Food For Thought For Those Worried About Islam Smothering Feminism
Posted: March 27, 2012 Filed under: Political | Tags: Feminism, Homosexuality, Islam, Religion, Secularism, SexGenderBody, Taliban 1 Comment »Excerpt from: http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/4506/the-uprisings-will-be-gendered
A second prevailing mode of framing, gendering, and politicizing the uprisings is the fear of Islamists. As Islamists gain ground in Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria concerns over their potential gender policies continue to fester. While such concerns and interest are certainly important, why do they gain such momentous traction only when it comes to Islamists? After all, have non-Islamist Arab political parties and powers had such wonderful and progressive gender policies all this time? This selective fear of Islamists rests on familiar assumptions about Islam (scary) secularism (redemptive and progressive) and other religions (huh?).
Thus the victory of Islamists in Egypt’s elections is cause for anxiety (about what they might do) among international feminists and gender activists, in addition to groups and individuals such as The Center for Secular Space and Hillary Clinton. But spitting on eight-year-old girls or stoning women (yes, stoning) who violate the gender code of Orthodox Judaism is a headline, not a discourse on women’s rights and patriarchy in Israel or in Judaism. But I am sure that if women were stoned and/or spit on in he streets of Homs for not wearing the hijab it would be about Islam and about the dangers that the Syrian uprising poses to Syrian women. Similarly, the victory of Islamists in Tunisian elections is scary because of what they may do in regards to women’s and LGBTQ rights. But Rick Santorum’s bible-fueled anti-woman and anti-gay campaign/crusade says nothing about the gender politics of Christianity. Traboulsi also makes the important point that now that they are in power, Islamists will actually be held accountable for all the fantastical promises they have made for decades. We will now get to see, for example, if Islam, or this brand of it, is truly the answer to a chronically clogged sewage system in Cairo.
Gender equality and justice should be a focus of progressive politics no matter who is in power. A selective fear of Islamists when it comes to women’s and LGBTQ rights has more to do with Islamophobia than a genuine concern with gender justice. Unfortunately, Islamists do not have an exclusive license to practice patriarchy and gender discrimination/oppression in the region. The secular state has been doing it fairly adequately for the last half a century.
Anger at Sana Safinaz ad misses the forest for the trees
Posted: March 14, 2012 Filed under: Political | Tags: Economic Development, Marx, Pakistan, The Left 19 Comments »
On the subaltern voice:
Behind my office, there are these train tracks where this man has been sitting in the exact same position for nearly two months now. Whenever I look, he’s sitting there mumbling softly to himself. When I leave work around 6 p.m. he’s still there looking blankly at nothing in particular. I have all these questions that I have never asked him. Where do you eat? Do you sleep? What’s your story? Where is your family? What happens when the weather gets too hot? Why aren’t you going home? Do you have a home? It breaks my heart for a flicker of a second and then I look away.
There are millions in Karachi alone who exist in extreme poverty unable to afford a meal or shelter, victims of inexplicable violence, social injustice and structural inequality. Then there are those who exist as labour, as drivers, as cooks, as photocopy boys, as sweepers, as guards, as loaders. Employed but voiceless and invisible. Adding value and production in our society but whose lives and survival is mostly of little value and meaning. There are probably millions of stories they can tell. If they could speak. If they were allowed to speak. Even if they spoke, even if someone sat muted in protest outside your office every single day, what are the chances that you will pay heed and listen? Would you drive away like I do?
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The coolie and the LV:
This ad campaign by high-end Pakistani designers Sana&Safinaz released recently caused a lot of indignation. The cause of these hurt sentiments is the stark juxtaposition of the extreme rich with the poor that they trample and climb on to become rich in the first place. The designers had chosen to advertise their clothes placing a glamorous, sexy model next to railway laborers who are carrying her Louis Vuitton luggage. The offense is the marketing campaign that was selected, not the economic inequality itself. The marketing executive would argue that it portrays reality and it wouldn’t be too far off the mark.
