It has been a decade since we lost Sabeen Mahmud to a targeted attack in Karachi and since we lost Shayan “Poppy” Afzal Khan to cancer. It is also 20 years since the pioneering environmental journalist Saneeya Hussain died in Brazil. Their peacemongering legacies live on.
Personal Political Beena Sarwar / Sapan News
On 24 April 2015, a valiant crusader for peace, social justice, creativity and human dignity was killed in Karachi. That tragedy ten years ago deprived a mother of her only child, and many of us of a dear friend.
Social entrepreneur Sabeen Mahmud, 40, was driving home with her mother Mahenaz next to her. A motorcyclist approached while they were stopped at a red light, and shot Sabeen at point blank range. She died on the spot.
Sabeen. Photo by Zaheer Alam Kidvai.
Mahenaz at Creative Karachi Festival 2016: Sabeen would hate for any of us to give up. Photo: Beena Sarwar
A poster with Sabeen’s photo at Creative Karachi Festival, 2016, Alliance Francaise. Photo: Beena Sarwar
Pakistan: Countrywide demonstrations for Sabeen, 2015
Protest for Sabeen in Delhi, 2015. File photo
I had known Sabeen since she was a teenager. We were comrades together in several peace initiatives – part of a large, cross-border tribe of ‘peacemongers’ as I call our community.
Kuch Khaas, 2011: Flood Relief concert featuring folk artists from interior Sindh (Thar) along with musicians Todd Shea, QB, Arieb Azhar and Yasir and Jawad. Photo courtesy – PakiUM
I sit down to write this on April 21, the birthday of one of my oldest, dearest childhood friends, universally known as Poppy – Shayan Afzal Khan, to use her full name. On Feb 21, 2015, Poppy lost her second battle with cancer, which she had fought with her characteristic grace, courage and humour. One of Poppy’s enduring legacies is her book ‘Unveiling the Ideal: A New Look at Early Muslim Women’, published by Musawah-Sisters in Islam, Malaysia in 2007. For this book, she drew on her writing skills, faith, feminism and history degree (Girton College, Cambridge, 1985). Continue reading →
Daily vigil for Sabeen Mahmud in Karachi, 8-9 pm at Do Talwar
Protestors holding daily public protest vigils in Karachi demanding justice for Sabeen Mahmud hold placards calling to #unsilencePakistan and end the culture of impunity. Today’s vigil, marking give months of the Peshawar Army School massacre, also incorporates the carnage at Safoora Chowk in Karachi where armed men in police uniforms killed 45 of the 60 Ismailis on a bus.
Protestors at the Fifth Global Vigil this weekend in various cities are demanding an end to impunity and against terrorism in Pakistan.
Karachi – 16th May – assemble at Danish Gah, Punjab Chowrangi at 5:30pm and march to Do Talwar.
Islamabad – 16th May – 5.30 pm at Press Club
Boston – 16th May – 4 pm – Boston Common (near the fountain by the Part St. T)
Toronto/Mississauga – 6 pm, 7880 Keele Street, Unit #14, Vaughan, ON L4K 4G7
London – 17th May – 3-5 pm in front of Pakistan High Commission
Below, an extract from something I wrote recently about the Unsilencing Balochistan events in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi:
The KU administration locked the door of the Arts Auditorium to prevent the seminar from taking place…
The signs of hope I saw in 2011 included the unprecedented number of people speaking out. These voices have increased in number, demanding accountability for the violence and urging the government to address Balochistan’s long-standing grievances about economic and political disenfranchisement, and human rights abuses.
…It is not so easy to silence people any more. On 11 April, three days after the Balochistan seminar was cancelled at LUMS, it was held at Kuch Khaas, a popular gallery-café in Islamabad, featuring only one of the original speakers, Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur, a columnist and Baloch rights activist. Talpur also addressed students at LUMS a few days later, on 15 April (audio, in English, here). Both these well attended events were followed by another one in Karachi, on 24 April, hosted by Sabeen Mahmud at T2F (partial transcript of the event here). Shot dead that night, Sabeen joins the ongoing, and lengthy list of Pakistan’s enlightenment martyrs.
…but the students and faculty went ahead with the event, crowding the lobby in front of the locked door. May 6, 2015.
But less than two weeks after Sabeen’s murder, a larger event on the issue was held on 6 May, organised by Karachi University Teachers Against War and Oppression. The event had been announced weeks earlier and the organisers went ahead with it despite threats and intimidation, even after the university management, apparently on its own accord – perhaps following the lead of the private university LUMS that had backed down, and frightened by Sabeen Mahmud’s murder — revoked permission for the event. The administration blocked outsiders from entering university premises and locked the auditorium of the Arts Lobby where the seminar was to be held.
Students and faculty defiantly crowded the hallway and held the seminar anyway, outside the locked auditorium. They sneaked in members of the public in their own transport. The presenters who had been refused permission at LUMS, and who had spoken at Sabeen’s T2F, addressed this gathering (Audio of the proceedings here).
Samina Quraeshi: always dazzling. Photo by Andreas Burgess
My article in The News on Sunday today about Samina Quraeshi (October 12, 1944-September 25, 2013), who will be treasured as a movie maker, photographer, designer, architect, writer, city planner, storyteller, and on and on… See her introduction to
By Beena Sarwar
While in Pakistan nearly a year ago, filming for her documentary, ‘The Other Half of Tomorrow’ on the complexities and empowering aspects of the lives of Pakistani women, Samina Quraeshi suffered a stroke that doctors feared she would not recover from. Miraculously, she did. Her own indomitable spirit, the best medical care, and undoubtedly the love and prayers of countless friends and well-wishers pulled the vivacious, versatile writer, artist, and designer back from the brink.
Her right side was left paralysed, but she carried on with her characteristic zest for life, even though, as she said sadly, “I can’t even hold my granddaughter.”Continue reading →
Pix from Take Back the Tech at T2F. Courtesy: Newsline
I posted this to my yahoogroup today, along with a note from Avaaz on taking action against the Wikileaks crackdown (posting that separately)
Links to some of my recent articles, including about the ‘blasphemy law’ and secularism in Pakistan.
A brief update from me: I recently showed the film on DSF (Democratic Students Federation) that Sharjil and I made to a rapt audience in Islamabad at Kuch Khaas, the wonderful space set up by my old friend Poppy (Shayan Afzal Khan) – they hold film screenings, seminars, book launches; hold classes in dance, music etc (with a percentage of the admissions being reserved for underprivileged children who attend on scholarships).
My Mukhtiar Mai film was part of a couple of events held to commemorate 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence. It was screened at the `No Honour in Killing‘ exhibition curated by Niilofur Farrukh now in Karachi at V.M. Art Gallery till Dec 20th (has been to other cities including Larkana and Jamshoro). It was also part of the Take Back the Tech event linked to 16 Days, at a discussion (Newsline report here) held at The Second Floor in Karachi.
Below, links to my recent articles & others on the ‘blasphemy laws’ and on secularism
Journeys to democracy 