In February 2025, the National Citizens Party (NCP) was established by the prominent youth leaders of Bangladesh’s so-called ‘Gen-Z Revolution.’ This student-led uprising had terminated Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year authoritarian tenure during the summer of 2024. The primary objective of the party was to transition young leaders into the parliament.

The 2024 uprising comprised a broad coalition of liberals, leftists, Islamists and nationalists. The Bangladesh Jamaat-i-Islami (BJI) emerged as the most organised faction. It had been a primary target of Hasina’s government. The movement against Hasina’s rule was highly iconoclastic, actively attacking symbols associated with the birth of Bangladesh and the role played by Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujeeb, in this birth. He is someone the BJI detests.

When the young leaders of the 2024 uprising decided to formalise their revolution by establishing a political party, the move was immediately met with internal confusion. The NCP’s ranks comprised a volatile mix of progressives, secularists, conservatives and nationalists. Internal debates were often heated but failed to produce a consolidated consensus. Instead, a flimsy foundational statement was tabled, asserting that the party was neither secular nor Islamist.

This was criticised by political analysts as a product of political ambiguity. This lack of clarity became particularly apparent during the drafting of the party’s primary charter. The leadership struggled to reconcile the aspirations of its secular factions with the increasing influence of its Islamist factions. By refusing to define its stance on the role of religion in the state, the party risked becoming a vessel for any organised group capable of mobilising the street. This led to NCP’s controversial alignment with the BJI for the elections.

From Pakistan in 1977 and Iran in 1979 to Egypt in 2011 and Bangladesh in 2026, when loosely organised reformists align with disciplined Islamist forces, the ‘revolution’ rarely ends as they imagine

This represents a classic phenomenon observed across various developing nations, where small progressive groups frequently align themselves with the more organised right-wing forces. Such progressives often operate under the belief that this partnership will provide a viable route into the corridors of power by leveraging the superior organisational machinery of right-wing parties.

However, the historical precedent for such alliances is almost invariably disastrous. In these arrangements, the smaller progressive elements often find themselves ideologically hollowed out or eventually sidelined by their resource-rich right-wing ‘partners’. The NCP’s attempt to harness the mobilising power of the BJI ultimately compromised the youthful party’s reformist identity and led to significant internal fractures.

In the 1977 general elections in Pakistan, and the subsequent anti-Bhutto protest movement, various small secular and progressive parties joined an alliance that was largely led by the country’s three main Islamist parties. The alliance viewed the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto regime as tyrannical. However, the progressives in the alliance frequently found themselves at a loss for words when their Islamist ‘allies’ began advocating for the replacement of Bhutto’s ‘socialist’ policies with a government based on Shariah law.

When the Bhutto regime was toppled in a reactionary military coup, the progressives and secularists in the alliance found themselves in jails or exile, while the Jamaat-i-Islami, a major partner in the alliance, successfully integrated itself into the first cabinet of the new military regime.

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 provides another prominent example of this precarious dynamic. In the late 1970s, a broad coalition of secular liberals, leftists and student activists collaborated with religious clerics under Ayatollah Khomeini to overthrow the Shah of Iran.

According to the Iranian-American historian Ervand Abrahamian, middle-class progressives operated under the assumption that, as the “intellectual engines of the uprising”, they would inevitably dictate the shape of the post-revolutionary state. However, once the Shah was ousted, the more organised Islamist factions rapidly consolidated authority. This resulted in a systematic and brutal purge of their former secular and leftist partners.

A similar pattern emerged in Egypt following the ousting of Hosni Mubarak in 2011. The sociologist Hazem Kandil wrote that the secular and liberal activists who had led the protests lacked a formal political structure to translate their street presence into institutional power. They entered into a tactical partnership with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

Although the Brotherhood won the ensuing elections, the alliance with the progressive youth disintegrated. The progressives felt that the Brotherhood had ‘hijacked’ the revolution to implement a narrow ideological agenda. This internal collapse eventually created the conditions for a military takeover in 2013.