The fact is that textile owners have raked in millions in profit in the last 3 years by improving design and material but it hasn’t resulted in improved lives for the hundreds of thousands of cotton pickers, textile workers or paperboys diligently delivering design catalogs door-to-door. Why, just last summer 250.000 (!!) of textile workers marched and picketed in Faisalabad for better wages and managed to secure a 17% raise. Why aren’t these extraordinary sales and profits trickling down? A friend has documented the bloody reality of cotton pickers along with her thoughts on lawn in two parts here and here. She has documented in detail the dehumanizing conditions and near slavery cotton pickers including women workers are kept in.
The ire at the advertisement misses the point. It’s the proverbial forest and the trees. The anger needs to be redirected to the producers and the designers who refuse to share their millions with the very people who spend 16 hours a day ensuring the production is on time so that Junaid Jamshed can have his lawn exhibition in January instead of the usual March! If you must boycott Sana & Safinaz, you should also boycott Gul Ahmed, Junaid Jamshed, Al-Zohaib and the dozens of designers who are making big bucks while keeping wretched conditions in their textile mills.
The real tragedy is that there are many women who will buy multiple lawn suits Rs 5000 and 7000 with zero regard to the women in Khairpur who stood in the blazing July sun picking cotton and live on Rs 50 a day. There is no moral superiority in being outraged at an advertisement if you cannot be outraged at the women who buy and wear these suits, the textile owners who enrich themselves and deny their workers decent wages and a safe working environment, and the violent economic injustice that is deeply embedded in our society.
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Will provide wi-fi for food:
Meanwhile, in another part of the world, they are considering turning homeless people into wi-fi spots. Many have protested at using homeless people in such a way. Without going into that, I offer wise words from ZunguZungu that pretty much sum up what I’m trying to say but succinctly and eloquently:
Move Over Maya Khan/Samaa, There Are Other Assholes In Town
Posted: January 30, 2012 Filed under: Political | Tags: Homosexuality, Media, Pakistan, SexGenderBody, Sexual Harassment 34 Comments »A shocking video surfaced last week of a TV show in which a morning show host went around in parks catching boys and girls hanging out alone (probably dating discreetly and understandably so) in parks. It caused appropriate outrage, petitions were filed, open letters were written, parodies were made. Maya Khan got fired from Samaa. Fantastic.This sort of activism in Pakistan gives even the worst of cynics hope.
But the problem is bigger than this particular show and this particularly dim-witted morning show host. Actually, the problem can be far more insidious and downright dangerous. The tentacles of this monster that we have ourselves nurtured are so widespread and engulfing that most TV channels now assume a carte blanche in acting as lawyers, judge and jury wherever they please.
Not all of it can be dismissed innocuous trashy entertainment by ratings-hungry media. Sometimes it is serious consequences. Sometimes the lives it endangers can face serious persecution by the state especially in a country that offers no legal protection based on sexual orientation.
What am I talking about? This little TV show hosted by this slimey, self-righteous anchor Shamoon Abbasi on this mostly unknown channel called A Plus:
In a particularly fucked up series, this man goes around installing cameras in people’s rooms to catch them in the middle of homosexual activity (I’m cringing and shaking with anger even as I type this) on the behest of their parents. These good upstanding folks team up with the poor family worried about their kid to harass, insult, demonize and physically assault boys and girls who are caught confessing their attraction for the same sex.
Exhibit A: Outing Lesbians
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Exhibit B: Outing Gays
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This is appalling. No, scratch that. It is monstrous. Shamoon Abbasi should be thrown to the crocodiles for this. It is absolutely reckless.
It is ominous that this happens in a country that offers zero protection to its sexual minorities and is perfectly happy rendering all us of invisible. It is worse than being a totalitarian surveillance state. Might as well have CCTVs inside our fucking toilets.
