http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\10\03\story_3-10-2009_pg3_3
Saturday, October 03, 2009 view: Our ancient culture -Rafia Zakaria For the time being then, Pakistanis can revel in the belief that in being the most barbaric they have perhaps the most ancient culture in the world, one that is completely untainted by progress, humanity or any pestering concern for law or equanimity According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, 808 gang rapes took place in the country in the previous eighteen months. The figure is a small portion of the nearly 237 percent increase in sexual crimes in Pakistan in the past eight years. Given that the figures are based on around a 10 percent reporting rate of these crimes and compiled through newspaper clippings, the true number is likely to be much higher. The Phoolnagar incident in Jambarkalan village in Kasur, Punjab, was the most recent incident highlighting the communal aspect of the planning and execution of sexual crimes against women. Four women were abducted from a brothel, their faces blackened and their clothes stripped. They were then paraded down a main street amid a throng of onlookers that revelled in their shame. The women were tortured and heckled by a crowd of hundreds, and their hair cut as further act of punishment for their alleged immorality. The incident reportedly took place under the provocation of Union Council Nazim Ilyas Khanzada who had an ongoing dispute against one of the women over the land occupied by the brothel. Parading the women half naked on the street was not enough for the pious crowd in Jambarkalan; the police, forever invested in the upholding the moral standards of any Pakistani community, registered an FIR against the four women under Sections 371A and B of the Pakistan Penal Code. The women were then put in police custody for the commission of immoral acts. The house where the women lived was set on fire and all property destroyed by the angry mob. According to initial news reports, no case was registered against any member of the mob or any of the torturers on the day of the incident. No one spared a moment to consider that these women, even if they were prostitutes, were likely forced into the profession by economic circumstances or trafficking. On September 30, 2009, three days after the incident, the Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court took suo moto notice of the incident. The DPO of Kasur was summoned by the High Court and was asked to cancel the case against the three women. The DPO argued that a case had also been lodged against some of the accused and that five men had been taken into custody. In the meantime, when the women were released on bail by the Pattoki District Court, a mob of hundreds of people blocked the National Highway for several hours protesting the release of the women. The parading of women and the spectacle of their public humiliation is not a novel development in Pakistan but has begun to come under media scrutiny only in the past few decades. In 1984, a similar incident in Multan gained media attention when two women and a nine-year-old girl were paraded naked in the streets of the small village of Nawabpur. Their crime was that their brother-in-law, a skilled carpenter, was accused of having had affairs with the women of a powerful feudal family of the Sheikhana clan. A mob comprising members of the clan showed up at the women's home and severely beat them and the carpenter. They then tore off the clothes of the women and the child and forced them onto the streets with their guns and lathis. According to reports of the incident, when the women tried to cover their bodies with their hands, they were beaten severely with gun barrels so that they would remain exposed, and their shame publicly visible. It is undoubted that the practice of parading women naked in public as an act of humiliation has roots in our tribal and feudal culture. Like honour killings, vani, swara and siyah kari, they have all been upheld by codes that have been sustained and even celebrated as part of Pakistani heritage. The mob that was upset at the release of the hapless women is only one shred of evidence in support of the precept that these practices are not only tolerated but venerated in our culture. Further evidence of this reality is the recent debate in Parliament over the case involving the live burial of three women in Balochistan. Senator Israrullah Zehri from Balochistan proudly said on record that "these are our centuries-old traditions and I will continue to defend them". His words, and the routine practice of tribal and feudal customs in the country, reflect the kind of inspiration that instigated the Jabarkalan mob's actions against the women who were paraded naked and tortured in the streets of the village. Undoubtedly, similar concern for upholding our cultural traditions prevented the Peshawar police from giving protection to the young girl who was gunned down by her brothers in broad daylight on the premises of Peshawar Sessions Court on September 26, 2009. And it was indeed culture that allowed a group of men in Zafar Kay village to cut off a seventeen-year-old girl's ears and nose because she refused to marry their relative. Pakistani women then must get this straight. Pakistani customs and heritage dictate their persecution. These customs will not come to their rescue if they are abducted, sold into prostitution, or exchanged as chattel to settle debts. These traditions will not recognise even their minimal right to life in cases where they are hacked to death (and nearly 180 women have been axed to death in 2008) or attacked with acid, or maimed with knives or buried alive or in the present case, paraded naked in the streets. Ours is an ancient culture, so ancient that it predates all forms of female uplift in its pursuit of authenticity and chronological primacy. In maintaining proximity to our original tradition then, Pakistan has outdone every human civilisation in the world. Indeed such is the antiquity of our culture that its practices predate not simply the modern and medieval ages but hearken back to the earliest vestiges of human existence when women were not recognised as human and were available to be used at will. For the time being then, Pakistanis can revel in the belief that in being the most barbaric they have perhaps the most ancient culture in the world, one that is completely untainted by progress, humanity or any pestering concern for law or equanimity. Rafia Zakaria is an attorney living in the United States where she teaches courses on Constitutional Law and Political Philosophy. She can be contacted at [email protected] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
