Adil Najam
Sometimes one is left completely speechless. And I was upon seeing this picture in the Daily Times (21 April) of a man beating his wife as their son looks on.
But the real story here is about a society that chooses to loose its speech and prefers to remain silent in the face of a wide scale menace of acute domestic violence and spousal (and familial) abuse of women.
This is not something that is restricted only to the poorest classes. Although it is often hidden behind ‘sufaid poshi’ such violence against women is more common in our society than most of us would care to accept. Remember, for example, the case of former Pakistan cricket captain Moin Khan who was taken in custody after beating his wife while drunk.
I wonder what the child in this photograph will grow up thinking. I wonder how many children have grown up witnessing such scenes. I wonder what such emotional scars have done to them.
It is indeed true that such incidents of violence happen all over the world. There is no evidence at all that they happen more in Pakistan than elsewhere. In terms of reported cases they may be even less. But that is not the point. This is not a competition.
Saying that it happens everywhere or that it happens even more in other places is neither an excuse nor a consolation. One case would, in my opinion, be one too many. And there are clearly much more than one. As Pakistanis – no, as human beings – we must speak against such violence everywhere; but, first within our own society.
Tina i think u should start believing that DV happens on men too, it just happened at our ATP home.
we saw Tina bashing two men at the same time :)
On a serious not, i think its absurd to consider male victims just now because the percentage of female victims is overwhelmingly great. Having the same law for both is not good to start off with, however is required sometime afterwards.
I generally perceive women to be physically weaker than men (haven’t been in any physical fights :) so cant say for sure) so I think beating women and rapes r just a statement of power and dominance.
However, a DV against men does not necessarily has to be on the lines of physical violence. In an Islamic family, a woman not fulfilling her roles as prescribed is a culprit under DV, a Christian woman not fulfilling her Christian duties as wife, mother, sister, etc is doing likewise. Same goes for men. Violence beyond the physical…
“ They (your wives) are your garment and you are a garment for them.„ â€
Jabir, this picture was posted by a Pakistani on a Pakistani website, mostly I assume for consumption by other Pakistanis, and yet as Atif points out some people immediately connect this issue with the West; what I am asking it what is driving your knee jerk defensive reaction and desire to stifle discussion of the issue by saying yet again that it’s not a problem, it’s only the hypocritical foreigners blowing the issue out of proportion. If the foreigners all shut up will the problem go away? I don’t think so. But maybe Jabir won’t have to bother himself with thinking about it?
This is not the foreigners’ fault. There are zillions of books and television shows about abuse of women in America; nobody is trying to say that wife beating is confined to Pakistan. However as Atif correctly points out conflation of this issue in Pakistan with the Western condemnation of it has, unfortunately, had a negative adverse effect.
and Jabir, please accept that it does not in fact “happen both ways” in any significant sense. There are no hospitals with a regular influx of men who have been beaten to within an inch of their lives by their wives, and we all know that. I’ll condemn it when it happens, but it is really so rare as to not be a factor in the discussion. Like I said trumped up efforts to make it appear otherwise are a carefully calculated backlash attempt.
I think it is everyone’s responsibility to deplore abuse of women regardless of their national origin, and wherever it happens. I agree the press likes to dwell on the gruesome but let’s face it, they do that with every country including the U.S. not just Pakistan.
tina, you are wrong in assuming that I am downplaying dv on women by any means, BUT it happens both ways. One should be honest in condemning both.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/ipvfacts.htm
Second if a woman is abused in Pakistan, the international audience will only see her suffering, as the mass media will only ‘amplify’ this incident beyond proportion. If you think US domestic violence should be confined and discussed only in their boundaries, then same should happen to Pakistani cases. And here the liberal hypocrisy starts, as they will willingly and joyfully play in the hands of foreign media in condemning and blaming Pakistan. By the way is this policy acceptable by you?
I am amazed at the ability of people to turn everything into something about religion.
The previous discussion on this with Mohsin Khan beating his wife showed that this violence is not restricted to religious or wealth issues (he is neither religious nor poor).
This post clearly points out that this is not restricted to Pakistan. The excellent videos posted by a reader above show that it is all over the world which is why these videos are there.
The REAL issue is not whether it is there but WHAT ARE WE DOING TO STOP IT. No religion says go beat your wives. But are our religious leaders telling people to not do this. How many times have your heard a Jumma khutba against beating wives? Why do we have so many conversations about hugging and dancing but silence on beating wives? What are our politicians and social leaders doing? What about media? Do they have awareness programs on this issue? Why not have adds like the ones in the links above?
Somehow we are so scared that talking about this will give us a ‘bad reputation’ that we are willing o overlook the pain and violence on real people. This is what I think this is about.
Thank you ATP for having the courage to force us to think about uncomfortable and really important things.
Honor killings in the U.S. are mostly carried out by first generation immigrants from other countries (not necessarily Muslim majority countries). The last incident involved a Palestinian who killed his daughter. Of course there are too many but let’s not skew the info: it’s not Americans who are doing it.
Domestic abuse is of course a regrettable universal. There are still too many people, men and women alike, who have no idea what a healthy loving relationship looks like.