A passage to Pakistan

Novelist, medical doctor and politician, Wale Okediran, writes on his experience in Pakistan during a writers’ conference and the country’s history in this travelogue. Islamabad. November 2019. I am standing at the immigration desk of the Islamabad International Airport, trying to explain to the Pakistani immigration officer my reason for visiting the South Asian country. […]

Novelist, medical doctor and politician, Wale Okediran, writes on his experience in Pakistan during a writers’ conference and the country’s history in this travelogue.

Islamabad. November 2019. I am standing at the immigration desk of the Islamabad International Airport, trying to explain to the Pakistani immigration officer my reason for visiting the South Asian country. He also wanted to know why I had to go all the way from Lagos to London then Dubai before coming to his country. Satisfied with my explanations, the happy looking burly officer gingerly stamped my passport and waved me off with a cheery ‘Welcome to Pakistan’.

As I later waited to collect my baggage, my mind went to my brief encounter with the immigration officer, especially his concern about my choice of itinerary. It was the same question I had been asked when I applied for a Pakistani visa in Abuja. It was also the same question when I wanted to board my Emirates flights in Lagos, London and Dubai. Even though I had decided on my itinerary in order to accommodate a private visit to the UK before going to Pakistan, I did know that I had inadvertently put myself under a suspicious radar by that decision.

“Pakistan is currently fighting a twin problem of drug trafficking and terrorism. That is why travelers with multiple stop overs are usually put under extra scrutiny,’’ one of my Pakistani hosts later explained to me.

Outside the airport, I had to button up my jacket as the chilly 10-degree Celsius weather hit me like a cold brickbat.

“November is still a good time to visit Pakistan. Our coldest month is January when the weather could go as low as 2.6-degree Celsius,’’ my guide who had come to pick me up at the airport said. As I was later driven from the airport in the early hours of the morning, I admired the beautiful and sleepy city which was said to have been built as a planned city in the 1960s to replace Karachi as Pakistan’s capital city.

Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, came into being following the partition of British India into the countries of India and Pakistan on August 14 1947. After this partition, the north-eastern and north-western flanks of the country, made up of Muslim majorities, became Pakistan. The rest of the country, predominantly Hindu, but also with large religious minorities peppered throughout, became India. It is the world’s fifth-most populous country with a population exceeding 212.2 million. By area, it is the 33rd-largest country, spanning 881,913 square kilometers (340,509 square miles).

Even though it took place more than 70 years ago, the partitioning has left some deep-rooted resentments between India and Pakistan. Fortunately, there have been numerous attempts to improve the relationship. However, despite those efforts, relations between the countries have remained frigid, following repeated acts of cross-border terrorism.

According to a 2017 BBC World Service poll, only 5% of Indians view Pakistan’s influence positively, with 85% expressing a negative view, while 11% of Pakistanis view India’s influence positively, with 62% expressing a negative view.

I had gone to Pakistan to attend the annual International Writers Conference of the Writers Union of Africa, Asia and Latin America. In addition, I had also been invited by the Pakistan National Council of the Arts and Hunerkada to attend the 2019 Islamabad Arts and Book Festival also holding in the Pakistani capital about the same time. While I was to present a report in my capacity as the Deputy Secretary General of the Writers Union during the conference, I had also come to Islamabad with copies of my novels for presentation at the Book Fair.

About an hour after my arrival in Islamabad, I arrived my hotel, Embessidor Hotel located at Sector G-5 of the city where I was heartily received by my hosts and other conference delegates who had arrived ahead of me. It was nice seeing my fellow writers again after our last conference that took place in Rabat, Morocco in January 2019. Some of the writers who had already arrived at the hotel included delegates from Egypt, Lebanon, Sudan, Vietnam, as well as Jordan. I also saw some new faces such as Bui Viet Thang from Vietnam, Said Salgawi from Oman as well as Toy Ting from Thailand.

On hand to receive all of us was our chief host, the ebullient Pakistani poet and book seller, Imdad Aakash, who is also the Secretary General of the Pakistani Writers Union. As usual, our indefatigable Secretary, Randa Barakat as well as our amiable and energetic President, Cherif El Shoubashy, had been on ground days before the meeting to put things in order.

The agenda for the tri-continental meeting which would be the first in an Asian country since more than three years consisted of plenary sessions, poetry readings, a roundtable discussion on the conference theme, launching of the new edition of Lotus magazine as well as the 2019 Islamabad Book fair. Also included in our itinerary was a visit to Gandhara archaeology sites and museum in the nearby town of Taxila, Dinners, a cultural event and the closing ceremony.

As listed on our agenda, the whole of the first day of the conference which took place at Aiwan E Sir Syed district of Islamabad, was devoted mainly to plenary sessions whichcentered on the conference theme; The Role of Culture and Literature in Confronting Terrorism.

A major highlight of the three-day conference was the presentation of the new edition of LOTUS, the official journal of the union. The LOTUS, a trilingual quarterly journal which was first issued in 1968 in English, Arabic and French, apart from being a forum for literary interchange between postcolonial Third World intellectuals, also has a prize attached to it.

‘The Lotus Prize’ as the prize is called, has been awarded in the past to such writers as Chinua Achebe, Mahmoud Darwish, Faiz Ahmed