Adil Najam and Owais Mughal
Let us be as clear and unambiguous as we can. Those who think they can “restore” their honor by murdering others have no honor to begin with. There is no honor in murder. Ghairat cannot be gained or regained by butchering the weak. Indeed, murder is beghairati personified.
And let us never - never - let anyone confuse criminality with culture.
Yet, two members of the Pakistan Senate insist on doing exactly that. In defending (or seeming to defend) the most barbaric of so-called “honor killings” (in this case the burying alive of three young girls) Senators Israrullah Zehri and Jan Mohammad Jamali have not only shamed the Senate and all of Pakistan, they are in fact abusing and shaming the culture and traditions of all Baloch. They are conflating criminality with culture.
No, Senators, murder and criminality is NOT a part of “tribal tradition.” Clearly murder and criminality is not part of any religious tradition. It is certainly no part of Islam. There have been criminals and murders in all cultures and in all religions in all times. But criminality and murder is not part of any culture, any tradition, any religion. Even if some murderous actions have gone unpunished in the past, they do not define tradition, they define criminality. Those who confuse the criminal behavior of the murderous few with the essence of any culture (their own or someone else’s), abuse that culture and tradition itself. Not every tradition needs to be defended, and many need to be abandoned.
Let us never let anyone defend criminality and murder in the name of tradition and culture. Indeed, instead of defending criminality and murder in the name of culture and tradition, we should be defending culture and tradition from criminality and murder committed in its name.
For those few who may not know what we are talking about, here are the essentials from a news report in Dawn:
Balochistan Senator Sardar Israrullah Zehri stunned the upper house on Friday when he defended the recent incident of burying alive three teenage girls and two women in his province, saying it was part of ‘our tribal custom.’ Senator Bibi Yasmin Shah of the PML-Q raised the issue citing a newspaper report that the girls, three of them aged between 16 and 18 years, had been buried alive a month ago for wishing to marry of their own will.
The barbaric incident took place in a remote village of Jafarabad district and a PPP minister and some other influential people were reported to have been involved. The report accused the provincial government of trying to hush up the issue. Ms Shah said that the hapless girls and the women were first shot in the name of honour and then buried while they were alive. She also said that no criminal had been arrested so far.
Acting Chairman of Senate Jan Mohammad Jamali, who was presiding over the session, said: “Yasmin Shah should go to our society and see for herself what the situation is like there and then come back to raise such questions in the house.” Maulana Ghafoor Haideri of the JUI-F said there was no tradition of burying women alive in Baloch society because it was against Islam’s teachings. Jamal Leghari of PML-Q emphatically stated that there was no custom of burying people alive, adding that the Baloch people did not believe in it.
Senator Jan Jamali commented: “This is a provincial matter and it is being investigated at the provincial level and let us wait for the report of the investigation.” Leader of the Opposition Kamil Ali Agha accused the Balochistan government of ignoring the incident and said no jirga could order the burying of women alive and no law allowed anyone to commit such a crime and go unpunished. He urged the government to punish the people involved in it. Leader of the House Mian Raza Rabbani said: “We condemn the heinous act and assure the house that a complete report on the incident would be submitted on Monday.”
One can be shocked and angry and aghast at what one has been hearing. But one cannot remain quiet. To merely speak out may not help in itself, but to remain silent is to condone that which is horrible and inhuman with our silence. Even if speaking out does nothing except provide us with catharsis, silence emboldens the criminals and murderers who commit their heinous barbarism in the name of culture; and in doing so kill not only the innocent and the weak but the very culture and traditions that they speak of.
So, speak we must. But as we speak, let us also remain focused on what it is that shocks us and makes us angry and aghast. Yes, it is the words of these Senators - people who should know better - that cannot be reconciled. But, even more than that it is the act of barbarism that triggered the controversy in the first place. One does not want these two Senators to get away with what they have said, but even more than that those who have committed the henious act of burying three young girls alive must not get away with it.
One fears that the outrage has been not only triggered by but is focused on these two Senators and only on their words. Yes, indeed, what the Senators have tried to defend is indefensible and their words must be condemned in the strongest. But, and for exactly that reason, let us never forget that this story is not only about what the Senators have said, it is about the vile an venomous act of murder and criminality that triggered those words in the first place. Ultimately, even more than being about the words of two Senators this has to be about the actions of the murderers who killed and the lives of the women who are no longer alive because of those actions. It is important, but not enough, to have the Senators take their words back. It is far far more important to make sure that what happened to these three young girls must never happen to anyone, anywhere, ever again.
It was jahalat that killed them. But let neither the words of these two Senators nor the silence of the rest of us condone that jahalat.
Adil,
You make some good points in your comment but don’t think that the tribal culture has nothing to do with this practice. In these cultures, the chiefs hold all the power and it is a way of imposing their will and displaying their might to the common and weak people.
I agree that it happens outside the tribal system as well but the tribes practice it in a systematic manner with jirgas, decrees and execution. The end result may be the same but the act of a father killing his daughter in rage is different than a tribal jirga of “elders” making the decision to kill someone else’s daughter in front of dozens of people yet leaving no one in the crowd willing to testify against it. To me, all people witnessing the crime are either convinced of the decision’s validity (making it a culture) or all of them think that it is wrong but are scared to openly speak against it, in which case all the blame should go to the tribal chiefs making the tribal culture the main culprit.
I did not hear anything about the parents of the unfortunate girls. Were they willing participants in the crime or mere onlookers?
