ISLAMABAD, Feb 2: A meeting of writers and poets was held here this evening under the auspices of South Asia Policy Analysis Network (SAPANA) at the South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) media centre to discuss the role of writers in the present crisis through which the country is passing.

The consensus of opinion agreed with poet Ahmad Faraz who was chairing the discussion that writers should actively participate in the protest and that it was not just enough, as some writers thought, to express their defiance in their writings only.

Masud Mufti, poet Kishwar Naheed, writer Mansha Yaad and left ideologue Prof Yousaf Hassan were unanimous in their opposition to the policies that have brought the country to this worst crisis of its existence.

Ahmad Faraz disagreed with the view that the crisis Pakistan was facing was part of the turbulent times the world was passing through. He said Pakistan was one of those few countries where American interference had created a situation of destabilisation.

He said the writer could not be a passive spectator in a situation like the present one. He had to move with the time and lend his full active support to the movement of the civil society.

In response to a point raised by a participant regarding social ostracising of writers who were in some way connected with the establishment, he said one could be in government service and still keep his or her conscience alive and refuse to act unlawfully. He said it was time the writer replaced the ink of his pen with blood.

Mansha Yaad said that societies which remained quiet and indifferent to injustice only helped prolong their misery. He said not only the writer but all sections of society should rise against oppression.

He referred to one of his stories in which he had portrayed the consequences of social indifference.

Replying to a question by a journalist why the writer of today lacked the sound and fury of earlier giants like Faiz and Jalib, Mansha Yaad lamented the disinterest of the literate people in books and literature.

He said middle class houses were full of all kinds of junk, and so were the shops of luxury goods and hotels and restaurants.

The only item of enlightenment that the public was not buying were books and magazines. Then how could the voice of the writer reach his audience, he asked.

Kishwar Nahid who was unwell and whom the doctor had told not to listen to news or watch TV and had suggested she retired to some nearby jungle for solace, said she had told the doctor that was exactly where she was living and yet there was no peace.

She from a short essay the history of resistant literature and writers who suffered incarceration and all kinds of difficulties and even torture as a result of their opposition to previous military regimes.

The writer could not escape his responsibility to stand up and join the stream of popular sentiment.

Masud Mufti cited instances from the history of intellectual resistance such as one saw in the example of Albert Camus, Jean- Paul Sartre, Milan Kundera, Faiz Ahmad Faiz and others to illustrate the role writers had played in times of national crises and particularly against oppression and injustice.

However he felt the absence of the writers from the current situation in Pakistan. They had no physical presence in the protest activities. In fact foreign writers had a stronger voice against our establishment than the indigenous literati. He blamed this lack of spirit on the influence of the literary bodies under government control.

Earlier Prof Yusuf Hassan explained how the class struggle in Pakistan had gradually weakened during the last few decades and how this had contributed to the present situation. From among the audience Professor Khwaja Masud also spoke.

This was the second such seminar on the present crisis held by SAPANA which is proving to be a very useful chattering field for the city cognoscenti, thanks to the efforts of Left guru, good old Ashfaque Saleem Mirza.