At midnight I stood looking at the sky, feeling the excitement of the birth of a new year through the lens of my 10-year-old granddaughter. The fireworks were spectacular, the sound of firing deafening, and the pervasive smell of gunpowder in the air took me to another place on our planet— spaces of grief, oppression and conflict. The prevalent fear and sense of dispossession, so familiar to the young, have driven their belief that injustice is an inevitable reality of our time.

I, who grew up in an optimistic world where a safe and predictable future beckoned, now find myself facing a very changed reality. So many chasms lie between us and the place of happiness, justice and safety. Dark times are upon us, with forces actively corroding the institutions that once promised justice, hope, and collective good. It feels as though we are tilting towards the abyss.

Can we reverse the tilt? Yes, I like to think we can, if we can successfully and collectively create a counter-balance to the negative. If we unlearn the behaviors of conscienceless destruction, wastefulness, greed, and brute power. A manifesto is empty until put into action, not with words and long columns alone written on a bed of dead trees, but with committed action to plant a dozen more. The writing on the wall is serious and urgent. Increasingly, political power is concentrated in the hands of those who seek to control human expression, silence the human voice, and erode human rights. Is freedom possible in such a world? Looking today through the prism of history, peace has always followed chaos; humankind has always prevailed over the darkest of times. In the last two decades, we have seen rightist governments and oligarchs entrench their oppressive ideas. So-called democracies, even with strong pro-human rights legislation, use de facto laws to muzzle protests. The world has become more angry, more polarized.

Yet, hope endures, as across continents, artists, curators, art critics, and filmmakers, among others, are protesting against violations. Currently in Georgia, the state has unleashed violence against unarmed creatives. In Argentina and Poland, governments are starving museums and galleries of funds to curb dissent. The Trump administration’s proposed curricular legislation threatens to transform schools into nurseries of extremism, tightening its grip on free thinking. In Germany alone, since November 2023, there have been 208 incidents where supporters of the Gaza cause have faced silencing: talks and exhibitions cancelled, and individuals wearing the Keffiyeh denied entry to events, polarizing society as their voices are suppressed.

The art community plays a vital role in keeping the Gaza issue alive, while mainstream media and politicians turn away from this 21st-century holocaust. Art can be a catalyst, a transformative power but a critical mass is important so let us think of 2025 as the time of action, let’s inform ourselves with knowledge before planning action so it becomes sustainable.

On the other hand, Pakistan has been in the grip of fear of the Blasphemy Law, but very few fully understand it. We must ask ourselves, when it comes to other Muslim countries, why this law has not taken as many victims but always been used with caution. Kudos to Arafat Mazhar of Shehri Pakistan for his informative animation that explains the journey of the Blasphemy Law to its present state.

Standing under Sadequain’s mural at Frere Hall, anchored by the concepts of ilm and amal (knowledge and implementation), the potent visual narrative transmits a vitalizing energy, depicting armies of good and bad. Towering figures, armed with pens, paintbrushes, and instruments of trade, embody the proactive forces, while those trapped in a world of darkness, devoid of knowledge and evolution, share their habitat with snakes and rodents. All great classical writings, like the Shahnameh, explore resistance to evil, seeking strength and belief in truth. In an era saturated with mediated “truths,” how do we discern fake news? The answer lies in weaponizing knowledge to reach the truth.

Iqbal gave us Shikwa and Jawab e Shikwa to escape intellectual inertia and the awareness of the limitlessness of human potential. In these dark times great thinkers like Sadequain and Iqbal have a lot to offer…

Khudi ko kar buland itna, kay har taqdir say pehlay
Keh Khuda banday say khud poochai
bata tayree raza kia hai

Title Image: Arz o Samavat, mural by Sadequain at Frere Hall, Karachi.