Paul Kelman < سجن > ظفریاب احمد > مضمون>

Paul Kelmen
A Teacher of Zafaryab Ahmed at Manchester University talks about him

Zafaryab’s death is tragic not only because he died so young but because he died demoralised by the main direction of political developments in Pakistan and globally and by his own personal situation.  During his period of exile in the US he was often lonely and despairing.  It was a very different Zafaryab that was in Manchester in the late 1970s, Though sometimes even in the bleakest some of that sparkle, warmth and infectious laughter would surface. He came to Manchester from student political activism.  Form those days of haranguing large crowds Zafaryab got used to talking, even in the presence of a few people and in a small room several decibels lauder than necessary.  His plan was to study with Hamza Alavi, a distinguished Marxist scholar, who taught in Manchester at the time and sadly died a couple of years ago.  Hamza and his wife did their best to make Zafaryab feel at home but tensions developed because Hamza wanted him to undertake an ambitious programme of reading the classical texts of sociology and Marxism and for a militant, with still the excitement of the street in his veins that seemed dry and ivory tower-like. So Hamza asked me to take over Zafaryab’s supervision for an MA.  I came from a not dissimilar background of student activism only a few years earlier so it was not difficult to find an immediate rapport and friendship.  And gradually Zafaryab did read quite widely.  He had a mastery of English that was exceptional and wrote well. Within a short time he made contact with anti-racist activists, with people involved in various Third World solidarity campaign and with student politics.  Zafaryab enjoyed himself but also learnt a lot, contributed to debates and discussions and formed close friendships.  He was during his student period here part of a group of political friends. On his return to Pakistan he taught first and then went into journalism but he kept up contact with several of us in the UK. He came to Manchester on a visit in 1993.  It was a very different political environment from the one he had left but Zararyab brought back some of the excitement and hope of earlier times. With characteristic loyalty he looked up the previous friends that he could trace and even brought together many of us who, though living in the same country, had become separated and lost contact.
For the following years I would hear from Zarfaryab only rarely and generally through brief cryptic notes.  When he became exiled in the US the phone calls at first became much more frequent. He complained of being isolated and was often depressed.  Perhaps if he could have come to the UK and be among old friends some of the old Zafaryab could have been restored.   There was an idealism about him which made it difficult for him to live in an unforgiving political environment but we would all have been poorer if he had not been like that.