Adil:
First, let me congratulate you on taking up this very important topic to get the discussion going. I think you and Owais have done a great service by writing this very significant post. As far as your comments are concerned, please let me say the following:
You said in your comments: “And very little expressed anger on the reason behind the act - i.e., attempts to define one’s ‘honor’ by control over the weak, and especially women and the trampling of their rights. The outrage over the Senator’s words is appropriate but the silence over the larger issue here is disturbing.”
While I agree that varying degrees of misogyny persist in many parts of the world including Europe, Africa, Asia, Arab and Muslim worlds, don’t you think that the local and national leadership has a very special role in influencing social behaviors? Wouldn’t you also agree that misogynistic attitudes and atrocities are far more common in patriarchal feudal and tribal cultures than elsewhere? If you do agree, then addressing feudal and tribal reform is a very good place to begin to address the issues of human and female rights and dignity in Pakistan.
As is often said, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”. I think we should stop being politically correct and call a spade a spade to seriously challenge the status quo in Pakistan. We must take on those that are the most responsible for human degradation and abuse of the vast majority of rural/tribal folks. Democracy can not coexist with the current feudal and tribal systems in Pakistan or any where else in the world. We must, therefore, work as a people on emasculating feudal and tribal power to usher in genuine democracy for all of our people.
I wish I can write only this: What will it take my nation to rise up against all these “Satans”. Unfortunately, this is happening every day every where in all Muslim Societies. The Powerful are abusing their power to kill and humilate the weakers of the society in the name of religion, and culture. We keep our women handicaped by not allowing them same opportunities as their men counterpart. I also have 2 daughters and I am happy that I raised them in America. I am proud to say that they are economically more independent and more educated then any of their male/female cousins in Pakistan. I wish we realize that 1500 years ago my prophet has defined their equality to men, and we have no right to keep women as a secondary citizen.
@Faisal Bhai,
It happens in Punjab and Sind as well,
a well established “ancient culture ” of gang-raping,
women degrading & humiliation particularly
punishing her of all morals, but men, is royal’ly
immuned!!!
@Adil Najam,
@Owais Mughal,
I, simply can not get over the fact that we discover
here that not only some ” Jahil-villager”gansters
organised such cruelty, but we have senators and
politicians of BNP & PPP involved in the ” justification”
of such inhuman crimes,
Double standard justice will now be judged !!
Rafay Kashmiri
“These are centuries-old traditions and I will continue to defend them,” Zehri added over the weekend
Horrible!! Unbelievable!
As many long-time readers know, I try not to comment on my own posts; partly, because I already have the privilege of framing the original argument and it seems inappropriate to influence the discussion too much after one has stated one’s case. However, there are exceptions. And this is one.
Given the nature of some of the comments, I do think that some points bear repetition and elaboration.
- First, I must say that I am sad that the last few paragraphs of the post (the most important for me at least) have received little or no attention. As we had feared there seems to be more anger at the Senators (as their should be) than at those who committed this henious act. And very little expressed anger on the reason behind the act - i.e., attempts to define one’s ‘honor’ by control over the weak, and especially women and the trampling of their rights. The outrage over the Senator’s words is appropriate but the silence over the larger issue here is disturbing.
- Second, and related, some comments seem to miss (or overlook) the essential argument being made here and are equating Baluchi culture with such acts. In my view, to do so is to be no better than these Senators. Their sin in not only that which they said but also the implication they made that this is what Baluchis do. No, this is NOT so. This is an abuse of a great tradition and the criminals and murderers within that culture must not be allowed to define the whole culture.
- Third, and again related, while burying girls alive is the most extreme manifestation of this, the larger sin of abusing women’s rights, of defining our so-called ‘honor’ by subjugating women, by restricting the choices women make, is found everywhere. Honor killings have been reported (not frequently, but even one is too frequent) everywhere; in all provinces and in all major cities of Pakistan (Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, etc.), even in the UK, elsewhere in the world too. In many other countries too. To say this is just “feudal” and “tribal” is not just abusing those tribal cultures, it is just plain wrong. It amounts to ignoring the problem. Again, the burying of girls is cruel and unusual and inhuman, but the cause of this inhumanity was the attempt to not let women make the choice they wanted to make. How many of us can honestly say that this is only a “feudal” practice and does not happen anywhere else. If not, then should we all not be hanging our head in shame? What killed these girls was not feudalism or tribalism or a particular culture, but the extreme manifestation of a social view about the right of men to impose their wishes on women and of restricting the choices of women. As long as this social view is not changed and the culture of violence that we have written about so often here is not resolved we will keep seeing violent manifestations of this view. Although hopefully not this violent.
- Fianlly, there are of course those who will use this tragedy to take cheap shots at particular parties or politicians they do not like. These comments are best ignored. If you follow this story you will find that leaders of all major parties in the area (PPP, PML, BNP) are equally involved. Just as this is NOT the problem of a particular region, this is NOT the problem of a particular party. This is a problem for and by all of us. We can sit smugly, point fingers elsewhere and assume its just “them” and their barbaric ways; but in reality it stems from a social norm that is far far more prevalent than that. Ignore it, dear readers, if you wish to. But you will do so at your own risk.
My dear miss Tina U are absolutely right the SUPPORTER happens to be a close relative of a SITTING PPP MEMBER thus the attitude. And we are going to elect a president from the same feudal system. Today 5 women have been buried alive tomorrow the whole country will be tried and banished in the name of honor. We never learn