The NCP could only win seven seats in the recent parliamentary elections in Bangladesh. The elections were swept by the centrist Bangladesh National Party (BNP). Critics within the NCP are of the view that its alliance with an Islamist party alienated a significant number of their supporters, who decided to vote for the BNP, which has been a historical opponent of the Awami League.

Progressives/leftists are often effective at articulating grievances and dominating the media narrative during an uprising. Yet, they frequently lack the social machinery required to sustain political power. They employ ‘tactical entryism’, believing that it is more convenient to enter into a partnership with  larger right-wing parties and use their physical and logistical strength to grab a piece of the power pie and gradually steer the government toward reform.

Such moves frequently fail. Right-wing parties are strictly hierarchical and highly disciplined. This makes it easy for them to later purge their more loosely organised progressive ‘allies’. A recent case of ‘entryism’ is visible in the Tehreek-i-Tahaffuz-i-Aaien-i-Pakistan (TTAP), an opposition alliance headed by the right-wing populist Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI). It contains a mixture of sectarian outfits, secularists, conservatives and a left-wing group.

The left within this alliance has decided not to view PTI as a right-wing party but as a populist vehicle for ‘democracy’ and, of course, its own entry into a future parliament. There may also be an ambition that they might simply step into the vacuum and replace the PTI that is in such spectacular shambles. After all, what better way to lead the masses than by hijacking a shipwreck, no?

One can only admire the intellectual flexibility required for these activists to rationalise positions that contradict their own stated values, most notably PTI’s steadfast refusal to entertain any meaningful action against Islamist militants. It is a masterclass in moral amnesia.

Meanwhile, the alliance’s more seasoned folk, who are ex-devotees of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), are clearly treating this populist vehicle as an elaborate audition. Their goal isn’t so much to save the soul of the nation as it is to bat their eyelashes at the establishment, hoping to be hand-picked for the lead role in the next state-sanctioned ‘king’s party.’

Ultimately, the whole spectacle offers far more fodder for a dark comedy than it does for any genuine ‘struggle for democracy’ and the ‘sanctity of the constitution.’

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 22nd, 2026

Source link

The riddling title of Zahra Mansoor’s solo show ‘Fanaa is the Eclipse’ complements the enigmatic quality of her artwork.

Figures painted on fabric emerge from a watery backdrop as if they are participants in a ghostly theatrical performance. The use of diffused light and violet monotones serves to enhance the atmospheric content of Mansoor’s paintings. The presence of a moon in the paintings suggests the time is night — a time pregnant with mystery, shadow and silvery light.

This surreal environment befits the artist’s inquiries regarding gender archetypes and behavioural tropes. Mansoor states: “I have been consumed by desire, fantasy, mirages for most of my life.” Her imagined paradisiacal garden, or gulshan as she calls it, is a liminal zone where certainty is eschewed for the creative possibilities yielded by uncertainty and indeterminism. Noor Ahmed, the curator of this exhibition, says that the work “offers a space where the viewer must sit with the ambiguity of intimacy, of memory, of becoming.”

Mansoor, in the spirit of a flaneuse, has explored city environments from which she extracts inspiration for photographs and paintings. Karachi, Lahore and Paris figure in her alert wanderings. She notices repetitions in patterns of daily life, which she draws into her whimsical gulshan. She marries the textures of society to intellectual engagement with objects such as Persian manuscripts and calligraphic works. From an array of stimuli, Mansoor distills her poetic renditions with oil paint on a variety of fabrics such as cotton toile, gauze and chiffon.

Zahra Mansoor’s latest exhibition grapples with the nature of intimacy and unresolved inter-human relationships in a quirky manner

The softness of fabric is a challenge to the artist, whose hand must maintain the integrity of line and brushstroke on a pliable surface. However, the challenge is an integral part of the psychological and even psychic motivators for Mansoor’s art production, which explores shifting patterns.

