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
hahaaha!
@Ibrahim, you have a valid point which I wonder others didn’t think about at all including me. Experiencing last few posts at ATP gives me impression that I am reading EVENING SPECIAL newspaper who publish spicy news without verification.
Salamalikum,
First, food for thought: How did ATP decide that this still picture depicts wife-beating? How many people verified this outside of the photographer? Perhaps, the wife tripped and he’s trying to pick her up! No? Not possible? Are you people so naive that you can’t imagine a newspaper, which needs to affirm its enlightened side everyday, making up this story. This is especially easy for the newspaper since it fears no legal action. Is the poor gypsy going to read the newspaper and come looking for Daily Times?!!
Nevertheless, the question is what’s the reason? To me, the reason this person is beating his wife like this is that he doesn’t have the fear of Allah in him and is not Islamically educated enough (Allah knows best). Otherwise, he won’t humiliate her and try to dominate her like this. Most probably, he doesn’t know his wife’s huqooq over him and his huqooq over his wife.
You mean the case like mukhtaran mai getting hundreds of hours on MSM and an Indian case getting a teensy weensy mention on BBC site are equal? I applaud you for this masterpiece of balanced reporting.
Can you deny her case was in a court when her handlers showed her ways of making shameless dollars? Why didn’t she wait for the verdict? Isn’t she guilty of manipulating and pressurizing the courts by playing in the hands of western MSM?
bibi cases in courts are not to be discussed until finalized, in case you are forgeting it in some liberal fervor. Dont deny she opted to make money out of it and did not keep silent until the verdict was out.
Second USA with 200000 rapes per annum has no business whatsoever to lecture us on our domestic problems, or hijack case like mukhtaran mai. Tell them to bring that horrendous figure to zero before pointing a finger towards other. Those liberals goons involved in her case give a damn and are only concerned with dollars attached to it. And when is the last time some American rape victim was paraded in Islamabad? If the answer is no then why is our problem magnified in their capitals?
We will solve our problems ourselves. Hijacking of these issues by west and liberal goons only complicates things for other victims. Muktaran mai lost the support of majority of people as soon as she became a pawn in the geopolitical war that is being waged against Muslim world. But much of the blame rests with her liberal handlers. No one can deny that fact. And who knows maybe the other party was innocent and it was liberal goons who made the whole fuss?
First of all the case of the Indian nurse did make the international media (check BBC) and second, to even be able to say that Mai was “making fun of Pakistan” by trying to raise awareness shows you are a long way from understanding anything about women’s problems.
Please look at this picture above again and tell me where foreigners come into it.
Being proud of your country should not mean being blind to its faults. Mai did not deface Pakistan to the outside world. Her rapists did that.
Please identify the correct people as the source of the problem and take care of them, and then Pakistan will have a reputation as a shining beacon of virtue.
Every day in Dawn or other Pakistani dailies there is some horrible story about rape or murder of women that does not make the international press. Take for example the story in Dawn a few weeks back about a young female athlete from the punjab countryside who was promised an Army scholarship and upon her arrival in Lahore, soldiers took her to a hotel room and raped and murdered her. This tragic story of a strong young woman who did not survive her ordeal did not get any international press. 99% of them don’t, in fact. Nobody in the MSM is out to get Pakistan.
The press feeds on a diet of sensational violence, they will take it from any country whatever, and sure this is disgusting and prurient but I don’t see that Pakistan has been specially selected out. There really is a significant problem with violence against women. Foreigners will never fix this problem, however many misguided do-gooding NGOs they set up in the country. They are well intentioned (sometimes) but because they are not well received by many people their effectiveness is limited. Therefore to continually harp on foreigners hijacking this or that is just a way of saying, first of all:
1) there is no problem, just foreigners say that we have a problem
2) we are not responsible for fixing the problem, which we are unwilling to admit exists
By saying this you are basically saying that the West defines and drives the whole social agenda in Pakistan and that I think is a cop-out. Pakistanis have to fight the injustice of domestic violence themselves, just as every other country has to.
I am not going to write the same thing in different words over and over, so I am done with saying this, but the next time someone wants to cry out that foreigners are the problem in the Mukhtaran Mai case, I will ask which foreigners raped her or ordered her raped.
And others might do well to consider it also.
tina again you are getting it wrong. The problem with our liberals is they are unbale to draw a line of respect for their country. I say do struggle for justice (if you are sincere) but do not let outer powers hijack our domestic issues. This is where our liberals fail miserably day in day out.
Remeber the mukhtaraan mai case? You see I did support her in her struggle against her alleged culprits UNTILL she opted to sell her ordeal to foreign powers and make fun of my country. In those same days, a nurse in Delhi was so brutely raped that when she was escaping her aggressor, her eye was dangling out of her eyesocket with the optic nerve, and there simply was NO NEWS of this incident in MSM. Don’t I have a right to ask about this hypocricy?