Will we see a unity of cause again to get rid of Shamoon Abbasi and his wretched show? Will A Plus also have to do away with its production team? Will any lawyer file a petition? Will there be thousands of signatures on an online petition? Are you going to be just as pissed and share it amongst your friends? How do we publicly shame A Plus? I don’t know. I have a sinking feeling that while dating in parks is an issue that cuts across classes and causes rage in all and sundry, persecution of gays and lesbians is something a lot of people will relish and condone.
I hope I’m wrong.
[Note: I don't if this staged / entirely fake though I can't image who in their right minds would sign up for something like this.]
Credit goes to @weareourdesires for finding out about this show and painstakingly locating these videos.
The Changing Archetype of Beauty
Posted: January 27, 2012 Filed under: Political | Tags: Feminism, SexGenderBody 2 Comments »
Pakistan’s Transgender Community Faces Continued Challenges In Attaining Citizenship
Posted: January 26, 2012 Filed under: Political | Tags: Feminism, Media, Pakistan, Rants, SexGenderBody, Sexual Harassment Leave a comment »Yesterday the Express Tribune reported:
The transgender community in Punjab saw new hope on Wednesday as their voter registration began, and Computerised National Identity Cards (NIC) were issued by National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra), reported Express News.
At least 21 votes were registered and 25 NICs were issued to members of the transgender community in Rawalpindi.
Several transgender activists have been fighting this battle for over 3 years now, and it’s been nearly a year since the Supreme Court issued a notice to register khwaja siras* as citizens of Pakistan. It’s been an impossible task with insurmountable challenges at every step; one of the demands from NADRA at the outset was that every person that applies for a third gender in their National Identity Cards has to sign up for a medical exam that determines their sex. Such unacceptably invasive requirements were met with resistance by the khwaja sira community and repeated meetings with the Social Welfare Department along with endless hearings at the Supreme Court often ended inconclusively.
So when this news came out yesterday I was shocked and elated. At long last justice prevails! I immediately called Bindiya Rana, focal person of Gender Interactive Alliance and a dear friend. Bindiya was livid. Not only had no National Identity Cards been issued, most of the khwaja siras who had spent a lot of money and gone to Rawalpindi to finally claim their citizenship had to face yet another series of impossible requirements.
One of those requirements was to produce NIC copies of their father and mother along with B form! It doesn’t take a genius to understand that the khwaja sira community is made of people shunned by their families at a very early age and they usually have no contact with people who gave birth to them. Instead of asking for their biological parents NICs, they suggested submitting NICs of their gurus who for all practical purposes are their caretakers and guardians.
In a follow-up news report by the Express Tribune today, it says:
Farzana, the president of the Shemale Association in Peshawar, says that, with the government reluctant to issue NICs with the name of the guru, there is little hope that the people of her community will be registered. “Whether in legal or social matters, it’s the guru that’s responsible,” she says.
While efforts by the Chief Justice are appreciated, the oft-debilitating bureaucracies need to understand that they recognize an alternative, marginalized society’s rights they will have to go the extra mile to ensure that there particular needs and concerns are paid heed to. If NADRA cannot be flexible about substituting documents of biological parents with those of the Guru, it will unfortunately be denying citizenship to as many as 10% of Pakistanis.
The Express Tribune’s reporter Rabia Mehmood summarises some additional problems faced by the transgender community in this video below:
* Khwaja Sira is a term with which a majority of transgender people in Pakistan identify with. Some also self-identify as hijras. Only wretched legal jargon (which is also employed by the media) employs the archaic, offensive misnomers such as eunuchs or she-males.
Shockingly Sexist Ads That Are Allowed Today
Posted: January 9, 2012 Filed under: Political | Tags: Feminism, Media, Pakistan, SexGenderBody 13 Comments »I came across this list of 48 Shockingly Sexist Ads That Would Never Be Allowed Today a few days ago on a friend’s Facebook profile. Granted it is a list of American ads but I momentarily found myself appreciating how long we have come and the accomplishments of various women’s movements. It wasn’t long before I realized how wrong I was. Sexism is very much an integral part of our entire advertising industry and is abundantly evidenced in any random sample of ads.