Within the cavernous space of the Sanat Initiative, Mansoor has hung stretched paintings on walls. She has also painted on sections of entire bolts of cloth, which are suspended from the ceiling to the floor. On these bolts, an area of cloth at eye level has been prepared by stiffening to become a canvas for a painting. These cascading displays function dually — as surfaces for paint and as arresting vertical installations.

The paintings represent visionary, almost hallucinatory, states of mind in which the mundane and the wondrous mingle with equal status. The painting I spend this summer missing last summer shows a semi-reclined woman on a divan. A large moon looms beside her.

In the work Over our sandwich and coffee I felt something inside me for you, three female figures, with disproportionate scaling, and a sofa coexist with the omnipresent moon reduced to a tiny circle.

I have never been a bulbul of Sufi song shows a youthful figure lying on a bed while another figure, off to a side, is occupied with a utensil. The two people are seemingly oblivious to each other’s presence. Although represented on a single surface, they may well occupy different dimensions of reality.

These images may be construed as psychological statements that grapple with the nature of intimacy, of inter-human relationships that are unresolved and unformalised. By contrast, the artist has recurring props, such as the sofa/divan/couch (and occasionally a bed) that seem to offer a comforting familiarity. These domestic objects should be devoid of relationship dilemmas, but not so in the Zahra Mansoor universe.

Mansoor’s self-conscious exploration of uncertainty, which is so nuanced in her paintings, is handled more explicitly in a short film called Doomed Love Trope, which is part of the exhibition. The simple plot of the film is based on Mansoor planning her wedding to the object of her love that is a purple couch. Without revealing the denouement of the story, it is sufficient to say that this seemingly absurd premise is meant to challenge what terms such as normality and ordinariness construe for us.

An engaging catalogue accompanies the show with quirky contributions by the artist, the curator and 11 of the artist’s friends, who have taken that bold leap into philosophical uncertainty required to probe the subliminal depths of Mansoor’s lilac-tinted gulshan.

‘Fanaa is the Eclipse’ was on display at the Sanat Initiative from January 13-22, 2026

The writer is an independent researcher, writer, art critic and curator based in Karachi

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 22nd, 2026

Source link

Water covers over 70 percent of our planet, so it’s no wonder that it flows through our storytelling.

Biblical rain offered divine judgement either in the form of a blessing and rewards, or retribution and vengeance. In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Feste the fool issued the melancholic refrain: “For the rain it raineth every day.” It reminded the audience of the persistence of suffering in life.

Filmmakers worldwide have revered the visual beauty and the metaphorical value of rain on screen, letting it augment many a classic scene, sequence or speech. Technically, rain intensifies mise-en-scène (the overall visual presentation on screen, combining set design, lighting, props and more): it catches backlight and renders air itself visible, creating depth and shimmer.

And as our global weather patterns undergo changes, media researchers have suggested that engagement with cinematic weather conditions such as rain can allow for an “ecological meta-narrative” that connects humans (both on- and off-screen) with their environment.

Whether depicting solitude, decay, adversity or romantic destined love, rain in movies emotes as much as a character would. Here are 10 classic films that used rain to transform a scene

Whether depicting solitude, decay, adversity or romantic destined love, rain in movies emotes as much as a character would. Here are 10 key moments where rain took a starring role in film — just perfect for watching on a wet day.

1. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

Few scenes invert bad weather more joyfully than Gene Kelly’s iconic number. After a night of salvaging their disastrous film project, The Duelling Cavalier, actor Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) realises that he has fallen for the bubbly singer Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds). On his ebullient walk home, a legendary song and dance number turns the perceived bad weather on its head with the cheerful refrain: “Come on with the rain, I’ve a smile on my face.”

Kelly reportedly performed the sequence while running a fever, and the scene’s exuberance reframes rain not as obstacle but as liberation. The uplifting choreography sees Kelly splashing through puddles that reflect streetlights, making the urban space of the set design feel elastic and alive.

