Behind the Iron Purdah

Re: # 81

hahahaha, I am the right person to ask that question, because that is a part of my profession!!! We are still finding solutions for problems like these in urban areas throughout the world, but till now we have come up with a few solutions. traffic management in cities is a very vast topic and cannot be summed up in a few lines ..... since it is connected to so many other factors .... that everything needs to be looked at in a broader perspective first ........ hmmmm..... sounds familiar?

Allright here are some basic things we can do to solve the problem you state ......(but I am afraid, this will lead us onto a tangent all together and start a new topic for discussion):

1. Impose fines (connected to the assumption that traffic police won`t take bribes)

2. Look at the traffic system of the city as a whole and try to see if we can reduce grid-lock and jams to ease the traffic. More easier traffic, make people follow the rules better.

3. Have clear signs and make driving and licensing a very serious issue. Like repeal licence after three warnings .......... sending them back to traffic schools, etc.

4. Fir and fore-most spruce up the trafic management sysstem and training of cops before it can be implemented. Like proper striping of roads, well coordinated traffic lights,etc.

5. One radical idea proposed by someone was to do away with traffic lights altogether, because it was found that street intersections where there were no traffic lights had lesser accidents than intersections that had traffic lights.

6. Design roadways and streets that are more firendly to drivers and provide nice wide sidewalks for pedestrians. Because the cities in ancient South Asia grew organically without any central planners and were not designed for motor vehicles, but for bullock carts and walking. American cities on the other hand were specifically designed with the motor vehicle in mind. But you have many traffic violations there too.

7 .there are variousother techniques of traffic calming and I will be glad to discuss those with you.

It`s a very deep subject and encompasses the whole field of city planning and urban planning.

I could have gone into the psychology of the mindset of the drivers and stuff like that ......... but you specifically told me to stay away from all that .....

- Samir Shaikh

re#83:
look at this from the article itself ``On the one hand, we are mothers, daughters, and sisters, the most respected beings according to our religion;

this can also be taken into account as a subtle attempt at confining women into religously (synonymous to MEN) defined ``ROLES``. The writer is buying this line with a straight face. Hamzaad pointed this out in his #6 and got filtered by chowkstaff.


samirfs: thanks for replying.

Re: # 79
{Hairaan Hoon kay Ro`oon ya Peetoon Jigar Ko main
Maqdoor ho to saath aik NohaaGar ko Rukhoon Main..}

I am not sure if this a compliment or a reprimand?

- SS

Ok I tried to read all the replies posted after my last post but gave up...its late and a crappy way to spend a Friday night na.

I think the point that I was trying to make is that women are treated badly in Pakistan, but Pakistan is no different that any other country for its social ills. Each society faces their own demons. Rural india...female infanticide and bride burning for starters, hello? Anyhow, I could be looking through rose colored glasses because I wasn`t raised in Pakistan but love it as my native country. But I can comment on the the plights of women in this country because I`ve dealt with battered women in my work and personal life many times. Yes its true a woman here can go to the police when she`s been attacked...but after that she often has to go to a shelter. At this point I know so many women who are always looking for a roof to hide under that it makes me shudder. I`ve gotten too many calls from women who have no where to go after their man has beaten them and thrown them out. I can`t speak for women in Pakistan but it seems that there is always family somewhere out there that will, if nothing else, allow you to crawl into a corner, even if just to waste away.
I think it just pained me to see such a focused attack on one country, my country, without acknowledging that those of the female persuasion have it tough everywhere. Even if you want to argue women in the US have it great, for the sake of argument, consider how long it took American social politics to get that far...and how old is Pakistan?

Ok, one more thing, and this is something I`ve noticed in my personal life and now here as well. Why is it that other Muslims have more issues and objections to a woman wearing hijab than non-Muslims? Its just the strangest thing to me, all of my non-Muslim friends thought it was great when I started wearing it and encouraged me to grow spiritually. But my Pakistani Muslim friends, none of whom wear hijab, were completely against it and have been visibly uncomfortable around me ever since. I`m an independant woman, have a doctorate tucked under my belt, make good moolah, live on my own in a nice little pad, and there is no gun to my head. So why dost thou protest? Be not so narrow minded my friends...

