Sex Everywhere Re:concerned, confessor, and hidden

More power to the women who are coming out and talking about the abuse they have suffered. Your stories should help quell the doubters and deniers among us. Especially the ones who make the distinction between ``mahrams`` and ``namahrams``. As if the crimes are limited to namahrams. Most rapes and assaults in fact are perpetrated by mahrams.

Re: altaf Bhimji

I agree that Chowk is not the place for counselling abuse victims. However, a personal catharsis may be achieved by talking about the abuse in a public forum. No other such place currently exists for Pakistani women.

Re: Reader

Dear Reader, you missed my point. What you do with your life is your prerogative, but advising all Pakistani women to stay away from Pakistani men and marry Europeans and Americans is hardly going to solve their problem, unless you envisage mass immigration of all Pakistani women to the West! We can`t give up on Pakistani men - for that is ignoring the vast multitudes of our suffering sisters. We need to stay on the ground and fight. We need to reform Pakistani men. That would be progress.

Incidentally, I thought an alternative solution may appeal to you :). I read in a paper today that some orthodox Jewish women in New York who are sick of their husbands`refusal to grant them a ``get`` (a religious permission to initiate divorce granted to men only in orthodox Judaism) have organized a militant group of thugs who go beat up on any guy who is refusing to grant a ``get`` in order to force him in to submission.

Also, FYI, I am not a Mrs. Zaidi. Zaidi is the name I was born with. Also, for good measure, our daughter has both my husband`s and my last names as her last name. Its only fair, we thought. Why should a child be known by her father`s name only?

Anita

Brown Man’s Burden Amar, very nicely written. But I have a vested interest. I just never could get into Shakespeare.

Re: Asim Hayat

Asim, since you asked about Pakistani ``gentlemen`` writers in English (I am assuming contemporary), I`ll point out a couple of ladies. Bapsi Sidwa and Sara Suleri.

anita

The Intellectual Imperative Wasiq, what should an ``intellectual’s`` goal in life be? Should he/she seek material comfort or should he/she sacrifice that comfort for the sake of a larger vision? What is wrong with making the former choice? Are the choices mutually exclusive? What does ``doing something`` mean for intellectuals? Isn’t talking and writing about issues what ``intellectuals`` do best? So, what may be expected then, is for them to develop a national vision for Pakistan. Some have done that - yet there is little progress - for it is the rare intellectual who goes beyond formulating a vision - who tries to implement that vision.

What you are asking is, who can be that person? What makes somebody rise above the fray - are leaders born, or are they made by circumstances or are they both, unique and complex accidents of history ? Can one person really make a difference ? They have in the past, and they do today (Nelson Mandela and Vaclav Havel come to mind), so why does the challenge appear so daunting to us? Why do we feel so helpless? Why do we feel that we can’t do anything except talk? Why do people laugh at someone who says they want to go back to Pakistan to ``do something`` as an example of extreme naiveté and stupidity - doomed to fail? That in itself is a harsh dose of reality. They laugh because for every Nelson Mandela there are a 1000 who dreamed, struggled, and were killed. Who in their right minds would be ready to face such odds - how do they make this decision? Do they even make it consciously, or do they believe in their vision so intensely that the risks they face become meaningless, a price worth paying?

I like your idea of Chowk Project Pakistan - 2025. Let’s do it - with ideas from all - the economists, political scientists, social development specialists, educationists, public health folks among us. That can be our little contribution to the cause.

Anita

Sex Everywhere Dear Reader,

I do admire your feisty spunkiness, but most point out that the following remarks concerned me.

``I hope, I am not ``imposing`` my views - just expressing myself. All I am saying is : Do NOT settle for second best -do not to despair - because if we respect our bodies, our mind and apply ourselves and become successful then there will be hordes of guys outside our doors.``

Is not the whole idea that we get out of this kind of mindset - that a measure of our success is that hordes of guys be waiting outside our doors?

For those women who want to get married, I am all for them marrying the person that is right for them - for some this is regardless of race and religion. For others, their own culture, language, and religion is very important and giving up on that is a compromise. So I, for example might be okay with my sister or daughter marrying a non-Pakistani, but they might not be, because they can`t imagine sharing their life with somebody who doesn`t share their culture.

To an extent, I agree with you that there is a frustrating `kumi` of progressive desi men (as my husband likes to say - if you want to know exactly how `liberated` a desi man is, see how he treats his wife and sisters), and as I have said elsewhere, I don`t know many Pakistani men who treat their wives as equal partners - but here is the bottomline - I do know a few. Its silly to go around thinking all French men will treat you well, and all Pakistani men won`t. Give everybody a chance to show what they are like. Perhaps some kind of MMMPI test is what is called for here :)(check out the Man or Mouse story).

