Identity, Community and the Post-Colonial Experience of Migrancy‪.‬

The imbrication of the personal and the social is one of the enduring projects of feminism (Spivak, 1988). It is also the theme of the revolutionary verses (at right), which I recall as being among the best loved and often quoted in my native language Urdu. In these words poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz traces how his coming to social consciousness and the awareness of the ugliness of oppression inescapably altered the expression of his passion. Describing the history of oppression and the suffering of his people he ends by saying: No longer can I avert my gaze from these (the injustices), Nor, despite the allure of your beauty, deny the knowledge, That there is other pain in life than the yearnings of love And desires other than the desire for the beloved. So do not seek from me the purity of past passion (my translation).