"Faiz’s revolutionary poetry was still banned by the regime, but one woman, a singer, defied Zia. It was always the women of Pakistan who gave the dictator the most grief. A year after the poet’s death, Iqbal Bano, a national icon, obtained rare permission to hold a concert in Lahore. There were some things even Zia couldn’t refuse. And there was a way of getting around the ban of singing and dancing: asking for permission to hold a “cultural event.” Bano wore a sari, a dress forbidden under Zia both because it was associated with enemy India and because it showed a woman’s midriff. And then she lent her voice, powerful but melodious, controlled but emotional, to the most defiant of all of Faiz’s verses, written in 1979 in protest at Zia’s authoritarian Islam. Hum dekhenge, she sang, we shall witness. For ten long minutes she sang the verses as the emotions of the crowd of fifty thousand Pakistanis rose and swelled with her, applause punctuating every pause."
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Academics from PakistanPoets from PakistanJournalists from PakistanUrdu-language poetsUrdu-language writers
Original Language: English
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Kim Ghattas, Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East (2020)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Faiz_Ahmad_Faiz
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Faiz Ahmad Faiz
Faiz Ahmad Faiz (13 February 1911 – 20 November 1984) was an Urdu Marxist, poet, and author. He was one of the most celebrated writers of the Urdu language, equally revered in both Pakistan and India.
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