Anita

Sex Everywhere Re: irate reader who is not really pacified

It is a hard truth to swallow - not all women are the same, not all women desire corporate success, not all women wish to lead childless lives, not all women want to be uncompromisning in relationships. These are choices that each one of us makes for ourselves - and that is what we should argue for- the right of every woman to make these choices. I realize that the choices I have made are not necessarily the same ones other women would make. We are all different, with different needs and desires - who am I to impose MY vision on other women, tell them that they should do this, and not that - that deciding to stay home and raise children is any less worthy a goal than going out and making it in the corporate world. So, for me, a simple adage to live by is rules that I have made for my life are not nessecarily rules that apply to another woman`s life. As a practical example of this, I decided very early on in life that I would never compromise in marriage - I had to have equality in every way that the term can and has been defined. For me this was an easy choice to make - I would rather have stayed unmarried than be expected to, among other things, have dinner ready on the table every night (I detest housework). As I got older (yes, I got lucky - I met a desi guy who was willing to put up with me, idiosyncracies and all), I realized that many of my friends (also older), both American and Pakistani, most of them highly educated Wellesley, Bryn Mawr types are not so ready to make such a definitive choice any longer. They want more than a work career. It was okay to be 25 and single, even 35 and single, they just don`t want to be 45 and single.

With age, I too have made my peace. When I was pregnant every day I would remind my husband that everything about childcare has to be shared equally among us - there will be no compromise whatsoever. Once we became parents, I realized the futility of this demand - since I was nursing, my husband really couldn`t be much help, so after a few days of making sure he woke up several times at night when I was woken up by a crying baby, I just gave up - it seemed stupid to wake him up when he couldn`t do anything to help! Now that she is older, we have to deal with the ``I want Mom`` phenomenon. How does one explain to a child that her parents divide everything up equally - so its Abba`s turn now (but I confess, I do try using this tack from time to time). Life, unfortunately is full of compromises, and most of us end up facing up to that reality sooner or later - just live a little longer and you`ll find out for yourself.

Anita

Remember the Magic Re:GSM, Mickey=satan

Mickey is a genius all right, but he is not evil - he is godly. Otherwise, how come my daughter doesn`t listen to anything that invokes me or her father, but mention that Mickey would be upset if she didn`t do so and so, gets it done in a rush - she can`t stand the thought of displeasing Almighty Mickey!

As an aside, I wonder what people feel about how to discipline their children. Keep `em on a straight path?

AZ

Sex Everywhere Re:BG

``MOST Pakistani women I know have experienced some form of sexual assault from mild to serious. Incidents of `mild` assault are so pervasive, we take them for granted. They include things like being bumped into or `fingered` in bhori bazaar. Serious assault would be penetrative rape. A lot of young women are also victimized by uncle-types, older relatives, cousins, brothers-in-law and family friends.``

I second BG`s remarks. Most women that I have talked to either know someone close to them who has been a victim of sexual abuse, or it has happened to them personally. And this doesn`t incude the Bohri bazaar incidents. A 100% of us have experienced those. One would think that incest wouldn`t be very common b/c of large members of family members living together, but I know of many women who have been victims of incest - usual culprits are uncles, and uncles-in-law, cousins, and family friends -such as friend`s father etc.

Anita

Sex Everywhere Thank you for sharing your internship experience, AA. I wonder if the organization that sponsored you keeps data on all the victims it sees, and if it could be compiled into some kind of report and pubished. As Pakistan has the potent mix of poverty, sexual repression, and female subordination, one would expect that sexual abuse is a very common occurrence. A formal study would go a long way in identifying the extent of the problem.

Anita

Man or mouse MAK, rest assured, the MMMPI is not a real test - I made it up to illustrate what the whole marriage process is like, in Pakistan - its like you are filling out a questionairre - you have this, you don`t have that. We have reduced it to a series of questions, forgetting the individuals involved.

There is a real test called the Minnessota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) which is used by psychologists and psychiatrists to judge a person`s personality. There`s nothing about women in there.

Anita

The Intellectual Imperative Re: Kafir, BG, Muzaffar

Muzaffar, you make the excellent point about the definitional problem of the word secularism. It means different things to different people. And that in Pakistan it is a bogey word, equated with what is the worst about Western culture. Most of us (``the educated elite``) agree that secularism is a desirable goal for Pakistan. It is in how we approach the problem of secularism vs. Islam that I perceive the difference of views. Btw, turkey is not the only whipping boy for secularism, we can add Algeria to the list, and we can`t ignore Iran - two other countries that tried the secular experiment.

