Adil Najam
Report from News (21 February, 2007):
A fanatic shot dead Punjab Minister for Social Welfare Zill-e-Huma Usman “for not adopting the Muslim dress code” at a political meeting here at the PML House on Tuesday. A party worker caught the accused, Maulvi Sarwar, and handed him over to the Civil Lines Police. Huma was at the PML House to hold an open Kachehry. As she was busy meeting the PML women activists, the accused sitting in the audience approached her with a pistol and pumped bullets into her head from a point-blank range… The accused, M Sarwar Mughal - popularly known as Maulvi Sarwar - is a resident of Baghbnapura in Gujranwala. Two police stations of Gujranwala and the Tibbi police of Lahore had booked Maulvi Sarwar for the murder of six women, but he was acquitted for want of sufficient evidence. His alleged spree of killing “immoral” women started in the year 2002. In his confession statement before the police on Tuesday, he said he was opposed to women holding public office. He added that after he read in the newspaper that the minister was holding an open court, he decided to kill her.
Sometimes you just wonder why! Sometimes you just want to give up!
I have been feeling sad and numb and down and dejected all day. I heard about the brutal murder of Punjab Minister Zile Huma Usman’s murder by a crazed fanatic some 10 hours ago. And I have been in utter shock.
I have tossed and turned. I had thought earlier that I would not even write about it. What is the use? When a society goes so mad that a woman is killed just because she is a woman, what can a blog post do. Just ignite more silly debates; more childish heckling; more immature point-scoring; trying to show how smart you are; or, more likely, trying to show how idiotic others are; reaffirming your own belief that you are always right, and everyone else is always wrong; single-track chest thumping; self-righteous finger-pointing. No remorse. No compassion; not a word of sympathy; not a shred of caring. All there is, is anger; getting high on our own anger; anger for its own sake; getting so very angry that you even forget what or who you are angry at.
But now I do want to write about this. We, as a society, have some serious thinking to do.
What killed Zille Huma Usman? Not religion. Not madness. But anger. Uncontrolled anger.
A society that seems to be fueled by anger. No conversation is seen to be legitimate unless it is an angry conversation. And the solution to everything seems to be violence. ‘Kill the infidels’ say the believers. ‘Kill the mullahs’ shout the modernists. ‘Hang them by the gallows.’ ‘Put them in boats and let them sink.’ ‘Death is what they deserve.’ We have heard it all right here. I suspect we will hear it again. That dastardly, self-righteous anger. This violence in the language, as Zille Huma so tragically found, becomes the violence of bloodshed all too easily. Today it was in the name of religion. Tomorrow it will be something else.
So, do me a favor folks. Give her some dignity. Hold your anger. Think about what happened. Ponder. And pause. For the sake of whatever is sacred to you; please pause!
An innocent woman’s life has already been taken by our inability to put a lid on our passions and our anger. Let us please not make a tamasha out of her death by making her a poster child for whatever ’cause’ we are parading for right now.
Please read an excellent column on this issue by famous columnist ‘Haroon Rasheed”
http://www.jasarat.com/detail.php?category=columns &image=03_uk1.gif&date=24-02-2007
falsafi ko behas ke andar khuda milta nahiN
Dor suljha raha hai aur siraa milta nahiN
[quote comment="35333"]Aqil Sajjad,
What about countries like Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam? women do not fare any better there. In fact, women in Pakistan are much more liberated than their Saudi or Gulf counterparts. So, if at all, the “culture of our region” had a liberating influence on the Muslim women in Pakistan.[/quote]
MQ:
I was not making comparisons between the subcontinent and Saudi Arabian cultures, hence your point is not relevant to my argument.
I was only talking about our society and the fact that a lot of our misogynistic practises pre-date Islam and have more to do with culture, but are often presented as Islamic.
In case of Saudi Arabia again, a distinction needs to be made between religion and culture. Just because it was the home of Islam does not mean their culture is not at variance with Islam.
Seems like Zia has he left a legacy of fanatics. We all know women life in these remote areas is very difficult and women literacy rate is very low. Can someone tell me what these mullahas will achieve by victimizing the weak? Anyway they should direct their energy towards fair distribution of zakat fund among destitute and orphans which these areas are full of.
Ya Allah save us from the Mullah
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=4415 9
zamanov I hope u r in a leadership position in PK & putting your rhetoric into pragmatic implementations. We have a crisis of rational leadership.
Eidee Man
[quote]“If a 13 year old kid consistently fails Math, Science, or English, his parents will try to move heaven and earth to make him learn and perform properly.”[/quote]
If that 13 year old belongs to a lower income family they would put him in a madrassa. I am not being facetious when I say that. This is exactly what many families in rural Pakistan do.
[quote comment="35357"]
You guys are funny! How can any religion be ‘pure’ in that sense? Every religion formed within some society. Take Islam in Arabia: did it evolve in a vacuum? Did it not react to the society that it grew up in? Are there are no Arabic cultural values,traditions embedded in that version? Same with Persia, Morocco, whatever. So who is going to give you a pure, in-a-vacuum religion?
My point is not that whatever culture pre-dated Islam in Pakistan is good. Simply that its par for course. Whatever you dont like of it, change it.[/quote]
Okay, I’m done banging my head against the wall…no cure for the confused, depressed 30-something Pakistani man….