LAHORE: Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah opened the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) with his keynote address on Friday, talking about memory, nostalgia, migration, and refugees.

“For a writer, at least a writer of a certain kind like myself, memory is a vital resource. I’m not referring to the ability to remember certain facts or details but the swarm of memories that linger on long after the moment has passed,” Gurnah said, explaining further that he was talking about the time that could leave us quivering with regret or experiencing unexpected elation.

He was addressing the opening ceremony of the LLF at the Alhamra Art Centre.

Amber Saigol of the Dawn Media Group, Commissioner Muhammad Ali Randhawa, DC Rafia Haider, British Council deputy head Maria, Pakistan Arts Council, Karachi, President Ahmed Shah, Punjab Institute of Art and Culture Director Sughra Sadaf, Rachel Cooper of the Asia Society, publisher Alexander Pringle, Lahore Arts Council Executive Director Zulfikar Ali Zulfi, the EU deputy head of mission, and the German deputy head of mission also shared the stage with the Nobel laureate.

Speaking further about memory, the Nobel laureate said: “I think this idea of memory is a writer’s hinterland in a sense that large urban centres depend on the country around them to provide the means to be sustainable while they go about their self-important business. Modern prosperous cities no longer rely on the hinterland in this sense but I am talking about the old-fashioned ways of living.”

Gurnah said another way of speaking about memory was to describe it as an experience to remember what one had experienced even in the profound sense like events, which befell one or stories heard, the histories read about and thrilling dreams and imaginings. He termed it a writer’s self-inflicted burden to make something engaging, captivating and beautiful.

“The recall of memory in writing performs several of these functions and the least of these functions is nostalgia from a lost time, which is no longer possible. Nostalgia in this sense seems to refer to a kind of self-deception and introspective desire to see what’s past positively rather than the present.”

Gurnah said scholars and students of literature were sceptical of such things as the sentiments could also be means of evasion, a refusal to acknowledge responsibility for what’s done in our name.

He defined nostalgia and its etymology in the Greek language, saying that “one of its meanings is the distress aroused by yearning for one’s place of origin”.

In recent times, he said, a strange panic was witnessed in Europe with the arrival of the refugees. He said the refugees were not a new phenomenon for Europe which had been involved in relentless wars for centuries that had seen large movements of people to Europe and North America. People in power forced them by their expansionist ideologies and as a result, the people were displaced and dispossessed of their rights, their lands and sometimes their lives and they (the Europeans) called this a civilising mission. He said the incredible destruction of the 20th-century wars was behind the transfer of the people at a large scale.

He raised the question of the concept and meanings of refugees. “When we speak of this figure we should remember that colonisation of the continents was also a deprivation of the rights and lands of the native people,” he added

Gurnah went on to discuss the human obligation when migration happens, adding that the moral and “human obligation is to offer hospitality to the people whose lives are at risk”.

Earlier, LLF founder Razi Ahmed welcomed the guests as well as the attendees of the festival, remembering the conditions when the Litfest started 10 years ago.

“That was a depressing time in this city. A lot of the public festivals known to be held in Lahore had retreated, and the public spaces were waning.”

Razi remembered that he had returned from New York with the hope that he could also do something for intellectual rigour and cultural spaces in Lahore but unfortunately, the wave of extremism and militancy surged and a lot of such festivals also got affected. He said they took a leap of faith, and on the very first day of the opening ceremony, when Tariq Ali’s speech was due there were long queues outside the Alhamra.

“And there was no turning back from there,” he remembered gleefully. He said the LLF was delighted to host the great writer of the contemporary world, Abdulrazak Gurnah, while Mustansar Hussain Tarar was also among the participants.

Ahmed said Basant used to be held in Lahore until 2007, but it had been surrendered to ostracism and fear, but we could not allow the fear to grow. He said the people would have to take charge as the citizens and each one should take ownership of the city. He thanked Amber Saigol, Hameed Haroon, and Nazafreen Saigol of the Dawn Media Group and other partners for making the LLF a truly public platform.

Amber Saigol said the LLF allowed mingling with the distinguished guests. She lauded Razi Ahmed for managing to make the LLF a success not only in Lahore but also in London and New York, saying that the festival put the literature of Lahore as well as Pakistan on the world map.

Other speakers who were on stage also spoke.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2023