The Other Pakistan’ draws US attention to Pakistani culture

[LahoreEstate]

WASHINGTON: Pakistan has a lot more to it than security issues and terrorism, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani said while inaugurating ‘The Other Pakistan’, a photography exhibition. "Five thousand years of history before the creation of Pakistan and 61 years as the state and nation of Pakistan. So a nation such as Pakistan cannot be seen only through the prism of security issues, of most immediate concerns of the war against terror," Haqqani said. ‘The Other Pakistan’ is an exhibition of works by Pakistani Photographers Group depicting Pakistan in all its cultural richness, diversity and liveliness and not just in a narrow security perspective. Nearly three dozen pictures displayed at Johns Hopkins University portray many splendours as well as poignant dignity of everyday life in Pakistan, which, in the words of Pakistan's Ambassador Hussain Haqqani and American photographer Dr Elizabeth Braun, should remind everyone of the need to look at the country beyond stereotypical images. "There is so much dignity in everyday life, so much beauty if you just look for it. ‘The Other Pakistan’ is our effort to say that there is beauty, dignity and opportunity to go beyond what is written in papers, when we hear about Pakistan as the country infected with fanaticism," said Braun. There is a Pakistan, Haqqani added, which has culture, scenic beauty and pluralism as its foundation. "There are people who dance to different tunes, people who paint different kinds of paintings, there are people who sing, people who compose diverse and one of the most sophisticated music in the world. Pakistan is the inheritor of the great poetic tradition in Urdu language," he said. He also drew attention towards the fact that issues are transient, they come up and go but nations and people stay. app

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...009_pg7_28