The lack of Women’s Rights in Pakistan Nice article. Here are some of my thoughts on the subject.

SHROUDED MINDS

No ijma, no ijtehaad
Instead, nonsensical fatowaat.
No deviation from the narrow path
Passively waiting for another Somnath
Depending on the glory of our past ghazwaat
Have we not become pawns
under the mullah’s Jagannath
If not that, then unabashedly pursuing
Western demigods, and thought.

No Al-Beruni, no Ibn-i-Sina,
whither Ibn-Rushd
Qurtuba and Madinah?
Yes today
we are leaderless, teacherless.
Withering, impotent.
Spineless!

We ridiculously constitutionalize
an ordinance called Hudood
We attempt to fossilize
your Life, Woman.
Surely, we have you misunderstood.

Let’s celebrate today
the Amendment called Shariah.
Celebrate what! I say-
Our descent into Jahiliyaah?

Open dialogue
Start debate
Chase away the shrouds of fog,
the rigid dogma, the unyielding dictum
that has caused our minds to clog.
Only then will our past
not be merely prologue,
or worse,
a sad epilogue
mentioned briefly at the end of a discussion of ages gone by,
but one of many in a catalogue
of past civilizations.

Anita

Is Science a Religion?

``Though the article lambasts believers thoroughly (and justifiably), it still does not address the all important question of why faith arises in the first place, and what importance does it have in human (personal and cultural) survival.``

Dear Wasiq,

To answer the question of why religions have found such a universal role in human affairs from the times of the ancient paleolithic Mother Goddesses (Ishtar in Babylon, Isis in Egypt, Aphrodite in Greece) to today, would be to acknowledge the power such concepts have had through history in organizing human lives and society. Religion is a beautiful concept that frees everyone from the tedious task of developing their own sense of personal morality and gives them a set of rules to follow. In addition, it offers the comfort of an Afterlife, a sense of purpose to everything we do. If we were to believe that there was no Life after Death, then we would want Life before Death. One would need to have a high degree of intelligence to develop their own morality of right and wrong instead of the default pathway of everyone for themselves, since this would be the only time we have. Its either now, or never. A belief in divinity and Afterlife can make one practice delayed gratification, a powerful tool for getting people to do what is perceived in society’s best interest.

Given the simplicity of the concepts involved, it wouldn’t have taken the earliest thinking Woman or Man to invent religion pretty quickly. An interesting example from our home will illustrate this best.

Our daughter, now five and a half, has not received any religious instruction so far. This is partly because we are too lazy to do the Islamic School scene, partly because ours is a Shia/Sunni marriage, and we wanted her to make her own choice when she is older, and partly because we have felt (as Dawkins states) that early age religious indoctrination is a form of mental child abuse. So this puts us in the tough position of having to rationalize everything with her. If I think she is fibbing, for example about washing her hands after using the restroom, she is smart enough to realize that there is no way I can find out for sure whether she did or she didn’t. It is tempting to say that even if Ammi doesn’t know, Allah Mian will know, because He knows everything, and He’ll get angry with you. Instead, we have to say things like, lying is wrong, it can hurt people, its not good to lie. No way does that have the same effect as invoking an All-Knowing God. So maybe it was a woman who came up with the concept of a deity in the first place. It would be easy to get her kids to behave in socially desirable ways!

Yet another quandary arises in answering questions about death. My father passed away before our daughter was born. She sees pictures of him around the house and wants to know where he lives after he is dead. Should I say Nowhere, or should I say in Heaven? So Heaven needs to be born.

Recently, and much to our astonishment, she has starting invoking the concept of ‘Up’. When asked about why she did such and such, or how did she know about such and such, she says ``Up told me``. If we ask her, ``who told you about Up,`` she says, ``Up did.`` To me this is evidence of her own creation of the divine.

That’s why we have religion.

Anita

Smitten by Helen Dear everyone,

Comments/critique appreciated. Muchos gracias.

Anita

A Nobel for Development Studies Thank you for the excellent write-up on Professor Sen, Ashim. I share your hope that the Nobel will help popularize the work of the founder of the Gini. His ideas of social theory definitely merit formal applications. May be this will be the true `Third Way`. Meanwhile, what is Cambridge`s gain is a big loss for the Harvard community.

Anita

YES! Re: Shahbaz

I read your response and chuckled a while. You and I obviously inhabit different planets. All I see around me are kids controlling their parents. And I must see at least a 100 families a month. Where are these parents who control their kids?

Now mind you, we don`t really hang out with the orthodoxy. Perhaps that`s the yardstick you`re judging by.

And we dislike TV because it inculcates material worship and unlimited needs, something we can`t stand. The constant pitching just gets to me. I would much rather that our child learn to think and judge for herself, rather than receive her instruction from people just out to make more bucks.

Yes, I do believe in discipline and constructive limit setting. I want to bring up a thinking, hard-working, caring person, not a slob who gets passive entertainment from TV. And no, she hasn`t started her qaida yet. I think we`ve evolved beyond that. But she does read a lot of Urdu books. And English ones too.

