Pakistan, as we were reminded with the sorrowful news of Qandeel Baloch’s murder a few weeks ago, is not a country that rewards women for taking an active role in their destiny.
Few
countries are, mind you, but Pakistan can be more brutal, more flagrant
in its utter contempt for women than most. Feminism is still considered
the preserve of women too plain to ‘snag’ husbands, or to people who
give it more credit, a tool of the West to undermine the happy Muslim
family unit. It is a testament to our low expectations of Pakistani men
that the media reported with an air of pleasant surprise that Qandeel’s father actually wanted to see his son convicted for her murder.
With
her public profile which continued to divide public opinion even after
her death, Qandeel inspired, at least in the English press, an
unprecedented reflection, the sorry state of women in Pakistan, and its
unforgiving, patriarchal mindset where male egos are Aztec gods
requiring regular human sacrifice.
There are so many
instances of rage and brutality against women that the violence of the
details in the ones that make it to the papers; maiming, torture,
murder, is repeated too often to shock. We’re only reading the tip of
the iceberg and still the occurrence is so frequent that it seems to sap
rather than spur resolve for change — bringing on the lethargy of utter
helplessness.
Qandeel’s death reminded me of another
woman who didn’t let societal convention stand between her and the kind
of life she wanted. Veena Malik, who posed allegedly nude (she insists
her underwear was photoshopped out) on the cover of Indian FHM magazine in 2011.
Numerous
righteous Pakistanis bayed for her blood while also frantically
googling her bosom. It is hard to say which activity accorded them
greater pleasure. Scoffed at by an elite who sing a different tune when
it’s a Hollywood star nude on the cover of Vanity Fair, Malik’s own
father wanted to have her arrested, and in retrospect one considers that
it’s quite good of him to at least abide by the letter of the law,
flimsy as it is, and not just kill her himself.
It is a testament to our low expectations of Pakistani men that the media reported with an air of pleasant surprise that Qandeel’s father actually wanted to see his son convicted for her murder.
In a moment of what would have been high comedy in a less
sinister country, the then interior minister stepped in to decide what
action was to be taken against her. It is her good fortune that she had
the means to escape — means not available to Qandeel.
In Taliban-occupied Swat, it was the bullet-ridden body of the dancer Shabana
displayed in Mingora’s central square that quashed any signs of
defiance Swat’s citizenry may have considered showing. Shabana was
killed for ignoring warnings from the Taliban to give up her sole means
of supporting herself; through dance performances at private gatherings.
It is hard to say whether Shabana’s death would have elicited a similar
amount of horror had she been shot not by the Taliban but by a male
relative.
Women who step out of the ever-narrowing bounds
of propriety aren’t often accorded such wholehearted sympathy.
Certainly not dancers and other such purveyors of temptation who might
give people ideas. To be the unwilling recipient of sexualised attention
is to be expected and born without complaint, but to wield feminine
wiles knowingly is unacceptable. One keeps reading that Pakistan is at
war with the Taliban, only it’s just hard to tell who’s who sometimes.
The only Pakistani woman I can think of who not just survived her deliciously scurrilous private life in the public sphere was the late great Malika-e-Tarannum, Noor Jehan.
While the line between ‘conservative’ Pakistanis and
militants seems to be just a matter of facial hair and firearms,
Pakistani liberals too aren’t quite what you’d hope. As has often been
remarked, the term liberal has been usurped, along with much else in the
country, by an elite who confuse being progressive with the ownership
of a cocktail shaker and a social life involving women in body-con
dresses.
This is the same liberal elite who routinely
police women in their own circle, beat their wives, set as a condition
of love a woman’s complete submission to their interests and priorities,
and find in sexism and body shaming (while themselves settling into the
comfort of obesity) the fodder for loud, thigh-slapping humour.
They’re
happy to extend unqualified sympathy to the female victims of jirgas,
who could never aspire in any way to undermine their power, but their
own ex-girlfriends are still stupid sluts and when a friend’s wife
leaves alleging cruelty and domestic abuse, we’re told there are “two
sides to the story.”
You should have seen the liberals take a swing at Zahra Haider, a girl who wrote a piece in Vice
about the lack of sexual freedom in Pakistan saying, quite rightly, “if
a woman from a middle-class family or underprivileged background is
caught having premarital sex, serious shit goes down.” When she revealed
that in spite of the rigors of the morality brigade she’d had a number
of sexual partners in Pakistan, the same people who posit themselves as
spirited defenders of women’s rights slammed this honest young girl as a
“bad example” and “promiscuous”, a word which desperately needs to be
retired, along with the people who use it.
The only
Pakistani woman I can think of who not just survived her deliciously
scurrilous private life in the public sphere was the late great
Malika-e-Tarannum, Noor Jehan. I don’t know if we were a different
country then, or if she was pardoned the human impulse for desire on the
basis of her phenomenal talent (it’s too much to ask for women to be
musical geniuses to accord them the respect men get for free).
I
just always loved that of the women behemoths Umm Kulthum, Lata
Mangeshkar and Noor Jehan, who were the beloved official voices of
Egypt, India and Pakistan respectively, ours was the only one who was
also a cheeky, irreverent, unapologetic sexpot. If I hadn’t seen it
myself, I’d not believe it today.
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