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)!
Shame on PIA :-(
I don’t see how biased people are when it comes to this. As the article says, if forcing someone to grow beards is a “violation of human rights”, then forcing someone to clear it off is a SIMILAR VIOLATION. Why do people fail to see this?
@dilnawaz: I don’t know what school of thought you follow, but just in case you didn’t know, alcohol is banned in Islam and I’ll probably commit suicide the day alcohol is openly available in the markets, haven’t you heard of the negative affects of drinking? If you really do want to allow it, then don’t call this country the “Islamic Republic of Pakistan” because it is clearly giving Islam a bad name.
Hanif Q’s comment is silly as well as dangerous
The thinking is no different from the Taliban’s and wrong for same reasons.
What is wrong is wrong, whether the Taliban do it or PIA. The Taliban many be violent and barbaric in their implementation but their logic is as wrong as PIAs.
Adil najam is doing the right thing by speaking out against this.
@jock: maybe the idea was given by one of the resident liberal taliban of this forum? *grin*
@bigthug: hahaah! dude you cracked me up!
Not sure if this was a factor in the decision, but in the US, people who work with food have to wear some sort of covering over their hair. In fast food restaurants people who have bushy beards wear a rather unattractive net-like covering on their chins. The whole idea is to prevent hair from getting into food.
Since flight attendants work with food, assuming that this whole beard covering thing is an international regulation, doesn’t PIA have some justification in requiring that beards be kept short? What about other considerations such as driving business revenue up? Most western travelers, for cultural reasons, find long beards unhygenic. What if this action is a result of complaints from travelers?
If this case was not related specifically to the services industry I would be in complete agreement that this is uncalled for. But I am not sure where the line should be drawn here.