I am of the opinion that the entire question of looking at secularism (vs. Islam) as the only possible option to get out of our mess is flawed. It is the wrong question to pose, and it won`t fix the problem of our backwardness. The people of Pakistan do not overwhelmingly vote for secularism as opposed to Islam. They vote for whoever they ``hope`` is going to make them economically better-off. But, at the same time, I wonder often, if as a true measure of how many people in Pakistan actually support secular values, such as freedom of religion to all minorities, we could survey the length and breadth of Pakistan and find out how many people want to rule Shias and Ismailis as non-Muslims, how many people would support restricting women`s clothing and activities outside the house etc? Meanwhile, as I write madrassahs continue to flourish and indoctrinate multitudes.

Our societies are in dissolution - there can be no doubt about that. However, I think that our religiosity is not the cause of our decline, it is a symptom of it. The cause is the double whammy of lack of industrialization (we never recovered from the Mongol defeat in an intellectual sense) and colonization. Secularism is not the cure for this malady - it is industrialization. Once the ``structure`` is there, the existence of conducive conditions will lead to the inevitable secularization of Islam. In considering this matter (whether secularism should precede industrialization), I like to think of the analogy of treating typhoid fever with tylenol first, instead of antibiotics. Initially the decrease in fever will make the patient feel better, but meanwhile, the Salmonella typhi continue to multiply unabatedly, and soon we have overwhelming sepsis and death - Voila! We have Iran or Algeria. No secularization has to be a slow, insidious process, that creeps in quietly over decades , as part of an over-all economic uplift - accelerating its pace unnaturally by imposing it overnight is inviting disaster.

Incidentally Muzaffar, I agree that part of the problem in not having any intellectual guidance to speak of, among Pakistanis is the culture of orthodoxy that currently prevails, but part of it is also that all creative effort is stifled by our schooling system, and the inevitable shunting of students towards safe and certain career paths. Conformity is encouraged to an extreme degree - originality is not tolerated.

AZ

The Limits on Women’s Lives Re: Wasiq Bokhari

``The question arises ``Why do these disparities arise?`` If they are in every society from day one, then perhaps they are due to some difference in the psychological traits of men and women. True, it gets very murky when one tries to disentangle the effects of socialization from inherent abilities, but differences in the way males and females react to the world around them may lead to the onset of these differences.... It is hard to come across scientific studies that investigate this matter thoroughly (if you know of any let ne know)...``

Wasiq, as with much else, we seek answers from the past about questions we want answered today. You can`t find scientific studies because there are none - only theories. Why did women come to occupy a socially inferior position in society? The traditional (scientific) view, to which I subscribe to a certain extent, is teleological, rooted in biology and phylogenetics. It focuses on woman`s reproductive role as her major function, a species necessity, without which humankind would not have survived. This view also holds male biology as having given men a major advantage - greater physical strength, more aggressiveness, therefore a hunting role, a protective role for the vulnerable female and children.

This theory is vigorously disputed by most feminists who counter with their own theories of primitive matriarchal societies, and regard female subordination as a very early accident of history, much as the enslavement of blacks.

In reality, as with everything else this complex, the ``origin`` of female subordination is probably multifactorial - no single cause can explain everything. The new view holds that whatever the origin, those early traits that made men superior and women inferior in the biological push for species growth are no longer relevant today - male aggressive behaviour is definitely more of a problem in modern society, than an advantage, and women no longer spend the majority of their lifespan bearing and rearing children. Where these changes have occurred, women have, to a large extent succeeded in their quest for equality, and biological deterministic ideas are no longer relevant. In areas where these changes have not occurred, such biological determinism is a harsh fact of life.

Anita

The Intellectual Imperative Bad Girl, perhaps you missed the gist of my arguments. To reiterate, my view is that secularism (strictly defined as separation of religion from state) is not something you force on a population from the top. It happens from within, a product of a complicated social evolution - as a people mature from a preindustrial society to an industrial one, as people no longer feel the need for orthodoxy in thought and action, as people develop an appreciation for scientific and rational knowledge and directly experience its benefits, as people come to realize that their identity represents much more than a strictly religious one - that they can also be humanists, feminists, pacifists, and all those other liberal monikers we all aspire to, without detriment to their Islamic identity.

Do I think the educated elite of the Muslim world in general, and Pakistan in particular desire secularism? Yes, I do. Admittedly, my personal experience is anecdotal, but the phenomenon appears quite pervasive, and is extensively written about. The works of Samuel Kodjo, Bassam Tibbi, Bahram Nirumand, Fazlur Rahman, and Asghar Engineer come to mind, and are worth looking up.

AZ

The New Education Policy -Two Suggestions Anjum, great to see something from you on Chowk.

