Disgracing women the Taliban way

Regarding the alleged flogging incident of a young woman in Swat. The video horrified everyone here and abroad. Whether TV channels should have aired it or not is also a debatable point.

Should the Taliban be solely held responsible for disgracing women or should we blame society at large? What about the women who have been disgraced at the hands of the feudals of Sindh, Chaudhries of Punjab, Sardars of Balochistan, Khans of the Frontier and by many others who are immersed in the same mentality in the urban areas of the country.

Have we forgotten the incident of the ‘naked parade’ of a woman by the Chaudhries of Nawabpur in the 80s? We could not have even aired the video of that incident, followed by series of many such incidents in the 80s. However, there was no a hue and cry in the West on these incidents.

Those were the days when these Talibs like Mujahideen were the ‘darlings of the West’. Disgracing women in such a way was not a threat to the US or the West, but to Pakistani society alone.

The anger today in the West is not against the disgrace to women but against the Taliban for political reasons. Perhaps we all have to pay the price today for turning these Talibs (students) into militants. Let’s not blame the students but their teachers that comprise the Americans, our own establishment and the political leadership which calls itself ‘secular liberal’, the PPP.

How can we forget what happened to a Pashtun girl in Karachi and how the couple left the country? Was the culprit who was responsible for burying five women alive ever punished? Have the government and Parliament taken any action or even condemned the senator in the parliament? Also, a federal minister, enjoying a high profile position, was allegedly responsible for disgracing a minor girl, though he denied it.

There is a kind of people in this society who do not believe in printing the name of the bride even on her wedding card and, mind it, such people not only claim themselves to be ‘liberal’ but also ‘secular’.

The incident should remind the highly acclaimed journalists of a sitting ambassador who today claims to be a very liberal and against the Taliban, but introduced the same kind of law at the Karachi University in the 80s. A high -profile woman was disgraced when hundreds of her pictures with the former US president were dropped from an aircraft.

Times have changed and so has politics. Yesterday’s extremists have become liberal today, enjoying high-profile positions, and the liberals of yesterday died as martyrs and as Islamic clerics (there are quite a few examples).

Yes, the Taliban have their own definition of Islam and they have their own way of implementing it, which is not even acceptable to many religious parties in the country, what to talk of liberals. It’s very important that we should all observe the making of the Talib blossoming into the creation of the Taliban, the political dynamics and repercussions and the threats that ensue in our corrupt society.

From public flogging to naked parades taking place, from selling minor girls to settling disputes, getting women married to the Holy Quran or burning them in domestic violence: women in our society still struggle to get respect. And it’s not confined to Pakistan only; research will show how women are ill-treated in rural areas of India as well.

ASAD QURESHI