years for hydropower) provided that bold and concerted steps are taken on a war footing.

Assuming optimistically that this will happen, we still have to devise ways in the interim to meet the electricity deficit in the country which has soared to over 40 per cent. The challenge now is how to survive this summer and how to stop the crisis from getting worse. The solution lies in a collective national effort.

Two key elements of a possible solution are: categorical change in the pattern of energy consumption and change in lifestyles.

The current energy consumption trends in Pakistan are extremely inefficient, whether it be in the domestic, industrial, trade or commercial sectors. With minimal effort, well over ten per cent of national electricity can be saved by applying only the first level of energy conservation, that is a change in attitude. It is simple, instant and effective and all it requires is a stop to using energy unnecessarily.

Leaving lights and home appliances on even when they are not being used is a common practice in our society. Similarly, many businesses such as shops dealing in cloth and garments, jewellery, cosmetics, home appliances and electronics are usually extravagantly lit. It is commonly observed that shops that could do with two or three 40-watt tube lights to meet the desired level of luminance use as many as 15 to 20 tubes. Not only does this increase power consumption, it also generates heat and makes the environment uncomfortable.

A further economy of 10-15 per cent can be achieved by introducing the second level of energy-conservation practices, especially in industry. Collectively, just through conservation, more than half of the electricity deficit can be met. However to do that, public education is essential. With the help of effective electronic and print media campaigns the government can quickly educate the masses.

The second part of the solution is a change in lifestyles. It would begin with the acknowledgement that the country is facing a national disaster and every citizen has to pitch in to overcome it. The nation has to draw a clear line between necessities (lighting, fans, TVs, computers, etc) and luxuries (air conditioners, microwaves, etc). There is not enough electricity to meet both requirements.

We will have to compromise on luxurious lifestyles in order to meet the necessities. Markets and commercial places can substantially reduce their power consumption by changing their working hours. An early start and early end to capitalise on daylight as much as possible should be recommended rather than having opening hours from afternoon until late at night.Air-conditioning, usually a sign of a luxurious lifestyle, needs to be dropped. Bearing in mind that a typical domestic AC consumes far more electricity in one hour than a fan does over 24 hours, air conditioning should not be allowed except for sensitive applications such as hospitals and research centres. The choice is between using ACs for a few hours and then doing without electricity in peak summer months or avoiding ACs and other luxury gadgets but having round-the-clock electricity available to meet fundamental needs.

Any such policy should be made at the highest level and its implementation should also begin there because charity starts at home. The common man would only be convinced of the looming crisis when he sees the ruling elite practise what it preaches.

The ruling class should lead by example in matters of power conservation. If it does so the common man will follow suit. It is time for the elite to take energy-saving initiatives like abandoning the use of central air conditioning, travelling by special flights and irrelevant use of official transport.

These recommendations are neither impractical nor a step backward, as some sections may perceive them to be. If implemented they can not only avoid the collapse of a bankrupt energy infrastructure but also ensure progress. Even those who have access to easy money and can afford different gadgets such as generators to offset reduced power supply will still feel the heat one way or the other. The bottom line is, in order to safely get through the current energy crisis the nation has to differentiate between its necessities and its luxuries.

If loadshedding is still unavoidable despite all these measures, Wapda/KESC should organise the cuts in a sensible way to cause minimum discomfort. Loadshedding schedules should be properly planned and announced.

The writer is a lecturer in renewable energy at Glasgow Caledonian University, UK.

dr.m.asif@gmail.com

Carry on polluting

When it comes to climate change, Britain has commitments alright. It has more targets than an archery range. By 2010, ministers must cut carbon emissions by 20 per cent; 2012 is the deadline for that Kyoto pledge to lower greenhouse gases by 12.5 per cent and come 2020, there must be “real progress” on the 2050 goal of a 60 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions. And that lot are just the highlights.

The easy response to this blizzard of announcements is cynicism. Politicians say one thing, and promptly do another, don’t they? An investigation by the National Audit Office has revealed that ministers use two sets of accounts when reporting greenhouse gas emissions; only one includes emissions from international flights and shipping. Using the more stringent accounting standard, the investigation finds “there have been no reductions in UK carbon dioxide emissions” from the 1990 level. That message differs from the one put out by the government.

Ministers have not been lying; they have simply been using a more generous accounting method. Doubtless, many overstretched companies and consumers wish they could do the same. But the government knows that being too clever in the counting leads to daft numbers. When Labour first proposed a 20 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2010, it was clear: there would be no shortcuts in using emissions trading. After all, that would allow one to carry on polluting by paying for the privilege. Come 2000 and there was an about-face: now ministers “proposed to include” emissions trading.

This is feeble. As with other spheres of government activity, ministers could do with losing their mania for target-setting and concentrating on execution. That involves being up front with the public about progress. A fixed and objective accounting standard is obviously better than one defined by fuzziness. A very useful task for Adair Turner, and his new Climate Change Committee, would be to devise an adequate means of accounting for greenhouse gases, which could then be debated in parliament and public. It would obviously be better if carbon credits were treated as a bonus to any reductions in pollution rather than a vital means of reaching prescribed targets.

Rigorous accounting matters as a way of holding the government to account, and keeping the public engaged in a vital, if difficult, issue (the last goal is surely not helped by that confetti of pledges). Ministers cannot keep claiming to take climate change seriously-and then trivialise the measurement of progress.

—The Guardian. London