In Faiz's own voice

The first part of this (subtitled in English) video shows the internationally known late Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz reading his poem "Aaj bazar mein pa-bajolaaN chalo." The second part has Nayyara Noor singing the same poem (via All Things Pakistan):

Comments

[kiita]

I fell in love with Faiz's ghazals in college. The call-and-response (to Faiz's recital and the song itself) is moving. Particularly today.

[maniza]

Pity the Nation by Khalil Gibran:

Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion.

Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave,

eats a bread it does not harvest,

and drinks a wine that flows not from its own wine-press.

Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero,

and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful.

Pity a nation that despises a passion in its dream,

yet submits in its awakening.

Pity the nation that raises not its voice

save when it walks in a funeral,

boasts not except among its ruins,

and will rebel not save when its neck is laid

between the sword and the block.

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox,

whose philosopher is a juggler,

and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.

Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting,

and farewells him with hooting,

only to welcome another with trumpeting again.

Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years

and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.

Pity the nation divided into fragments,

each fragment deeming itself a nation.

[-]

I really liked this. What were the hangings, though? How to they relate to the poem?

[maniza]

These hangings if memory serves me correctly were held in Shadman, Lahore in a public space--under the regime of Zia ul Haq. General Zia ul Haq. The hanging General. As were the public floggings. Most of them if not all of party activists of the Pakistan People's Party. I recall these images from those that were telecast on the nine oclock state news on Pakistan Television that evening of March 22, 1977 I think, that was date, a day before Pakistan Day and approximately 12 days before the hanging of the elected Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. All of Lahore knew that the hangings were going to take place that day--there was police everywhere on the roads--traffic was jammed--and the rumours were flying that gallows had been set up in Shadman. Rumor had it that three innocent men were to be hanged. There was talk of it everywhere--and the next day on Pakistan Day itself the newspapers carried on their front page a picture of the Father of the Nation Mohmmad Ali Jinnah and below that the lifeless hanging bodies of three men. Unity, Faith and Discpline had all been hanged. And most people well at least the ones I knew linked it to the probablity that the General was preparing the way for the hanging of Prime Minister Bhutto.