2. Seven Samurai (1954)

Rain heightens the brutal physical clashes in filmmaker Akira Kurasawa’s Seven Samurai. As the Samurai face their final battle, the rain (which has been used throughout to add mood and tone) is as cruel and violent as any of the antagonists, amplifying the pressure with its muddy, disorientating and visceral presence in the conflict.

Kurosawa was meticulous about weather effects, using wind, dust and rain to choreograph movement within the frame. The downpour turns the battlefield into sludge, erasing clear footing and underscoring the film’s meditation on chaos, class struggle and the cost of collective defence.

3. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

The final reunion scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s raises the emotional stakes with its unrelenting rain. In a taxi to the airport, Holly Golightly, played by Audrey Hepburn, tries to run away and abandon her emotional commitments to struggling writer Paul Varjak (George Peppard) and the stray cat she’s adopted.

After an incensed Paul watches her throw the cat out into the rain, he exits, determined to rescue the soggy feline. As she tearfully joins him, her character arc is complete. The storm forces Holly quite literally to stop running, confronting the emotional commitments she has tried to evade.

4. Network (1976)

In Network, a New York rainstorm provides the ultimate backdrop for anchorman Howard Beal’s (Peter Finch) unhinged and rain-drenched live rant. The drumming of rain against studio windows suggests a world outside the sealed, commodified space of television as, in a renowned monologue, he berates the news channel’s manipulation and society’s disintegration with the famous line: “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore.”

5. Point Break (1991)

In Point Blank, rookie FBI agent Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) confronts Bodhi, a bank-robbing surfer played by Patrick Swayze, in the rain. The weather ultimately enables him to evade capture by allowing him to ride one last big wave; something both know he will never survive.

Here, rain acts as a redemptive force. Bodhi seeks exoneration through the only thing he respects — nature.

6. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

In prison drama The Shawshank Redemption, Andy’s (Tim Robbins) Raquel-Welch cell poster hides a hidden escape shaft, years in the making while he endured time for a crime he didn’t commit.

Wading through a sewer tunnel he finally emerges to a torrential downpour, holding out his arms and facing the heavens in a symbolic act of cleansing, salvation and freedom. Rain here washes away not guilt, but injustice.

7. Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

Rain doesn’t always have to represent high drama. In the Richard Curtis-penned film Four Weddings and a Funeral, American Carrie’s (Andie MacDowall) famously cheesy line, “Is it still raining, I hadn’t noticed?” puts the seal on her romance with bumbling but charming British Charles (Hugh Grant) and secures the star-crossed lovers a future.

The actors were reportedly freezing during the rain rigged shoot. Rigs often rely on using cold water and multiple takes.

8. Magnolia (2000)

Magnolia’s frenzied collective experience of a thunderstorm of frogs will forever capture the imagination of the more surreally minded. In this scene, rain symbolises the universal chaos of life and binds disparate characters into a shared reckoning.

9. The Notebook (2004)

The physical brutality of heavy rain underscores heartbreak, loss and forgiveness in decades-spanning The Notebook as Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams’ separated lovers Noah and Allie reunite after family has dictated their separation.

A sweepingly romantic scene in a sleeper hit turned cult favourite, the downpour legitimises emotional excess — tears indistinguishable from rain.

10. Blade Runner (1982)

The demand of three of the most challenging filming elements — smoke, night shoots and rain — had the crew of Ridley Scott’s futuristic dystopian Blade Runner christen the film “Blood Runner” as 50 nights of filming in constant artificial rain took a physical, mental and logistical toll.

Whether depicting disorder or harmony, life-enhancing joy or unprecedented destruction, rain remains a valuable visual medium and narrative tool for filmmakers.

The writer is Course Leader, BA (Hons) Screenwriting and Deputy Course Leader & Senior Lecturer, BA (Hons) Film Production at the University of Portsmouth in the UK

Republished from The Conversation

Published in Dawn, ICON, February 22nd, 2026

Source link