Life, Art, and Politics: Pakistan and Social Misrepresentations

This paper critically analyses how Mohsin Hamid in ‘Discontent and Its Civilizations’ delineates the rupture lines prompted by a decade and a half of tectonic change, from the ‘war on terror’ to the struggles of individuals to maintain humanity in the inflexible physiognomy of repressive ideology, or the apathetic face of globalization. Whether he is discussing ritual love affairs or pop culture, drones or the pattern of day-to-day life in an extended family, he carries us beyond the doomsayer headlines of a perturbed West and a turbulent East and helps to bring a dazzling manifold world within spiritual and intellectual reach. The classifications under which the essays are congregated: Life, Art, and Politics may be considered universal, as the themes of these segments are wide-ranging. Hamid’s nonfiction pieces of writings are deep-rooted in the shifting nature of his homeland. He talks about the way in which Pakistan “plays a recurring role as villain in the horror sub-industry within the news business” (Hamid, 2014). He believes that in Pakistan, Islam has been as a binding force for developing unity for strengthening nationhood. Although Pakistan; “a test bed for pluralism on a globalising planet” (Hamid, 2014), is still struggling for “more pluralism” (Hamid, 2014). American drone attacks have had a deeply detrimental effect by refusing the sovereignty of Pakistan and Pakistani society, and by demanding ‘do more’ to accost the problem of extremists who tyrannize Pakistanis/Muslims or non-Pakistanis/ non-Muslims in the same way. Such social misrepresentations, for some selfish self-interests, neither only shatter the image of a nation in the world, but also play a vital role in transformation of the nation alike with the help of such vague reflections. Pakistan and Islam both need to be reviewed without any “makeup and plastic fangs” (Hamid, 2014) or else future generations will look back at our era and think of us with the same perplexity that we think of those who lived in societies that legalized slavery

Fausses représentations sociales et leur rôle dans le développement de la violence : étude comparative de la littérature pakistanaise contemporaine en perspective avec le fondamentalisme, le néolibéralisme et le néocolonialisme

