Adil Najam
Sepoy, of Chapati Mystery fame, sent me this picture before. It is a crude sheyr (verse) crudely written at the back of a bus.
Girls these days are so proud of their beauty
They don’t know the first kalma, but speak in English
Sepoy said it made him chuckle. It makes me chuckle too. But it also makes me shudder a bit. And not just for the (lack of) poetic skills displayed here. The verse and its display probably says more about the way we view women – especially young women – than it does about the state of poetry in the country.
Notwithstanding the fact that not just rhyme but reason is also missing here and the first and second misras have little connection, the verse does suggest what is viewed good (knowing the pehla kalma) and what is not (speaking in English).
All too often people will presume that a certain behavior correlates to certain moral positions. I remember how we wrote on ATP about an Ad in Dawn’s classified section for
Thinking about the ad and all the societal assumptions imbedded in it still makes me mad. As did this interesting post from ATP friend Mansoor on Metroblog Karachi, where he writes about a new way of stealing cellphones that as practiced in Karachi.
A girl is standing at a bus stop, waiting to catch a bus to go home and talking on her cellphone. There are quite many people around and its daytime.
Two guys on a bike pull up in front of her, the guy on the back gets off the bike, comes in front of her, and without warning, plants a loud slap right on her face! The girl is stunned, cant even utter a word. He then shouts (for the benefit of whoever is listening) “kitney dafa bola hai! Abba ka cellphone nahi lay kar nikla karo” (how many times have i told you, not to take dads cellphone out), grabs her cell, gets back on the bike, and they both drive away.
The girl is too shocked to say anything and just stands there, her hand holding an imaginary cellphone to her ear. People around ignore the situation thinking its just some family tiff or the other…. till she screams out “ye mera bhai nahi tha!!!!!!!” (he was not my brother!!!!!)
What I found notable is that even though the post generated intense discussion it was mostly focused on crime prevention and law enforcement and very little about what – to me – was the most shocking line of all:
People around ignore the situtation thinking its just some family tiff or the other…
Wait, wait, wait. Please. It is OK if someone comes and slap their sister or wife or daughter in public? Or even in private? And the rest of us will say, ‘OK, its a family tiff.’
I must confess that I am shocked most because in my heart of heart I know that many people will, in fact, do exactly that. And, that, is the tragedy of it all.
Saadia – you are right – in some places in Germany it is apparently quite normal for men to beat people up and the other people nearby stand and watch and do NOTHING. I have an Australian friend who lives there with her German husband and she has recently been telling me stories that would curl your ears!
My friend was assaulted on her _3rd day_ in Germany back in 2000 and her in-laws told her not to complain and that it was HER FAULT for wearing clothes that were _too dowdy_!
I can send you more details if you share the same horrified fascination for such stories from a supposedly developed country in the 21st century…
Kim…
[…] This case catches our attention because the man is a former cricket star and the wife a former TV personality. But the story here is repeated every day and goes unnoticed and unreported. His intoxication obviously made matters worse, but the malady here is deeper than alcoholism. It is the way women are treated. The Jansher case was one example, but there have been many others that we have raised here on ATP. Wife-beating is a serious social sin and the sinners here are not only those who do so, it is also those who condone it in the name of tradition or because it is a ‘personal matter’, and it is also those of see it happening and choose to remain quiet. […]
About the staring issue which some of you have mentioned…
this is a well documented phenom, even among animals, it is called “the hate stare”. It is meant to intimidate and force into a submissive posture the one being stared at.
The Pakistani men do not feel the women should be out and about so they stare at them. This is meant to make them feel uncomfortable and can be difficult to ignore.
I have experienced it frequently in Pakistan. I have also been groped in crowded areas, something other Americans travelling there have told me happens to them as well. It is predictable and makes going out in public alone nerve-wracking, which is its objective. The message is, “woman, you are not welcome here. Get out”.
In the U.S., Southern whites of both sexes will practice the hate stare towards blacks of both sexes. One black man said as he was walking through a white suburb, every single housewife came out of her house, folded her arms over her chest, and glared at him all the way to the end of the street.
It is an aggressive behavior, but hard to attack frontally. You cannot walk up to every man who is staring you down in Pakistan and tell him to stop looking at you. And believe me, I know the difference between being stared down and people who are looking out of curiousity.
Just some thoughts, education and understanding are the key. The hate stare is an active form of discrimination, can be racial or sexual. Plain and simple.
[quote comment=”13039″]Has anyone considered the possibility that the event described was also too shocking for the bystanders to take action against? I mean you don’t see something like this happen everyday and the perpetrators must have taken the element of surprise into account when planning the robbery.
From my observation, men here are usually more than eager to help out a young woman in trouble. Brother or no brother. In fact, this may be the real cause for concern/ THIS IS KAS_DON TALKING SAJ I AGREE BUT JUS LEAVE IT UP TO ALLAH ALLMIGHTY
alvi sahib
i tried to convey ma msg an its gud to hear ur response