“The worst thing in evaluating the impacts of 9/11 on Urdu poetry and even our whole social life is that we are not completely aware of the details of the 9/11, rather deliberate confusion has befogged the minds of our writers and they have no unanimous view on the war on terror”, Prof. Dr. Tajjuddin Tajwar stated in his lecturer at Saleem Raz Hall, Research Library Peshawar on Sunday. He said that “even the granting of Noble Prize to Malala Yousafzai is not liked by common people in the KP/FATA and it is considered as a western trick against Islam. This is the result of our societal confusion about war on terror. The 9/11 has become a ‘metaphor of confusion’ and colossal money is being used for it by vest interests of neo-colonialism. The scholars are seriously divided on the reality of 9/11 episode in Pakistan and that’s why there is conceptual confusion on how to respond to its after-effects, he commented”. The speaker, however, traced the effects and changes on Urdu poetry and said that “enormous literature is being produced but it is just symbolic and due to confusion, no one has reached any answer to the problems we face today.”
Prof. Sher Alam said that incident of 9/11 and its aftermath is so piercing that people are suffering from physical and psychological frustration and that’s why the use of tranquilizers has been seriously increased in KP and FATA.
Prof. Hanif Khalil of Quaid-e-Azam University said that not only Urdu poetry but also literature of all local languages and almost all means of journalism and communication have been out-rightly changed due to enormous foreign money and international pressure. He said that, “9/11 has changed our heroes into villains and villains into heroes which is the saddest phase of our history”.
Founder of the Library, Dr. Fasihuddin commented on the recent books of Dr. Daniel Markey, Carlotta Gall, Bruce Riedel, Stephen Cohen, Robert Gates and Cristine C. Fair, that how Pakistan is depicted in international literature. He said that “just a few days back ex-US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta in his recent book ‘Worthy Wars’ has predicted that Daaish (ISIS) will be a phenomenon for next 30 years which means that the war on terror has no end upto the first half of 21st Century.”
Patron-in-Chief of the Library and Chairman World Pashto Congress, Mr. Saleem Raz commented that “no matter whether fire is burning in Syria and Iraq, the Pashtoons are affected a lot and it is time that Pashtoons should get united to address the impacts of war on terror as 9/11 was a political issue and it needs a political response and the intellectuals should play their role in its political response, he said. The session was followed by Q and A and conducted by Prof. Ishaq Wardag.