I will elaborate but first a little hate for my colleagues and cohorts from IBA, CBM, LUMS and business schools elsewhere.
Getting hired by a corporation as Brand Manager or Marketing Executive, whether a local or foreign one, is pretty impressive and supposedly a Pretty Big Deal. Most companies that have big budgets for marketing have fancy hiring policy whereby candidates with an impeccable academic record go through a few rounds of interviews and standardized tests. The work is exciting and advertising agencies attract a lot of fun, creative type of people. Apparently.
What I fail to understand then is why all of these erudite MBA types combined with cultural artsy types continue to perpetuate the worst manifestations of sexism on Pakistani television. The lazy stereotypes and vapid conclusions are so glaringly obvious that a deeper analysis isn’t even necessary. There seems to be some sort of a checklist that all these marketing whiz kids adhere to which goes something like this:
1. Cooking, cleaning, looking after children is a woman’s job.
2. Men are the sole providers of income.
3. All women spend most of their time at home doing the aforementioned tasks.
4. What bothers women the most is how clean their husbands shirts are, how quickly the dishes can be done and how to impress/avoid mother-in-law from hell.
5. Men like women who are samajhdaar about housework.
The money spent to get these folks a business degree and an education in life is a colossal waste. They are illiterate in the true sense of the world: having no critical thinking faculties to examine trends around them or to analyze their own work. Why else would someone who has been through 20 years of schooling believe in illogical heuristics from the early 1900s.
Here is some of the evidence selected from the sample of ads that are on air currently.
1. The Samajhdaar Aurat.
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2. The Bickering Aunties Collective or Kitty Party As The Sole Social Activity
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3. The Sahir Lodhi Endorsed Detergent Makes Your Tablecloth Cleaner
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4. The Faisal Qureshi Endorsed Toilet Cleaner Because Women Just Can’t Get Enough Of Cleaning Stuff
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5. The Girl As The Potential Wife Who Will Fuck Up In Front Of Her Suitor And Embarrass Her Family
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6. The Husband As The Caring Provider Whose Gifts Reflect His Expectations
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The PTI Rally in Karachi Or Democracy Is Alive And Well In Pakistan But Not Really
Posted: December 26, 2011 Filed under: Political | Tags: Army, Economic Development, Karachi, Pakistan, PPP, PTI 9 Comments »I went to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) rally yesterday not because I’m a supporter but because I needed some inspiration. It’s been a tough year for Karachi with target killings and strikes reaching record highs in some months. It’s far too easy to be cynical because Karachi offers you a lot to be angry about and little to celebrate. There was, however, a lot to celebrate at the Mazar-e-Quaid yesterday.
The diversity, energy and will to change in the 150,000+ crowd were reasons enough to gladden the hearts of even the most hardened of skeptics. Without going into what this all means for Pakistan (because it is still quite wishy-washy and feel-good rhetoric), I’m going to share some of the photographs I took with my mediocre mobile phone camera along with some brief notes and observations.
I cannot stress enough how amazing it was that the people gathered there were from all kinds of classes, backgrounds and ideological leanings. From the very religious imams and tableegh jamaats to the working class, from the bankers to the businessmen from Dubai, from the students to the teachers, from the women to even some khwaja siras, it was truly the most impressive mix of Karachiites. This in a city that is so deeply divided and where political congregation is either exclusively MQM, exclusively Balochi or exclusively Jamati..
..and with that diversity comes all sorts of mini movements such as the Free Aafia Movement. As my friends Shaheryar Mirza and Arsalan Khan observed, however, this movement was not led by tableeghis, jamaatis or any of the ‘scary beards and burqas’. The people holding up placards were mostly beardless young(ish) men, presumably folks from Pasban-e-Pakistan (student wing of Jamat-e-Islami).