I have two questions.

1)I realize that you meant this article to be largely a description of how sound policy should be formulated. Nevertheless, it would be interesting for us to know what your specific criticism is, of the proposed education policy.

2) What role is the World Bank playing in educational development in Pakistan?

Please give my regards to S.

Anita

All About Nothing Clinton had a good joke on nothing. Speaking at the White House Correspondents dinner covered by C-span (yes,when I was doing nothing), he said he was sorry about the void to be created on Thursday nights with no more Seinfeld. He suggested people start watching Congress proceedings - ``now there`s a show about nothing!``

AZ

The Intellectual Imperative Re: MNI, M.Q and Turkey

Muzaffar, I was just trying to make the point that many of the NIS have been placed on an accelarated schedule to join the EEC, some within the next couple of years, whereas Turkey which has been trying for over a decade isn`t even on the cards to become a member, although economically Turkey is not much worse off compared to these countries. Many excuses may be given by the EEC for this - but the main reasons are (as you point it) they fear mass immigration from Turkey, and the threat of fundamentalist backlash against Turkey`s fascist secular rulers.

MNI, you say this yourself. Turkey is not a humanistic secular society, it is a fascist secular society. Unfortunately, until we continue to have a Westernized elite that believes in secular values, and poor masses that believe in Islamic values, that is the only kind of secularism that is possible in Muslim countries. It has to be forced upon an unwilling people. Its a complex problem that demands complex local solutions - not knee-jerk reactions.

AZ

The Intellectual Imperative Re: Islam vs. secularism

Whoever first came up with the idea that Islam has remained constant over time was a complete idiot. It obviously hasn’t. Islam has meant different things to different people at different times. Why must we insist that we do in the future, only what has been done in the past? If everything had to be based on what came before, then why was there not open revolt in 680 AD when the system of government went from a caliphate whose leader was chosen by consensus to a monarchy started when Mauwiyya chose Yazid as his successor and leader of the Islamic world. Yet, Islam incorporated monarchy, and has done so through centuries. Nobody (yes, not even that biggest proponent of democracy, the United States of America), questions the legitimacy of the various monarchies that exist in the Arab world. Instead, the West does everything in its power to support them. If we accepted a different form of government a mere 50 years after the Prophet’s death, why can’t we think of newer forms of government now. The answer to the question of what do I mean by an Islamic democracy is at once both - incredibly simple and immanently complex. It can mean WHATEVER WE WANT IT TO MEAN! It can mean a society that draws strength from its past, but that recognizes and values the principles of science, reason, and human dignity, a society that emphasizes the importance of family and community, a society that fosters egalitarianism, not worship of wealth, a society that looks back for spiritual guidance, but that looks forward to solve the needs of its many millions. It is for us to decide what shape our societies should take through a process of thinking and reflecting, dialogue and debate, creativity and insight, learning and scholarship - as has happened through centuries. I can’t stand the logic that says no, we can’t do this, because its hasn’t been done before. That’s not the yardstick we should measure the future by.

Is there a contradiction between secular human values and Islamic values as perceived by most people? Yes! There are two ways to approach this contradiction. One can avoid the contradiction altogether by sticking to the secular only vs. Islamic only camps - and never the twain shall meet. This, in my view is the road to disaster! Or one can have the alternative approach - one can try to RESOLVE the contradictions.

Why do I think a forced choice between secularism and Islam is courting disaster? One only has to think for a moment what secularism means to our dispossessed masses. What do they see are the benefits of secularism? In their own countries they see a Westernized, educated, secular elite that lives in their air-conditioned houses, drinks their expensive imported liquors, shops at United Colors of Benetton, and plays golf on the weekends, all the while touting the superior principles of human justice and dignity. From the media, they hear about all those ``advanced`` countries of the West that are willing to loan them more money as long as they can practice more austerity (at the expense of the poor) to make sure that the interest on the loan is paid on time. After all, what could be a worst crime than a loan default! What have the superior secular principles of the West given them - colonial exploitation and misery! Islam, on the other hand, at least offers the potential of eternal salvation if one follows the prescribed path. It steps in when there is no hope. Yes, it is a mass opiate, but when faced with a hopeless life of misery with the promise of justice in the Hereafter vs. a hopeless life of misery and no justice EVER, which choice would you make? This is the context in which one has to understand the events of Iran, Algeria, and Afghanistan. And this is what we should want to hope to avoid by embracing the reality of the pain of the everyday lives of our masses. If the secular elite would really start caring for the masses, working to decrease their socio-cultural divide, instead of insulating themselves in another world, the masses would not feel the need for orthodoxy in religion - for a full stomach and an educated mind, is the cure for many ills.

AZ