Adil Najam
This photograph was published in Daily Times, January 12, 2009. The caption read:
“Women are not allowed in the market,” reads a banner displayed at the entrance of a market in Mingora. Taliban have banned the entry of women in markets and ordered the killing of women who violate the ban. Most shop owners have sold or shut down their businesses because of falling sales following the restriction.
What would have made this tragic depiction comical had the context been different is that from the picture this is clearly a textile and cloth market – the type of market where, in Pakistan, you would expect most customers to be women!
Sorry Tinwoman.
My apologies for the typos. (This happens when one reads a really stimulating post and can’t wait long enough to respond).
The first para should read:
That is all I can say. After all the pussyfooting around the elephant in the room (that religion is) by all of us moderates, your post comes as breath of fresh air.
@ Tinwoman
Amazing.
That is all I can saw. After all the pussyfooting around the elephant in the room by all of us moderates, your post comes as afresh of breath air.
Not being a muslim myself, I personally feel uncomfortable spelling out my own stance in so many words but agree with your point wholeheartedly.
Religion; of any kind, belongs to a person’s personal domain (which in my case is limited to questions of philosophy) and yet we see all sorts of absurdities in the name of religion when applied to the public arena in the modern world.
The sooner that modern natione recognise this (more so those with composite societies like India and Pakistan) the better it is.
Teachers and educators (along with othe rsocial leaders) carry a special responsibility in this regard since the young and impressionable minds are the ones most vulnerable to seduction and subsequent exploitation in the name of religion.
Only one religion belongs in the public arena and that is Insaaniat.
This calls for a protest. Where the hell are the freakin Women???
Why are they not protesting this???
We are easy to blame Israel and US and hold mass protests!!!!!
Out Country is being lost to these stupid Mullahs are we are in a comatose state.
BTW, having been in the Gulf for awhile now, I find the revisionist double-speak like that which is parroted on this thread quite funny: ‘Islam is the religion of peace and love and Muslims invented equal rights for women’, etc. etc.
This has to be a joke, right? All religions one thousand years ago advocated war and slavery and held women in contempt, views which make strict religion very unpalatable to people’s minds today, and Islam is no different. Islam also has a long and bloody history of expansion at the point of the sword.
I don’t understand why people’s brains don’t explode trying to reconcile the cheerful statements of the Ahmed Deedat inspired ‘Muslim evangelists’ with known gruesome facts and even the Q’uran itself. Not to worry, people who cheerlead for other religions are just as deluded. It’s just curious to me, that’s all.
Anyway, be careful about screaming too loudly that the Taliban and Wahabis are not ‘real Muslims’ whereas the more liberal Muslims are. After all, the purists are following the religious texts more closely, are they not? The2y have more support for their views from the Q’uran, Sunnah, and Hadith than Westernized progressive Muslims have, do they not?
It looks to me like they are ‘right’ and all the liberal Muslims are wrong. What do you all intend to do if this is in fact the case?
You should think about that.
First of all Pakistan needs to get off the fence and stop trying to be a half Islamic government and half secular society. The primary example of this is the weird uncomfortable side by side existence of Westernized law courts, which often have a rather normal approach to things on paper, and at the same time the government recognizes barbaric applications of Sharia, such as putting rape victims in prison for ‘adultery’.
A country divided against itself cannot stand. Pakistan is divided between its urban secular class and its impoverished rural class, who turn to a savage interpretation of their religion to bring about change in their miserable condition.
If Pakistan is willing to unequivically declare its government a religion-free zone committed to equal rights for all its citizens, men, women, Shia, Sunni, Christian, and others, then the message of tolerance will eventually sink in. As long as the politicians weave back and forth trying to appease the Islamists, they are legitimatizing the Islamist argument that Pakistan is an Islamic state that just isn’t ‘Islamic enough’.
That must stop. I hope the people soon come to understand that only secular governments function in any recognizable way in the 21st century. The time of rule by religious zealots–popes, caliphs, divine monarchs–is over. It’s primitive. It doesn’t work. It discriminates against many people unfairly in favor of the ‘holy rollers’ in power. Pakistan doesn’t need elaborate excuses to STEP AWAY from having Saudi-sponsored Wahabi Islam and Sharia dictating Pakistani laws and lifestyles. Pakistan just needs to do it.