The people should take agency by tapping into “the power of democracy, of people talking to each other, the power of society and public conversation”

Introduced as “one of the most powerful and brave advocates of a more moderate and liberal Pakistan” at the Women in the World Summit in New Delhi recently, Pakistani senator Sherry Rehman said she feels uncomfortable with adulation. She said she is a woman blessed by privilege, the same kind of South Asian privilege that brought many of the audience members to the summit, reports The New York Times.

“In my case, it is the privilege of education” she said. “When it comes to South Asia” she continued, “privilege makes it essential that whatever opportunities one receives and whatever choices are made, they be used for the vulnerable and those who don’t know about rights.”

Rehman said the use of that “little bit of power” could change lives and had been shown over and over again by the “incredible women” who had shared their experiences in panels throughout the Delhi Summit. Filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy is the other Pakistani woman at the Summit.

“These are people who understand the power of chip-­chip­-chipping away at the obstacles in their path,” said Sherry Rehman, speaking at a discussion moderated by journalist Tina Brown who founded the Women in The World (WITW), a media organization that organizes live events.

“Chipping away,” she added, “could be an interesting turn of phrase to describe the incredible work the Jinnah Institute (the think tank she founded) is doing to work on the tumultuous Pakistan-India relationship.”

“I would love to say [this is] is a new icebreaker,” she said, conceding that the process was more like a “huge boulder … a pathology” that needs to be tackled.

Rehman argued that when the state fails to address such a “sorry situation” it is the people who should take agency by tapping into “the power of democracy, of people talking to each other, the power of society and public conversation.”

During an earlier meeting with Tina Brown in New York, Sherry Rehman had discussed India and Pakistan’s so­-called Gen 3.0, a third generation of young people who have lived in the wake of India and Pakistan’s bitter partition.

“Will it be difficult for this third generation that doesn’t have the memory of a syncretic community to work together?” Brown asked. “If Gen 3.0 doesn’t have the romance of having lived in each other’s countries, the positive is that they don’t have any baggage either and can connect with each other,” Rehman replied.

Later, the audience broke into uproarious laughter as Rehman described South Asia as the Jurassic Park of the world: “What age are we living in?”

“We can’t change our geography. We aren’t big islands like the U.K. or USA, separated by an ocean. We are connected not just by stories but also our geography, so work with what we have. We are neighbors, we can’t instantly love thy neighbor, but [can] dial down the hate,” she remarked.

Rehman said that there are days she is exhausted by the same conversation, the same hates and yet like the mythical Sisyphus moving the boulder up the mountain, her community of brave souls persevere too.

Undaunted, she brings the same sense of grit and practicality to a call to the rest of the world to unite in the face of the new challenges of extremism.

“Not just Pakistan. I want to tell this empowered audience that it is a dangerous world, the world my daughter grows up in is very different than the one I grew up in, but our challenges we are connected so let’s focus on finding common grounds. Global leadership has to be clear that we have to identify a common enemy, we you may have done that but the world has to acknowledge the freight train heading our way.”

Credit : Read full article at: Pakistani senator Sherry Rehman on the “tumultuous relationship” between her nation and India, by Aneela Zeb Babar, NYT