Dance and music: Culture or obscenity

Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty (FAST) has many sig­nif­i­cant soci­eties for pro­mot­ing con­scious­ness among stu­dents and the “Wake Up Soci­ety” is one of them, the aim of which is to man­i­fest and elab­o­rate­ly dis­cuss the con­tro­ver­sial and obscure top­ics in a con­ducive envi­ron­ment, in the form of Sem­i­nars, Work­shops and Talk Shows. Cur­rent­ly on Tues­day, Novem­ber 13, the wake up soci­ety orga­nized a Talk show con­duct­ed by Express News and Khu­di Pak­istan.

The top­ic for the debate was “Per­form­ing arts (music and dance): Vul­gar­i­ty or inte­gral to a pro­gres­sive soci­ety?” The pan­elists includ­ed famous female politi­cian of PML‑Q Nighat orakzai and Bar­ris­ter Latif Afri­di who were sup­port­ing the idea that Per­form­ing arts are inte­gral towards a pro­gres­sive soci­ety. On the oth­er hand, a renowned politi­cian of JUI and Atta ur Rehman were defend­ing the point that per­form­ing arts lead soci­ety towards vul­gar­i­ty. The pan­elists, who were sup­port­ing the top­ic high­light­ed the sig­nif­i­cance of music and dance and con­sid­ered it an inte­gral part for the cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty of healthy soci­eties and nations. The pan­elists oppos­ing the top­ic stressed that enter­tain­ment is allowed in reli­gion only if it does not lead the soci­ety towards obscen­i­ty. Any­thing which is against the Islam­ic Prin­ci­ples can­not be sup­port­ed and fol­lowed. Some par­tic­i­pants raised the issue that the pro­mo­tion of West­ern music through our own media is affect­ing our cul­tur­al norms. The dom­i­na­tion of west­ern cul­ture is basi­cal­ly lead­ing soci­ety towards obscen­i­ty.

The debate last­ed for two hours and an intense heat was felt on both sides with per­son­al attacks, emo­tion­al out­bursts and polit­i­cal argu­ments. Pan­elists faced some seri­ous charges and ques­tions by stu­dents. The debate was con­clud­ed with the major­i­ty opin­ion that per­form­ing arts is lead­ing soci­ety towards vul­gar­i­ty.

These kinds of events help to muster up the courage among stu­dents to have their say along with the intel­li­gentsia and polit­i­cal class of our soci­ety.

—Writ­ten By Maq­bool Elahi Jan

(Pub­lished in The Laal­tain — Issue 6)