Who am I

18.08.2009

How does a practising Catholic artist find his identity in an overwhelmingly fundamentalist Muslim culture?

He showed artistic talent while at school. Ali Abbas, a Muslim neighbour who had taught art, encouraged his talent. After several years working as a labourer and studying part-time at the Sindh University, he gained admission into the National College of Fine Arts in 2002. Naveed Sadiq was born in 1982 in Hyderabad in southern Pakistan.
In his first year he was the only Christian enrolled in a student body of 165. The following year another Christian enrolled and by the time he graduated there were four Christians enrolled, one of whom was the daughter of the Anglican Church of Pakistan bishop of Lahore.
Fundamentalist Muslims have made Pakistan an unsafe environment for the arts. This began in 1982 when the military dictator, General Zia ul Haq, began to legislate for an extreme fundamentalist form of Islam as a way of justifying his political rule. The richness of dance, music, song, puppetry and painting that has been a part of the diverse Punjabi, Pathan, Sindhi and Balochi cultures for centuries was condemned as Hindu-influenced and un-Islamic. As recently as December 2008, bombs were thrown into the Arts Centre in Lahore while a puppetry festival was being held. Earlier in the year the musicians' quarter in the old city of Peshawar was fire-bombed.
Naveed's work is a series of seven miniature paintings. His thesis work deals with the issue of his identity: "Who am I as a convinced, believing, praying, practising Catholic Pakistani in the Islamic environment of Pakistan which is hostile to me in the way I believe, pray, and express my faith?"
Naveed has specialized in miniature painting which is part of the cultural tradition in Lahore left behind by the Mughals who ruled northern India from the 16th to the 18th century. Much of the course work he presented has been influenced by his personal Catholic belief. In his first year, he made a visual presentation on the Existence of God by a symbolic presentation of Ps.23:1,
"The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want" in which he symbolically presented the invisible and unseen power of God whom Naveed experiences as protector. He says that he was more satisfied with the religious discussion that this fostered with his teachers and fellow-students than with the A+ he received from his lecturer for the coursework.
A significant unit of study during his second year was Communication and Cultural Studies which dealt with Islamic and Pakistan Studies. Normally such topics present a one-sided fundamentalist Islamic content which students are expected to repeat word-for-word as a requirement for passing. Naveed was fortunate to have a lecturer who dealt with the topic in what he describes as a "professional, intellectual, rational and neutral approach" and this enabled him to make his own presentation as a Pakistani of his belief in the Holy Trinity and his use of the Sign of
the Cross.
Naveed says that wide scope and content of this unit of study provided him with many social, political, psychological, and cultural perspectives for his thesis work. In his third year, Naveed learnt Islamic calligraphy but used it to write Urdu biblical texts. He says that one of the issues that confronted him while using this Islamic art-form to express his Christian faith was his own identity as a Catholic in Muslim-dominated Pakistan.
The complete work is Naveed's artistic comment on Pakistani society as he experiences it. For this reason, green and gold colours predominate, green signifying the pervasive Islamic culture in every aspect of Pakistani society and layered gold leaf signifying the Christian belief and value system that Naveed was born into and has received from his Catholic parents in Pakistan. He proclaims that whatever he has or whatever he doesn't have is the gift of God and that his identity is about understanding and knowing what God has given him.
Naveed say that Ps.139 which begins "Lord, you have examined me and you know me" describes his personal life and faith experience. He has painted this psalm in Islamic calligraphy and it hangs on the wall of his room.

Fr Robert McCulloch lecturers at the National Catholic Institute of Theology in Karachi, Pakistan.