Islam, Muslims and Pakistan have been obsessively under discussion, particularly with negative portrayals, in the mainstream media and scholastic colloquy in the post 9/11 period. This research project is an attempt to represent some of the misrepresentations which are familiarized along with political lines for making an unknown a known. The decolonised representation of such misrepresentations is needed to understand this phenomenon and the ideologies working behind the scenes for popularizing these unfamiliar representations of/by fundamentalism and fundamentalists in comparison with misrepresentations of/by liberalism and liberals. Thus, the thesis is divided into three sections; a) Fundamentals of Islam and Fundamentalism, b) Neoliberalism and Neo-global colonialism, and c) Social Misrepresentations which are breeding psychological trauma for humanity in the post 9/11 era. This project highlights the variant aspects of the reluctance of fundamentalism in post-postcolonial contemporary Pakistani literature, both in English and Urdu, analysing comparatively the similarities and variances, both exclusive and inclusive, of its extensive canvas The contemporary world of English Literature in Pakistan and the different approaches provide material for examining who is who and what is what, in order to determine the underlying motives at work behind the scenes, especially the schools of thought encouraging extremism of all kinds, working against peace and harmony in favor of violence and terrorism. Literature, in this context, is a mouthpiece of the Age. We will be analysing the social misrepresentations using Moscovici’s theories of social representations which are used to familiarise the unfamiliar or defamiliarize the familiar. Similarly, Roy’s theory of facts in fiction is utilised for analysing contemporary Pakistani literature (examples are taken from Mohsin Hamid’s and UmairaAhmed's contributions) as a mouthpiece of the twenty-first century while examining Chomskian views of neocolonialism. Meanwhile, fundamentalism or Islamism will be inspected under the theoretical lens of la ikraha fid Deen, presented in the Holy Quran and Hadith. Hopefully, the research would be able to provide a comprehensive, productive groundwork that will be helpful to spread a peaceful message with a moderate approach to life, against extremism.L’Islam, les Musulmans et le Pakistan ont fait l’objet de discussions obsessionnelles ; des points de vue négatifs ayant été majoritairement adoptés dans les principaux médias et les colloques au lendemain du 11 septembre. La présente recherche est une tentative de représentation de certaines des fausses déclarations qui sont popularisées par les différentes lignes politiques dont le but est de faire d’un inconnu, un connu. La représentation décolonisée des fausses représentations est nécessaire pour comprendre ce phénomène et les idéologies qui sous-tendent les voies de la vulgarisation de ces représentations peu familières de / par le fondamentalisme et les fondamentalistes par rapport aux fausses représentations du / par le libéralisme et les libéraux. La thèse est divisée en trois sections : a) Fondements de l’Islam et fondamentalisme, b) Néolibéralisme et néocolonialisme mondialisé, c) Représentations sociales engendrant un traumatisme psychologique pour l’humanité après le 11 septembre. Ce projet met en évidence les divers aspects de la réticence du fondamentalisme dans la littérature pakistanaise contemporaine post-postcoloniale, en anglais et en ourdou, analysant comparativement les similitudes et les différences, à la fois exclusives et inclusives, de ses nombreuses ramifications. Le monde contemporain de la littérature anglaise au Pakistan et les différentes approches utilisées fournissent de la matière permettant d'élucider des variables, afin de déterminer les motivations sous-jacentes à l'œuvre dans les coulisses, plus particulièrement les écoles de pensée qui encouragent l'extrémisme de toutes sortes, et œuvrent contre la paix et l'harmonie mais favorisent la violence et le terrorisme. La littérature, dans ce contexte, est un porte-parole de l'époque. Nous analyserons les fausses représentations sociales en ayant recours aux théories de Moscovici à propos des représentations sociales, qui sont utilisées pour rendre l’inconnu familier ou bien rendre inconnu ce qui est familier. De la même manière, la théorie de Roy sur les faits dans la fiction pourrait être utilisée pour analyser la littérature pakistanaise contemporaine (des exemples sont tirés des contributions de Mohsin Hamid, Umera Ahmed et Shoaib Mansoor) en tant que porte-parole du 21ème siècle lors de l’examen de la théorie chomskienne du néocolonialisme. Pendant ce temps, le fondamentalisme ou l'islamisme sera examiné dans l'optique théorique de la ikraha fid Deen, présentée dans le Coran et les hadiths. Espérons que cette recherche soit en mesure de fournir un travail de base complet et productif qui sera utile pour diffuser un message pacifique, celui d’une approche modérée de la vie en opposition à l'extrémisme

Relationship of cardiorespiratory fitness with screen time and physical activity in adolescents

Objective: To determine the correlation of cardio-respiratory fitness with screen time and physical activity in healthy adolescents. Methods: An analytical cross sectional study was conducted in various schools of Rawalpindi and Islamabad from February 2019 till July 2019. Ethical approval was obtained by the ethical review committee of Foundation University Islamabad and higher authorities of school settings and written informed consent was obtained from all the participants. Non probability convenience sampling was done on N= 250 adolescents of ages 11-17 years including both genders. Participants were selected on the basis of inclusion and exclusion criteria. Cardiorespiratory fitness was evaluated through YMCA 3 min Step test, physical activity levels using physical activity questionnaire for adolescents (PAQ-A) and screen time via HELENA screen time Questionnaire. Data was entered and analysed on SPSS v.21. Quantitative variables were expressed as mean ± SD and Spearman’s Rank Correlation Test was applied to determine correlation between variables. Results: 250 adolescents were recruited in our study. Gender wise distribution comprised of 128 (51.2%) males and 122 (48.8%) females. Age ranged from 11-17 years with mean age of 14.24 ± 2.177 years. The result shows that there is no significant correlation between cardiorespiratory fitness and physical activity (r=0.09, p=0.15) and between cardiorespiratory fitness and screen time in adolescents (r=-0.12, p=0.58). Continuous..