A Bunch of Homogeneous Hippies!

Pakistan, with its multitudinous cultures, a mini-world in itself, is fast shedding the mantle of its old identities and poised to wear new ones. At this junction it would be interesting to examine the soul within and from whence it springs. To ponder not only over the design, make and cut of the cloak that clothes the Pakistani society but examine the soul that hides within, in order to keep in touch with one self and not get lost among the changing landscapes of changing civilizations caused by the globalization and technology. This change in the technoscape has shrunk the world to the size of our chat window making histories and ages collide, bringing an irreversible synthesis come closer to us with each passing second.

The mediated form of culture is radically transforming notions of community worldwide particularly in the areas known as the cultural periphery. Hence seeing the media as both empowering and dangerous, many nation-states have devoted funds to promote official agendas through national media and impose quotas and censorship to minimize the perceived harmful effects of cultural globalization. However, with the growing exchange of technology the cultural landscape being rendered at every passing oscillation it is nearly impossible to stop the cultural influx. Thus formation of new identities in relation to shifting notions of community such as ethnicities, nations, classes, races, and the sense of belonging to a specific place has become a self mutated process.

The most widely discussed topic with reference to media and society is the Indianization of our society through the Indian satellite channels and its impact. However, right now all the discussions revolve around sweeping remarks about ‘soaps being responsible for shattering our social fabric’ and soaps not being reflective of our true culture. Though not being far from truth, such statements still lack objectivity and no groundwork to start from to stop the brutal hemorrhaging of our social fabric as one cannot act when what action is required remains unspecified. It’s about time we come down to what exactly is wrong with the soaps being aired these days, and how specifically it impacts our society, presumably in a negative way.

There are so many interesting aspects that I would like to address about the process of Indianization of Indian television but due to the word limit I would stick to the two major issue which have made our reality a contingent and contested social construction. The two trends -growing hybridization of media languages and the popularity of channel and programming formats which have been indigenized to a very limited extent has altered and affected the perceived sanctity of our relationships. Let’s pause here for a moment and contemplate over the utopian question ‘what we really are? What is our national identity? What binds us and makes us people of one nation despite myriad similarities and dissimilarities.

Having a collective conscious and sharing the connotations of something as basic as the color RED to the understanding of the mechanics of living within a society forms the framework of any traditional value system which eventually determines our unique sensibility defines who we really are.

With the advent of the satellite channels particularly Indian to our part of the world has rendered our minds impotent of producing anything original. We like a flock of sheep follow the Indian-ness with blind trust and end up corrupting our origins. The culture is now considered as a hegemonic ritual where each aspect does not boil down to point to the umbrella of same sentiments and value systems. The later has ended up as a burden where a lone individual is preferred than keeping each member of family as a part of a group. The sanctity of relationships has gone to dogs in our society. Broaching on a subject like ‘divorce’ was once regarded as a no-go zone for all. I have nothing against the right of women getting a divorce but the point is that the complex twists of relationships shown in the Indian sops where a girl has numerous affairs and marries several times and every time she would end up with prince charming is pushing our young maidens’ minds into oblivion. For these young minds a divorce is nothing more than a piece of paper.

Pakistan is heir to some of the most ancient civilizations of the world. Its indigenous languages with its vocabulary are multilingual facets made up of various culture of this region too have ancient roots. Without getting into a linguistic debate that may go into uneven terrain of post-structuralism and post-modernism, I would just confine to remind my readers that language has always been considered the most important pillar of any culture. A word as used with respect to a particular culture has its meaning way beyond the literal. It carries with it metaphorical dimensions that are specific to the cultural group it represent. There was a time when speaking Urdu with the wrong “tallafuz” was considered an unforgivable sin. Then came a time when being able to converse reasonably well in Urdu became a plus, no matter if there were English words used all along. Until that time, things were no as bad as we were moving towards a global cultural landscape while keeping our roots still in the ground, though not too deeply. Today, we have reached a point where Urdu is more Hindi the way we speak. Our kids use words they hear in Indian soaps fluently when they are presumably speaking Urdu. Many commonly used Urdu words have now been replaced by the Hindi counterpart. So what difference does it make? A huge difference! A word brings with it not only cultural background but has its root deeply embedded in history, religion, and the way a society perceive the object for which a word is being used. Can you relate Iqbal’s dream of a separate homeland for Muslims of the sub-continent when you use the word “sapna” instead of “khwaab”? I guess no. This is one basic example signifying the far reaching impact a shift in linguistic structure in a society makes. Words make-up not only conversations, but also the literature of a language. And as the saying goes, “The decline of literature is the first step towards decline of a nation.”

I am all for globalization and am a firm believer in its blessings. However, I am also for keeping a balance between our deep-rooted social and cultural value and assimilation of new ones so that we progress as a society with a distinct identity instead of becoming an insignificant part of a homogeneous crowd.