KARACHI: The 18th annual International Urdu Conference organised by the Arts Council of Pakistan began on Thursday evening with a couple of thought-provoking speeches.
Speaking on the occasion as the chief guest, Sindh Governor Kamran Tessori said there are no two opinions on the fact that Karachi is mini-Pakistan. “The soul of mini-Pakistan is found at the Arts Council, and Ahmed Shah has breathed life into it,” he said.
“The year 2025 is leaving behind a lot of things. In 2025, we have been victorious because we (in May) defeated a country, India, five times bigger and powerful than us. It proves that you can fight the powerful if you have will, talent and professionalism. Pakistan’s armed forces and nation with its jazba defeated Narendra Modi. I’d like to congratulate the audiences that international media which had been writing bad things about Pakistan for decades is now praising Pakistan and its foreign policy,” he said.
In his welcome address, Arts Council’s President Ahmed Shah spoke about the genesis of the conference and how it became a prominent event. Since Thursday was also Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s birthday, he urged people to believe in the Pakistani flag, the Quaid and Pakistan. He also wished the Christian community a Merry Christmas.
‘Literature creates new places and spaces’
Eminent critic Nasir Abbas Nayyar was the keynote speaker for the opening ceremony.
He said literature doesn’t just create new forms of expression and languages, it also creates new places and spaces. If it doesn’t come up with a new epoch, it also reminds one of the triteness of the old time period. Literature, in every situation, remains connected with its time. This is the reason when seen or unseen forces make life difficult for human beings, literature and other forms of expression come to their rescue. It is not necessary that the new spaces that literature creates resemble paradise, but these are the spaces which keep us safe from the hell that others make for us.
Only those writers will beat AI whose dreams will overcome algorithms and coding, says critic Nasir Abbas Nayyar
He said recently the Arts Council held the World Culture Festival which could be called global dialogic space.
“Literature is both the tree and the bird… Our literature too requires a global dialogic space. Our literature means Urdu and literature created in all other Pakistani languages. Keeping our local identity intact, it needs to engage in a dialogue with the whole world. It should not just be satisfied with being a tree; it should become a bird. We should accept that despite having our own identity in literature, we are not recognised on a global scale. World literature creates a symphony and we don’t have our musical note in it.”
Mr Nayyar said although some of the works in Urdu have been mentioned in international journals such as Toba Tek Singh, no Urdu writer is read the way writers of Europe, the US, Latin America or China are. “We expect that Ahmed Shah will organise a World Literature Festival. It will create a new ecology. It’s strange that literature and art like read: are produced in dangerous times. Peaceful times produce carefreeness and the biggest form of carefreeness is creative carefreeness.”
He said our time has some old dangers and some new ones (AI, climate change, social media). Society is faced with the problem whether torture and torment could be eliminated with other kinds of torture and torment. “Literature should neither be a hammer nor a sword, it should act like a potter (kumhar). A potter doesn’t break or hurt. He brings things together and comes up with new objects.”
Mr Nayyar in the context of difficult times talked about Palestinian writers and poets. “If we really want to ascertain the power of literature, we should read Palestinian poetry.”
The scholar then shifted his focus on the two major challenges that literature is confronted with: AI, post-truth and climate change.
He said AI, when it comes to business and media marketing, is full of great possibilities, but with respect to creativity, it poses a danger.
“For the first time in human history we are witnessing an invention which is less of a machine and more of an agent. It doesn’t sleep or see dreams. We should fear anything that doesn’t see dreams. An existence sans dreams can’t partake in human ambition. If information is power, then nothing is more powerful than AI. Therefore, it is more of an opponent to human beings… I’m sure it will beat mediocre as well as top-notch writers. Only those writers will beat it whose dreams will overcome AI algorithms and coding,” he said.
Mr Nayyar added writers are now faced with the questions of freedom and truth. “Freedom and truth are just a concept for AI. Social media has made truth irrelevant.”
Poet Iftikhar Arif highlighted the achievements of the Arts Council and pointed out the importance of all languages. He said those who love their mother tongue love other languages as well.
After the speeches a cake was cut to celebrate the Quaid’s birthday and Christmas.
The inaugural session was followed by a discussion titled ‘Jinnah Aur Aaj Ka Pakistan’ in connection with the birthday of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
It was participated by Iftikhar Arif, Javed Jabbar, Ghazi Salahuddin and Sohail Waraich, and moderated by Huma Baqai.
Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2025
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