Rabia

Re: # 82 Samir -
interesting thought, but here`s the kicker - in my hometown, modesty means one thing, in my city of residence, modesty means another, and it meant yet another thing in the city where i grew up. as a girl and now a woman, i was expected to and indeed did change with the geography, and still do. this idea of conforming to the society in which you live is not something that is new to women, we`ve been doing it for ages. my mother did it, my grandmother did it and in spite of all my hopes to the contrary, my daughter will also probly do it.

however, with each shift in what was considered ``proper`` behavior and dress code for women, there was a corresponding shift in what men thought permissable to ``eve tease`` like we call it in India. so the nice aunty in a salwar kameez who was my neighbor in delhi would have fielded comments in my little hometown had she cared to follow me south for the summer.

and thats the point i`m trying to make. which i guess you kind of get, but probly will never fully understand because in all probability you`ve never been a girl walking down a street by herself - and i dont mean to sound condescending or patronizing here - and that is that you never know what can happen to you.

its a fairly paranoid existence to be a woman if you actually sat down and thought about it. so most of us dont. we think about it at the back of our minds, but we dont sit and plan our lives around the reactions of the men we might run into in the street, not because it doent matter when someone gets in our face or tries to touch or gets too close, but because in the long run it really doesnt matter.

you learn to take care of yourself, and hope that will be enuff if something really does go wrong.

re: 87

surely spirituality cannot come by wearing some silly headgear!

Nothing typifies the problem with religion more than their pious preachings about modesty.

Undoubtedly, the `fundamental principles` or `values` or `treasures` supposedly hidden behind religious words are often their fundamental absurdities and fundamental inadequacies.

No wonder fundamentalists are in love with them.

Rabia-bibi,

{{I`m a Pakistani-American Muslim women who does the unthinkable and wears hijab because she wants to.}}

Wow! what a ``rebellious`` statement!
....DIMWIT!!!!!!

Just acknowlege the fact that you are Pakistani-AMERICAN...& thank Allah for it...

Y`see in Amrika..you can do all those idiotic ``I have a chip on my shoulder`` things......& get away with it...at the most you would get some dirty looks, if you went to a bar... GASP!!

(hmmm...remind me to go in a frikkin burkha at the next Haloween party at McCormick`s)...

OTOH....if you were a Pakistani-PAKISTANI women....I`d looooove to see you walking into the ...er...SIDE door of a bloomin` mosque...wearing a miniskirt...OK Ok...even blue jeans..

Oooooh! I`d looove to see a goddamned mullah having kittens, when/if he sees you...


{{I feel sorry for my non-Muslim American female counterparts because they have to worry about growing old without companionship and wondering if they will ever have children. I feel secure knowing my rights and knowing there are good Muslim men out there who also know my rights.}}

Yo! bibi-ji...save your sanctimonious pity for your muslim sisters who are ``sold`` into marriage to a dickhead...whether they like him or not...& even let the bum share her with 3 other lucky...er...``sisters``.. in the harem..

y`see...honey...a good muslima woman is not given the opportunity to even have a say in the matter...they are told they are the LUCKY ones...& idiotic women like you actually BUY that crap!...

and please dont go telling us that our Indian women are no better. Compared to Pakistan, Indian women have come a looooong way...thank YOU ..evil Bollywood!:))

while our Paki sisters like Bina Shah have the GUTS to speak out & tell these circumcised Emperors...these Islaam ke mashoor pehelwans...that they aint wearing no clothes...to take a long walk on the short pier of Lake Taliban...DUMBELLS like you have the gall to pity Sarah Jessica Parker & her NYC friends!

Now put your money where your silly mouth is & migrate to the Land of the Pure...you`ll feel quite at home there....

