Why Mukhtar Mai Matters

Recently I was reading an essay in the newspaper about Mukhtar Mai, the woman from Meerwalla who was gang-raped as “punishment” for a crime she never committed. This story has received attention all around the world, and has been the catalyst for some very important changes in not only the area of Pakistan that she comes from, but in Pakistani society in general. However, I was astounded to read that some people consider Mukhtar a shameless attention-seeker, who is using what happened to her as a means of obtaining fame and money, as well as darkening the image of Pakistan in the world media.

When Mukhtar Mai was gang-raped by virtue of a sentence handed down by a jirga, a tribal court that functions outside of the law, but is the basis of most legal proceedings outside of urban areas in the country, she had two choices, as she has explained many times to the paper: she could either suffer in silence, which would probably have led to her committing suicide, or she could fight back. Some extraordinary courage in her, some nameless fury and rage, made her choose to fight. And fight she did, taking her rapists to court and obtaining death sentences against several of them.

But her fight extended beyond revenge; she began to use the money and gifts she was receiving as donations to build a girls’ school in Meerwalla and to bring a voice to the women of her village, who had never dared to speak out before against the injustices and cruelty they faced at the hands of the sadists who double as “the powers that be” in that part of the world.

Mukhtar’s fight is far from over. In a move that made headlines across the world, the Lahore High Court recently overturned the death sentences against the offenders and allowed them to go free. The Shariat Court and then the Supreme Court stepped in and gave their opinions in the form of conflicting verdicts and ever more confusing sentences, arrest warrants, and bails for the accused. In the meantime, the government claimed to have sent thirty policemen to Mukhtar’s village in the name of protection, but few have actually taken up their new posts.

And yet, in the face of this opposition, which is undoubtedly life-threatening, Mukhtar Mai has never once backed down from her fight for justice, and something more than justice: enlightenment. She wants to use the tragedy that happened to her as a way of educating people. She is not ashamed anymore of the fact that she was raped in front of a hundred villagers and walked home by her father in front of the jeering mobs, proving that a woman can recover from rape or assault and go on to live a life of dignity and productivity. She is telling the people of Pakistan that there is no shame in being the victim of a sex crime of the worst magnitude. If she succeeds in any of these tasks, she will have engineered a revolution of the kind that nobody will be likely to forget: a social revolution in which women no longer have to play silent prisoners of the tribal codes and village ways that have kept them in chains for so long.

The lawyer for the five alleged rapists, Malik Saleem, has stated to the press that Mukhtar’s case was “blown out of proportion… (received) undue attention of national and international media”. He said, “Not a single case got as much projection as Mukhtar Mai’s,” even though over a thousand women were abducted, injured or murdered in southern Punjab in roughly the same time period.

But media attention is exactly what Mukhtar Mai wants, and for all the right reasons. She knows that if she had kept quiet about what happened to her, or even worse, convenienced her rapists by killing herself, these crimes would be allowed to go on in perpetuity. Instead, she has decided to take up the fight against “outdated and unIslamic customs and traditions” as she stated on International Woman’s Day this year. Mukhtar Mai is showing here that she is no victim, but a woman who has been forced to become educated herself in the ways of the world. She has chosen to fight fire with fire, as the saying goes, and she is not afraid of getting burned. If the media, and foreign governments, and money, will help her get her message across, so be it. There are few women in Pakistan amongst the many victims of rape who are willing to let their lives and personal dignity be an open book to the rest of the world; fewer still who are displaying the kind of ferocious courage that Mukhtar possesses.

For this reason, Mukhtar Mai matters. She matters to every man, woman, and child of Pakistan, because she is proving herself to be the kind of role model that we need: someone from the underprivileged, downtrodden rural areas of Pakistan, a woman who was trying to live her life peacefully before this senseless attack transformed it forever and turned her into someone with a cause, albeit one that is never voluntarily adopted. Like all worthy role models, she is not afraid to give her life to this cause, but she believes that her life is not over; in fact, it is just beginning. Usually we in Pakistan expect the rich to champion the cause of the poor, we expect men to champion the cause of women, and adults to champion the cause of children. Mukhtar Mai is bucking the trend by being a woman who is ready to champion herself. She ranks up among other women like Mother Theresa and Aung Sang Suu Kyi, Rosa Parks, and even Joan of Arc, women of conscience with an extreme sensibility for a type of justice that is painted in black and white, with no shades of gray.

Instead of doubting her motives and causing her more pain, it is incumbent upon Pakistanis of every age, gender, and social class to take her to our hearts and defend her with our lives. We could not protect her from the savage attack, which was enacted in order to restore the honor of the Mastoi tribe. Instead, it was an attack which took away the honor of every Pakistani. None of us should be able to rest until we restore it to ourselves by restoring it to Mukhtar Mai. Only then will any of us be able to hold our heads up to the rest of the world, to our future generations, and to ourselves.