The Punjabi
movement -
a strong contribution to diversity of culture in a troubled area.
The world is
paradoxical. Kashmir is said to be one of the most
beautiful places of the world, yet one of the grimmest. Here India comes
to a bloody end. Or is it Pakistan that begins bleeding? Since the
partition of India in 1947
Kashmir has remained an open wound. The air
is explosive. Any second
this beautiful landscape could give birth to a
nuclear war between India and Pakistan.
But nations consist not only of aggressive politicians but of
peoples
and cultures. And paradoxically enough, one of the strongest and most
tolerant of cultures emerged from this region of the world is the
Punjabi culture.
Recently the Fifth World Punjabi Congress convened in Walthamstow
Theatre, East London. Some 200 delegates, most of them from India and
Pakistan but also from other
countries, gathered there to discuss the
Punjabi movement and to offer a message of peace and poetry to the
world.
The World Punjabi Congress first met in Lahore in Pakistan in 1986
with the
objective of promoting the Punjabi
language, literature and culture.
Since then it has convened
mostly in Pakistan, the country with the
largest Punjabi population.
In 2000 the conference was held for the
first time in India, and
this year's London meeting was the first
outside the subcontinent. The Congress has decided to keep up its
international momentum by holding several meetings over the next three
years in other countries like Canada, the USA, Germany, Denmark,
Holland and Sweden. The series will culminate in 2005 with another
conference In Lahore.
As all important conferences do, this one ended with a declaration
--
the London Declaration -- demanding that Punjabi be respected like other
languages and that newspapers in Punjabi be allowed to circulate in
Pakistan, where Urdu is the
official language and Punjabi is not
recognized.
The participants at the Walthamstow Theatre came from many countries
and
represented many professions, mostly in the academic and artistic
fields. But whatever was
written on the business cards that were so
enthusiastically exchanged, nearly everybody was also a poet. At
least
52 poetry readers demonstrated their talents in a three-hour reading.
The audience also participated with spontaneous interjections -- Very
true! Exactly! Perfect! Vava! -- like a convention of literary critics
thinking out loud.
The Congress itself was a true demonstration of cultural diversity.
Turbans and colorful dresses mingled with western suits and blue jeans.
The meeting even had a place for me, a Swedish poet. Thanks to
print-on-demand technology, a book of mine had found its way to a Punjab
translator who honored me by translating it into
Punjabi.
With its tolerant and peaceful
message, the Punjabi movement is an
important contributor to the
cultural diversity of our planet. With the
help of print-on-demand and
other new technologies, its rich literature
can now be spread around the world. The Punjabi movement illustrates
that it is language and culture -- not religion or ideology -- that
define the identity of a people. Both in India and in Pakistan.
Peter Curman, KLYS, Sweden
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