'Writers never forfeit conscience at any period of history'

The literary discussion on the role of present day developed consensus on Saturday evening that poets and writers should redeem their pledge to uphold human dignity and freedom, and join the protest movement of the lawyers' community to show solidarity with them.
Ahmad Faraz, the celebrated poet, chairing the literary meeting at the South Asian Policy Analysis Network (Sapana) said enjoined upon the writers that in order to express solidarity with the lawyers' community they should march in the protest demonstrations with the lawyers.
In his own words, 'Pakistan was now meeting its greatest challenge since after its establishment on 1947 and writers now subtly integrate into their writings to tell the public the danger the country was facing.
'It is time to dip your nib not in the black ink-bottle but you must write after dipping your pen in the blood of the people that was flowing on the ground,' Faraz spoke allegorically to make his meaning understood.
The call to join lawyers protest came from eminent educationist Khwaja Masud who remarked that if writers felt the pain which the nation was feeling then 'they could not remain unmoved at the present distressing situation, and they put across their message in physical terms.
Professor Yusuf Hasan presented a paper on this occasion arguing that while a distinction might be drawn between high literature and literature produced for the commoners, there is a linkage between the literature of the latter kind and the masses. It was mark of popular literature that it was embedded in the social conditions of the time.
There was a protest from interlocutors in the audience that the writers were not seen in large numbers during the time of present crises and they had not written in sufficient bold terms.
The famous fiction writer, Mansha Yad, responded to that and said the writers have painted the scene in eloquent terms, and made a riposte by mentioning that the people had left the habit of reading.
'The message that writers and poets weave in their works takes longer than journalists say in their dispatches. It is a slow evolution but it does leave its long lasting impression. Mansha also agreed that journalists had done a marvellous job in bringing the sense of crisis to the common people.
Both Masud Mufti and Kishwar Naheed looked back to the works of eminent writers of the past who had brought home the landscape of political movement against tyranny and imperialism at different periods of history. Masud Mufti quoted the instance from Albert Camus as well Jean Paul Sartre, who were inspired by Marxist thoughts but were quite candid in condemning the imperialist design of the Soviets against the masses. When Soviets invaded Hungary, Jean Paul Sartre was constrained to declare that henceforward he denounces Marxism.
Kishwar Naheed gave examples of Ustad Daman, Sajjad Zaheeer, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Hassan Abbas Raza, Aijaz Rahi, who had endured oppression and kept on writing protest literature. She also regretted that no one of the mettle Nazim Hikmet or Herman Hesse has appeared in the literary scene during the present crisis.
Poet Ashfaq Saleem Mirza summed up the discussion by saying that what had come out of the discussion is that writers do not forfeit their conscience at any period of history.