Another shot of the inqilaabi dudes makes me pause on the term inqilaab (revolution). I don’t want to piss on anyone’s aspirations and desires for change but Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Javed Hashmi, Jahangir Tareen and bordering-on-authoritarian Imran Khan do not represent grass-roots revolutionaries to me. It is far too top-down and domineering to be a liberating movement. The PTI has to be more transparent in its internal democratic processes and avoid propping up another one man fiefdom. While it has changed the political landscape for now, a revolution this isn’t. A helpful strategy would be to include more women and working class in powerful leadership positions.
Waiting for hours for the Messiah himself to show up and speak.
..Some more waiting. Seating was adequate for those who arrived early and most people were more than happy to give up their seats for women and the elderly.
How many times do you get to see really cute grandmas holding placards in Karachi that read “Zardari chor, jaan chhoR“? Lovely.
Another beautiful moment in the rally was when Imran Khan arrived and they released hundreds of red and green balloons in the clear Karachi skies.
A silent revelry as Salman Ahmad takes the stage to lip-sync Jazba-e-Junoon..
As the sun sets, the numbers increase exponentially. The PTI flag is aloft, the Pakistan flags are few and far between.
And some more assorted photos below:
Some final thoughts when I was leaving the rally:
- I dislike and distrust Shah Mehmood Qureshi. His feudal background and nationalist anger always made me uneasy but his lusty praise for Pakistan’s nuclear program and his dangerous refusal to sign a “No First Strike” deal with India makes me positively livid. Imran Khan will have to curb his ego and his war-mongering glee. I’m afraid it won’t be easy because Qureshi sees himself has above PTI and perhaps above Imran Khan as well.
- While Imran Khan as made peace with MQM at the moment, it does leave the latter in a precarious position. Whether this means a shift of power in Karachi remains to be seen but it will make a dent in ANP-MQM nexus.
- I don’t see how the PTI will make serious revisions in Pakistan’s fiscal budget. Concepts such as increasing taxation and foreign investment sound simple enough but will we ever see a cut in Pakistan’s defense budget? Will he be able to bring Pakistan’s military forces under the control of the elected government? Will he be affirm against this burgeoning anti-India right-wing rhetoric that has given our army orgasms for decades? The army question is ultimately the key question if Pakistan is to become serious about issues such as welfare, income inequality and job creation.
- I find PPP fans really irritating now. Saying Imran Khan copies Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto is nauseating. That was decades ago. Get over it. They were popular and charming and fucked up. Get over it. If I end up supporting PTI in the future and thirty years down the road I still treat Imran Khan like a Messiah who could have saved Pakistan, you all have the license to shoot me.
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As for me, I’ll probably still vote for the Pakistan Labour Party but that’s just me.
This Blog Should Really Be Called Clinton Screams Pakistan Should Do More…
Posted: October 24, 2011 Filed under: Political Leave a comment »… in honour of scary Clinton demanding all kinds of action and threatening all kinds of repercussions if Pakistan fails to do more this week.
Photos From Pre-Partition Pakistan
Posted: October 14, 2011 Filed under: Political 3 Comments »I’m not sure if everyone has seen these photos before. Someone e-mailed them to me and this was the first time I’d come across these wonderful gems from the 19th century Pakistan. I cannot vouch for the authenticity of these captions either. I’ve copy-pasted them verbatim from the e-mail. If everyone has evidence to the contrary, please do share!
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Gilani Says Obama Should Do More
Posted: September 16, 2011 Filed under: Humour, Political | Tags: Do More, Pakistan, US Politics 1 Comment »In a moment of uncanny chutzpah, our esteemed Gilani sahab called upon the United States to do more for Pakistan.
“Now it’s the time that they should do more,” the Prime Minister told reporters after attending a ceremony at a girls college here.
If you can read between the lines what he really meant was that Pakistan cannot do more and should not be forced into doing what it clearly cannot do.
He said Pakistan during the last decade had sacrificed much in battling the menace of terrorism and emphasised that it should not be pressurised to do more.
Courtesy: the ever-vigilant @mirza9
