Adil Najam
As a rule, we try not to repeat posts too often. Sometimes, we feel that the message is either pertinent again or that the original may not have been seen by a new crop of readership. I am reposting this picture and this post, originally posted on this date last year, because the message is even more pertinent today than it was a year ago, and because I feel like I need to say it again.
For Pakistan, this has again been a year of struggles as well as achievements for women. It marked the assassination of Benazir Bhutto – clearly the best known Pakistani woman, whatever you think of her politics. It marked also an election that saw more women win on general seats than ever before in Pakistan. But there was more, much more, to the daily struggles and achievements of Pakistan’s 70 million women that we need to celebrate. Today, and everyday.
In the metaphor of the original post, the message is that we all are (not just women, but men too) crossing the road to better gender relations, but we ain’t there just yet. Not by a long shot. Read on, please, even if you have read it before. What follows is my original post from last year.
Today is March 8 – International Women’s Day. Today we wish to celebrate women in the fullness of what it means to be a woman in Pakistan. To celebrate their achievements (also here, here, here, here, here, here and here). And to celebrate their struggles (also here, here, here here, here, here and here).
I have thought much about how best to capture the meaning of this day. It seems to me that in many very important ways, this picture above does.
I have admired this picture by Jawad Zakariya (whose work we have featured before here and here) from the moment I first saw it at Flickr. I had been waiting, however, for the right time and the right context in which to use it. Today, I feel, IS that right time and right context.
There is both dignity and determination in the posture of this young woman as she tries to cross the road (Jail Road, Lahore). As in any good photograph, there are a thousand stories embedded in this one. The metaphor of ‘crossing the road’ is itself so very pertinent for today. So full of meaning.
For me, here is a woman who is not waiting for someone to ‘help’ her cross the road. She is not demanding any special treatment. Not waiting for assistance. Not invoking the chuvinism of the men around her. She is ready, prepared, even eager, to overcome whatever hurdles come in her way. She just wants to cross the road on her own; for people (mostly men) to get out of her way. That, ultimately, is what this day is about. It is not about seeking special treatment, special dispensations, special laws. It is about ensuring that women have what we men have always had. The ability to realize their own potentials. To rise to their own aspirations. To be able to cross the roads they wish to cross… on their own.
@SS:
Nicely said on the gender chauvinism our and many other societies have.
@Daktar
[quote]According to this, this is how the MMA and JUI celebrated the International Women’s Day. By announcing that only men can be Prime Minister and President!!! Now you know what you are up against. [/quote]
Do we really know what we r up against????? We are up against ourselves and our ideology. When we all followed the Muslim League in the 40’S for a Muslim country where they can practice their religion without any repression, then it was then that we decided that we will form an Islamic society at large, and present a shariah model to the world, we never did that.
And now, when the west watches us from their eyes, we so conveniently join their thought process. Have we really thought why the MMA made such a comment? Have we gone so numb and so insensitive to the larger picture of Pakistan that we seem to deny even the most conserved, their right to reason?
The MMA is not my ideal and at times I too vote against their actions, but its their intention which is superior to all politicians. They want Paksitan to stop hypocricy and let the Islamic Republic of Pakistan be Islamic!
However, their acts r flawed. They are merely saying this that women should not opt for such positions because its not practical for a woman in Islam to mingle with men. And such posts require constant meetings, some in privacy too. Islam doesnot stop women to work, the first of the Prophets PBUH wives was a very successful business woman, but her interactions were always through a proper channel which was at times obtrusive. Had we been blessed by women who were abiding by the Shariah and running for government, I am sure MMA would not have done or said such a thing, after all, if you look at MMA, they too have women representatives and also appear on tv as well.
Most women are just subjected to b there by the enligthened fauji and most have no clue of whats going on. Women who have reached this far under the current quasi government could not have done so had they not been ‘liberalized’ or ‘enlightened’ according to the fauji’S criteria.
If you really want to liberate women, stop making her compete with men, give her the respect and rights she deserves. And who r we to decide what rights should she have, dont we have the Quran and Sunnah to look forward to being an Islamic Republic, or am i missing something here?
@Adil bhai:
“It is about ensuring that women have what we men have always had.”
Women can never have what men have and men can never have what women have. We are made that way, our thinkings, our emotions, our view of the world can never be the same. But yes, if u r referring to merely the rights and freedom, then i agree.
Oommenting a bit more on it, I think in the awake of women rights movements especially in the US as mentioned above, our women rights movements have been flawed as they didnt and most have not considered the social and religious differences in the makeup of womanhood in our region.
So women rights is just about getting jobs to women which men have monopolized. Although a noble and just cause it seems, and surely helps a lot of families out there. But i wonder how a nation without mothers who give full time to their children, who give them the security they deserve, of their 24 hr presence, with the tahzeeb mothers, usually house wives give to the children to balance the act of both schooling (mostly skill work) and educating (mostly ethics, morality and tahzeeb in the larger meaning) can truly prosper. Of course this type of freedom which gives women a skill set in economics or technology or escort-like work (mostly secretaries, air hostesses etc) does improve the economics figures but the society as a whole loses its spirit, its soul, its enlightenment, the same things which is sought in the first place.
This goes to the men of our society as well, if the men weren’t so lethargic, so incompetent, so careless as they r today, women wudnt have to take up work men shud be doing in the first place. She shud not be made responsible for earning money, but to mould character for future men.
In Islam men and women are equal but they have different responsibilities.
In fact, women have more advantages over men, a man is responsible to earn for his entire family whereas earnings which women make are only for herself. Not even her children have right over that.
The list goes on. if u dont believe it, check this out:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2065330098 429769340&q=aminah+assilmi+duration%3Along
Being Pakistani, its our responsibility to specify both aspects of women liberation, of both her human rights and her Islamic rights. Only the former is considered to be the whole mission.
So biased and short sighted!
[quote comment=”36993″] Women have the power to inject rational thinking and create an architecture of a balanced personality as a “mother”. The mothers must train the kids especially boys how to behave in an educated society. They have control until that child is young. After that the opportunity is pretty much lost. So we have to ask,are our mothers teaching correctly? are our mother educated and capable of teaching that or teaching anything for that matter? are they conscious about whats on stake here? are they taking any steps on daily basis to educate themselves so they can transfer that education accordingly or are they simply waiting for a hero to come flying some day from the skies? or they r just busy fighting over the rates of aloo, gobee while the nation is drifting away…[/quote]
@DB9: Nicely put, Nepoleon said that if u want a strong nation, give me strong mothers.
[quote]Plus the society as a whole must open up. Meaning we cannot talk about just women rights and try to block everything else, that will not work. I dont think women rights is the problem, I think it is the National Character that needs to be fixed and women rights is one of the things in it. The entire hudood ordinance stupidity must be wiped out and nothing should be above the law.[/quote]
@DB9: What is the notion of stupidity who r referring to? Is it that Hudood Ordinance should be removedor Hudood Law should be removed or what the current government is doing in the name of Hudood Ordinance amendments should be removed or something else?????
But whatever it is, I am sure u have seen this video by now:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4763829972 393791162&q=taqi+usmani
“I think putting a picture of girl without her permission is indecent attitude. It is the violation of basic right of women.”
Abdullah: Is it indecent and a violation because the subject is a female?