Re: temporal

Loved your verse. Want more.

Re: SR

right on about TV. About the IMMUNIZATIONS, how about you write a piece and I`ll counter.

Anita

Squeamish in the Name of Science Bina, this ``from-the-heart`` poem passed me by somehow. I just came across it.

I do agree with you. Being a physician is certainly over-hyped and glorified in our culture. Also, very few physicians are actually scientists, if you define science as a discipline that seeks to create and advance new knowledge. Mostly doctors just see patients. They `manage` patient care. Its nothing fancy.

On the other hand, I don`t see the dichotomy that you see between being a doctor and being a writer. One can certainly be both. There have been many world-class writers who also happened to be doctors. Somerset Maugham, Gertrude Stein, Abraham Verghese come to mind. There are numerous others. Writing well, in fact, is a huge part of modern academic medicine.

Anita

YES! Sohail,

Tsk, tsk! I promise to give you a patient hearing in private, but lest anyone else think I condone this, I`ve got to make this rather elementary point - there is ample data to prove that the risk-benefit ratio comes out heavily in favor of getting immunizations. Doesn`t mean that they are risk-free - just that the risk of not immunizing is greater.

Looking forward to some heated arguments.

Anita

YES! Ah Sohail, if only you could prevent corruption by outside minds! Insulate them somehow for the rest of their lives.

We have followed many of the same policies. For example we still pretend that coke is something that we can`t buy for our home. It`s only available at restuarants or at parties. So the rule is - can only drink coke outside the house.

We hardly cook meat (maybe four times a year) as a concession to people who`ve come over for a meal.
Z doesn`t have a taste for meat products anyway, so that`s not a big problem.

We considered getting rid of the TV, but then decided to watch only PBS and news programs. The result has been rather unfortunate. One of the first things Z talked about was The Archer Daniel Midland Foundation. Just yesterday she stopped me to point out some credit card signs and said ``I know those cards - they are Mastercard and Visa credit cards. You buy stuff with them.`` The poor child also suffers from thinking her parents are dirt poor. We have struggled with what to tell her when we go out for groceries, to the pharmacy (there are toys, candy, consumables everywhere), and got sick of telling her that everything was bad for her. Also, how do you explain that buying yet another doll is bad for her. So we go with we just can`t afford it, line. It doesn`t always work. Mainly b/c the crestfallen face just tears our heart out.

But good luck anyway.

Anita

PS. As your god-pediatrician, I trust that the newborn shots were done. Now try explaining the need for shots to a 5 year old!

YES! Re: Saeed Jafar

With a child as delightful as yours, a whole book of verse wouldn`t do her justice!

Re: SR

No coke, no junk food, no candy? If you think you are setting those rules without resorting to capital punishment, you are doomed, man. Doomed to fail, and fail miserably. Kids rule - its as simple as that.

Here`s a recent incident. I came home to find that Z had plastered all the portraits in the house with impossible to remove stickers. As soon as I began to scold her for doing that, and reminded her that she should check with me before launching into such creativity, she said, ``but wait Mommy, wait, you said I was big enough to do things by myself.``

A

The Unedited Fairy Tale of Safina and Zordar This is a rather pediastrian effort, BG.

I grappled unsucessfully with the subtext here. Is this burlesque account of the loveless marriage of Safina and Zordar merely meant to evoke our derision, or is there a larger truth being conveyed?

Anita

A Heavy Price to Pay Few things piss me off more than parroted statements such as the one below.

``The reason why in Islam women inherit ½ of what men inherit is because men(whether father, brother, husband) are responsible for women. Men HAVE TO spend on their family, it is their Islamic duty. If a wife(daughter, sister) is earning then she does not have to spend her money on her family, she can spend it any way she likes and Islamically her husband has NO SAY in her money...`` (Miss Hijabi reply#45).

Please wake up Miss Hijabi. Go tell the millions of Muslim women who have finally made successes of their lives through microcredit programs such as those supported by the Grameen Bank that their work is unneccessary. God never foresaw their need for work, since it is their husband`s Islamic duty to take care of them. It is much better that they wait for their Islamic husbands to fulfill their Islamic obligations towards providing for them, rather than for them to stand on their own feet, and start taking care of themselves.

It seems to me that your hijab is shrouding your eyes and mind too. Think for yourself lady.

Anita

A Heavy Price to Pay
RE: Bina`s reply # 42

Actually Bina, despite your apologetic defence of Islam, you can`t get away from the fact that Islam discriminates against women - you may justify its prescriptions of women`s role in ancient Arabia, but to say that they don`t apply today, is to definitely take a revisionist view. And if so, then you must state openly that you favor the reinterpretation of certain verses. The 4:34 verse is a case in point (please refer to my article on Chowk ``The limits on women`s lives``, and especially the interact section).