BUTT

one of these days...some other Islaaaam ka mashoor pehelwan mullah...is definitely going to say...hijab is not Islamic ENOUGH...a REAL muslima woman ought to wear a FULL lenght burkha...

...maybe then you could think about being a super-model in Pakistan...walking down a RUN-WAY IN kARACHI...dressed in a raw silk shuttlecock..embriodered in gold...with a Cashmere overall in 100 degree weather...

ONLY THEN...will I be REAL impressed by your BS!

Khuda Hafiz

rabia,

..... it is silly to compare the institutionalized discrimination and abuse of women in pakistan which is supported by the law of the land, with the individual cases of violence against women in america ......... karo-kari, where ayesha`s father and brothers kill her in the middle of the night and then bury her in the fields, is not the same as bubba beating his woman to death in the trailer park .......... bubba goes to jail while ayesha`s brother gets re-elected to parliament ........... see the difference ?????

now your question : ``Why is it that other Muslims have more issues and objections to a woman wearing hijab than non-Muslims? ``.............. because they make us all look silly and set a bad example for our daughters who we are trying to raise as independent women who are not ashamed of their hair ...... besides, it is really not modest when you are also wearing a skin tight pants and pants - someone needs to tell these girls that breasts and buttocks are more arousing than hair ! .......... just as most ``normal`` reform jews are ashamed of their hasidic brethren who run around in funny clothes doing idiotic things like sucking on little boys` penises, we are ashamed of our lunatic fringe ........... unfortunately, our lunatic fringe is too large to ignore .......... hope that answers your question

I pity those American kids who are being brought up as Pakistanis (or Indians) and wonder what the parents of these kids are doing in this country.

What a totally totally misguided frame of mind...I hope it changes before the costs become too high or unbearably painful.

Samir # 84:

first, thanks for responding :) (and that too in good spirits)

i will keep this simple…

without going into myriad of other factors we see that implementing simple traffic laws is a gargantuan task of brobdingnagian proportion…and compared to the thrust of bina’s article…adhering and complying with traffic laws is relatively straightforward

poultry farming at the summit of K-2 appears far easier than inculcating respect for women in my fellow desis

rgds

t

ps: rabia: never said we did not understand what you said!

kaalchakra #93:

don`t waste your pity here

the intra-generation chasm exists worldwide

and more so in immigrants...( read all immigrants)

how is your self-discovery of sikhhism coming along? are you more peaceful and contended?

rabia bibi,

...... hijab is a silly political statement that people like you keep on pushing regardless of the fact that it undermines you as a woman and a human being ..........

`` Irrespective of one`s perspective, the fact remains that the hijab is an instrument of segregation and containment. It marks the Muslim woman for separation and for `different` treatment. Muslims who claim that hijab forces society to treat women in a special way (in terms of security and respect) do not work to ensure that the society has affirmative laws in place to guarantee equal outcomes for women. So, hijab ultimately undermines equal opportunity.

``But the sartorial hijab—with its attendant social practices of segregation, disenfranchisement and marginalisation of women—is only a symptom of a more profound and civilisationally debilitating form of hijab practised by the contemporary Muslim society. What is more significant and needs vigorous confrontation is the epistemological hijab that `good` Muslims insist on imposing on `good` Muslim women. ``


you can read the rest at : http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/fellows/khan20050420.htm

Not as smoothly as I would like to it, Temporal ji. I have missed many visits to the gurudwara of late :(

---

The inter-generation chasm here is of the strange sort. Instead of Americanizing itself and learning something good, the younger generation is running toward the caves (or Canada), as it were.

kaalchakra sahib

i did mention `all` immigrants not singling out any one

and these teething troubles resolve themselves over time

wishing you peace

kaal, temp,

....... our kids will do just fine if we leave them alone and stop pushing our ``values`` on them - our village values are highly over rated and sometimes the imaginary product of nostalgia and ennui ......... it would also help if we stopped embarrassing them in public by wearing sneakers with dress pants and make an honest attempt to correct our V`s and W`s ............