Adil Najam
According to a news item in The News, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is going to implement a ban on growing beards – except for French beards – on all male cabin crew:
In a recent notification, PIA administration has announced to have reviewed its policy regarding beards, and said now male cabin crew could not grow beards and they could only have French-cut beards.
Not surprisingly, religious scholars and ulema condemned PIA for this, calling the ban a violation of constitutional and fundamental human rights. Whether this is or is not the most important constitutional violation of our age, the ulema are, in fact, right.
Unless there is a sound technical reason for it (and there seems not to be), forcing someone to take off their beard is deserving of condemnation as much as forcing someone to grow a beard. Especially if either of the act is ideologically motivated; no matter what the ideology. Of course, forcing someone to grow a beard on threat of death or violence is particularly disturbing. But, frankly, a threat to one’s livelihood is also reprehensible.
Right now, I myself do not have a beard. And that is not an ideological statement one way or the other. But my own position remains unchanged from October 2006 when I had commented on facial hair for cricketers:
By way of disclosure I should add that I occasionally sprout facial hair of my own but am mostly clean-shaven. But as a deep and committed adherent of people’s right of expression (how can a blogger not be that!) I stand committed to defend people’s right to facial hair, whether they are grown for stylistic elegance or religious expression.
More pertinent was the June 2006 decision by Habib Bank to ban shalwar kameez and facial hair (by the way, can someone please confirm if that policy was ever implemented). In that case the issue had focused more on the wearing of shalwar kameez to work and the argument that this somehow made the person look less “trustworthy” and less “presentable.” Facial hair were also targeted for the same reason. On the issue of beards, trustworthiness and presentability, my argument was rather simple:
Dr. Abdus Salam? Abdul Sattar Edhi? Sir Syed Ahmed Khan?
Presentable? You bet.
Trustworthy? More than any banker I ever met.
As a rather frequent traveler on PIA – in fact, I read this news item on a PIA plane retruning from Karachi to Islamabad, and one of the cabin staff was supporting a huge beard – I too have noticed that the number of crew members with facial hair, especially large beards, has increased dramatically over the years. But that is a factor of what has been happening in society. PIA has plenty of big problems to deal with, and this seems to be the least of them.
At least in my experience, the quality of service one gets is not at all dependent on the amount of facial hair. Maybe the management should focus on that before it starts following the example of the Swat Taliban in judging people by the length of their facial hair (or not)!
Zecchetti :
And please don
Zecchetti:
I don
@maskaneel
Do you think Muhammad Yusuf should leave cricket because of his beard?
I do not have problem with people sporting any kind of beard, but I do get irritated when some link the depth of one’s faith with the length of his beard.
I do not desire to venture into suggesting what should be the length of a beard from a social or religious angle, but I would say that bearded people need to understand the importance of neatness, cleanliness in terms of public appearence as opposed to disheveled and unkempt look.
These days I live in Vancouver, Canada. Recently during a visit to the local Parliament building, I came across an old photograph (about a century old) of the provincial cabinet posing with its premier. There were about 16 people standing and interestingly 90% of them had beards and long enough to be called Maulanas from our standards. That reminds me of the W.H. Grace, the great British cricketer whose long beard was his trademark.
Thank God someone came to their senses that PIA is not a platform for Islam but a commercial venue for Pakistan to make money where mullah’s should have no presence. In fact these beard cland lad walking around in the cabin reflect that the cabin has been hijacked by these undesirables. I have yet to see where in the post modern world one likes to be or forced to be among the religious zealots. Please keep all modern facilities free from these mullah’s or sunnaties.
Also, I should not fail to mention mullah’s in sports. What a joke to the whole affair.
I praise those who want to act logically and not act in fear of Islamists.