Yes, there are those oft-repeated verses which say that women are morally equal. There are others that say men are in charge. At best these are contradictory, condemning us to centuries of splitting hairs; at worst they are discriminatory, condemning us to centuries of mistreatment, and disunity.

And what, for example is the point in defending inheritance laws that say sons get double of daughters by saying that there is flexibility, and you can give daughters more, just not less. If your parent dies without making a will (which happens very often), there is no flexibility. By shariah law, that`s how the estate gets divided up. In your lifetime, you can divide up your assets however you like. As sanctioned by religion, most parents give much more to their sons than to their daughters.

As far as the testimony issue is concerned, I am sure that there were many men in Islamic Arabia who had no idea of economics, and many women who did. Why not judge each person on his/her merits?

regards,

anita

The Short-Circuiting of Democracy Another example of American democracy not representing the will of the People:

Proposed legislation to increase minimum wage by one dollar to $6.15/hour was defeated by the Senate, thanks to intense lobbying by business interests.

Now don`t anyone go around telling me that this is in the best interest of the people - they just happen not to know it.

The truth, as many have alluded to, is that the American democratic system just represents the interests of a very select minority of profitable enterprises. And the media is not concerned with informing the people about the world, just in making consumers out of them. Its the revenue that drives the content, which has to be sensationalized to the nth degree to ensure a more marketable product.

Kafir: If we take the extreme reductionist view i.e. reducing democracy to its bare essence by saying that it is basically a method of implementing a set of ideals developed by a group of individuals who have as their goal, representing the ideals of the people they hope to govern, there is still nothing that ensures that the people will want equity and justice for all. Education certainly doesn`t ensure it. I will quote the Bosnian example again. Hitler is another glaring example, a democratically elected leader chosen by a fairly well-educated population.

I am not necessarily taking a uniformly antidemocratic view here. Just trying to point out that it isn`t really the panacea, the cure-all that we`ve all been led to believe.

I like Wasiq`a example of what do you do when all you`ve got is a bunch of rich robbers to choose between, who by the very fact of their wealth can afford to exclude the have-nots from being in the run. And there you have it. In the end all we are left with is, modern ugly politics.

Anita

The Short-Circuiting of Democracy Re: Wasiq

I have the same questions. How does one design a democratic system which truly implements the lofty ideals of democracy, instead of the system that currently exists in the US - a pseudodemocracy controlled by BIG BUSINESS interests and their lobbyists. Take the point of tobacco and health care reform. If you take polls, the vast majority of Americans do not want tobacco sold to kids, and want to have the rights to sue their HMOs but that ain`t happening, despite what the PEOPLE want.

Re: Kafir`s ``what an arrogant, elistist remark`` to the following statement by the author:

``Herein, then, lies the tragic glitch in the otherwise flawless design of the democratic ideal: sooner or later, the People will want something

that s not good for them and, by the rules of the democratic game, it will have to be given them.``

Dear Kafir,

How do you resolve the questions being asked in Bosnia, Israel, and Algeria?

In Bosnia, the PEOPLE again elected an ultranationalist bent upon harming the peace process despite the best efforts of the United States to subvert the will of the PEOPLE, even going to the extent of blocking radio transmissions by Serb controlled stations urging ethnic pride and Serb nationalism(suppression of free speech). How do we make sure that the rights of minorities are protected in situations in which the majority population wants something that`s not good for the minority?

Algerian elections of Islamic fundamentalists are another case in point. As you are well-aware, they were nullified by their army with US and Western backing, even though that`s what their PEOPLE wanted.

The situation in Israel is open for all to see. How easy has it been for Bibi and co.to rev up ultranationalist fervor and completely undo Rabin`s work.

One may think that elistism has nothing to do with the democratic process, but do you think that the Founding Fathers of the United States were not elistist (weren`t these the guys that did not think women and blacks also deserved life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?) Who are the people that wrote and now interpret the constitution? Are they not the elites of this country?

Basically, despite all we hear about democracy and its merits, someone has to set the rules in which democracy has to operate, in accordance with some type of ideals, whether they be scripture-defined, or based on humanistic values.

As an example, do you think what`s happenened in California in regards to illegal immigrants and denial of basic human rights such as health care and education, based on what the PEOPLE of California voted for, is based on humanistic ideals? Is that the right way to go, just because the PEOPLE wanted it.

After this, of course, is the next obvious question. WHO, in your opinion should set the rules by which societies should operate?

Anita

Shwot Shandy, if I may call you that - your honesty is as refreshing, as your neologisms fascinating.

Here`s to hoping you find some true women friends.

Cheers,

Anita

Shwot Shandana,

I really enjoy your stuff. Can`t help asking though - why does this piece remind me of ``the other woman``. There is something anti-woman here, although the cat is identified as an ``it``, you go on to refer to it as a bitc`h at the end, so you must have a female creature in mind - the poem seems to be a parable - an account of a betrayed friendship perhaps, or a relationship with a close relative that is perceived as too intrusive, even destructive. To me that comes across brutally. It is an emotive read.

Keep writing!

Anita