When the successful Islamabad Literature Festival held its closing ceremony last Sunday evening, Ameena Saiyid, the Managing Director of Oxford University Press, could not have been more pleased. Last year, when the first festival was held in Islamabad, the organizers had already done well with festivals in Karachi, since 2010.
The importance for the publishing house is one thing, but more important is the impact of such events for the writers and readers. Literature festivals, with the media coverage and all the fanfare and talk, help put literature on the agenda, reminding us all that there is still something special and valuable about books that go beyond other formers of communication.
Its true that film, video, TV, audio and radio programmes are also important. There are combinations of media too, facts or fiction, prose or poetry. We can find whole books in audio form, we can read e-books on our laptops or boards. And with such devices, we can access hundreds and thousands of books wherever we are at any time. Yet, the old printed book is still in fashion, and it is going to be with us for many years to come, I believe, even if we have the same content in its soft version.
Perhaps we should begin making our own professional books and albums in soft version, and as printed books. They can be in hardcover, indeed looking like, and actually being, the ‘real thing.’ There are already printers and book binders in town that can help us document our lives and thoughts in book form. If this becomes fashionable, I would be glad. Already, there are small publishers abroad that can print dissertations and works of non-fiction in a professional looking book-form.
In certain ways, this would be a way of using the existing technology to democratize and broaden communications and book publishing. True, much of the quality stamp that we put on published books would be gone. But then, it is the readers that decide if a book is good or not. It is not just the publishing house and a few consultants who approve, or reject, a manuscript.
Incidentally, in Iceland, the small Nordic country with just over 300,000 inhabitants, it has long been said that every respectable Icelander must write at least one book in his or her lifetime. Perhaps we should all consider becoming honourary Icelanders!
But then, back to the literature festival; Sameena Saiyid almost forgot to thank the 40-50 young assistants in red T-shirts showing the speakers and participants to the right rooms and pasing them brochures. They are the future of readers and writers, and Ameena made it clear that the youngsters were very close to her heart.
Judging from their quick smiles and good answers to questions and jokes from participants, like this writ, they will come up with their own ideas and formats for how to create, share and distribute written and other literary and artistic content in the future.
Young people have much in common with creative workers of any age and vise versa. Sometimes, we may think that writers have an arrogance about them. Although that may happen to them as to anybody else, true artists are always humble, because they are vulnerable and fragile. Exploring journeys and creative endeavours are soul-searching struggles. Hence, an artist or a young person is never certain. He or she will always listen, observe, think and try to find out about the unknown. Then they will be able to hold up the mirror of life and society for us. They will show us things we didn’t know how to define and see clearly. True artists, the good writers of prose and poetry, will write about the simple and complex things around us, and show us a bit more of reality.
In certain ways, all artists and writers, bare their souls to themselves and others every time they show us their work. They open up about their feelings and thoughts, they ask questions and struggle with answers; they give us knowledge and reveal ignorance, and much more.
In her well-crafted address at the end of the Islamabad Literature Festival, Muneeza Shamise reminded us of the importance of being true to ourselves. We should not accept censorship or succumb to self-censorship, the latter compromising our principles and sense of right and wrong. She said that she was more afraid of that than of bomb explosions.
Our thoughts and ideas, and our written and spoken word, can be mightier than swords. That has always been known to ordinary people as well as leaders. In the recent couple of centuries, writers came to make it into a special literary form, the social realist genre. Henrik Ibsen was one of the world writers who knew how to write about political and social issues without making his plays into purely political essays. He made art out of politics and the themes and topics are still modern, a hundred and fifty years on.
After Muneeza Shamsie’s speech, a Muslim friend said to me that the Quran indeed advises on these issues: if we cannot make our convictions into concrete action, then we must at least talk about what we believe is right. And if we cannot do that either, then the least we can do is have the right thoughts and attitudes. This is the foundation for any human being – for preachers, teachers, writers and everyone else.
In another holy book, the Bible, a frequently quoted verse addresses similar issues, inter alia in Hebrew 4:12: For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intent of the heart.
And then, back into everyday life, perhaps less sacred and less principled. True, but the ideals are always the same. The spirit of the Islamabad Literature Festival is not just some lofty discussions and presentations for a few days; it is something we all should carry with us. We should create, think, speak, write, and indeed read books. Today’s flimsy social media communication will be with us, too. But I believe we at the same time will become more literary, all of us, as reader and as writers. The elitist image of books will go. The youngsters in red T-shirts at the Festival will have to help us shape the new, more participatory literary future, with all kinds of media in addition to the book.

The writer is a senior Norwegian social scientist with experience in research, diplomacy and development aid.

Email:atlehetland@yahoo.com