Pakistani women beheaded by religious extremists September 12, 2007 Jill For the crime of “obscenity,” which may mean prostitution.
God, this makes me so sad. Sometimes these stories make me feel totally powerless and apathetic. What can we DO about this?
That’s the way it goes. Women have this evil power to make men want to have sex with them, so the simplest way to stop the problem is to wipe them out.
Women have this evil power to make men want to have sex with them, so the simplest way to stop the problem is to wipe them out. which is why you won’t see these clowns trying to chase down the customers of these ‘obscene’ women.
Pakistan is generally never considered the Middle East. Thus the tagging of this story as “Middle East” is pretty false and is perhaps revealing of some racist/essentialist ideas regarding Islam and well, brown folks.
This was on BBC news the same day as an article about a Chinese woman who recently found out she had a bunch of needles floating through her body, basically. The suspected cause is her grandparents inserting them because she was born a girl… http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6983435.stm
Pakistan is generally never considered the Middle East. Thus the tagging of this story as “Middle East” is pretty false and is perhaps revealing of some racist/essentialist ideas regarding Islam and well, brown folks. You’re right. And you know, I knew that Pakistan wasn’t part of the Middle East before I posted this, so I’m not sure why I checked that box. I do suspect that some racism and essentialism regarding Islam and brown folks played into it. So that was my fuck-up and I’m sorry. Fixing the post now.
This was on BBC news the same day as an article about a Chinese woman who recently found out she had a bunch of needles floating through her body, basically. The suspected cause is her grandparents inserting them because she was born a girl… http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6983435.stm I’m going to go throw up now… Seriously, WTF do we DO about all this?
The “justice” meted out by these often self-appointed arbiters is indeed repulsive. It’s one of the myriad of reasons in Pakistan you’ll find little or no support from the people towards the Taliban and their supporters. Keep in mind that the shoddy state of Pakistani education doesn’t exactly help. In 1993 only 2.3% of the national budget went towards education. In 2003? 1.8%. Also take into account that the Pakistan government until recently (at least publicly) funded all madrassas much like any other state school. The problem here is the children who go to these madrassas for the most part are just taught the namaz (prayer) and how to recite the Qur’an by rote. When these kids graduate after a few years, they’re pretty much unemployable by a majority of the employers in Pakistan, who want people with usable skills. What happens as a result? They either go towards the gutter, or they’re picked up/recruited by fundamentalists near the Afghan border, or up in the NWFP (North West Frontier Province), the latter being one of the scariest places in Pakistan. I went as part of an AIDS Awareness group as part of UNAIDS and the local AIDS Prevention initiative, and I have to say that having ten AK-47s and a couple of Desert Eagles aimed at one’s head for trying to politely broach the subject of sex education is not entirely comforting. The sad thing is that Pakistan and Afghanistan were, back in the 60s and early 70s, fairly modern in parts. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, wanted a state for muslims, but not a muslim state, rather a secular one with some concessions (sort of like Turkey or Malaysia). Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto – father of the ever annoying Benazir, who did nowt for the poor or for women whilst in power – set the ball rolling by appeasing to the maulvis…something taken up by Zia-ul Haq and his repulsive Hudood Ordinance. When the latter fellow was blown up in mid-air, there weren’t that many tears for the guy. But we still have an Ordinance that no one wants aside from the maulvis/mullahs, not to mention rampant racial/religious bigotry towards minorities (read up on Abdus Salam). I’m going back to Pakistan to work for a couple of years with Unesco, then I’m off to somewhere normal, like Sweden.
Also, forgot to mention: A couple of friends of mine are in the media in Pakistan, so I’m trying to find more about the beheading, since nearly every news outlet appears to have the same scant general information. I’ll let you know what I find out.
Umm….Adnan, you are wrong. Pakistan’s ISI essentially created the Taliban using CIA funding to drive away the Soviets. Pakistan’s people give enormous support to Muslim fundamentalists. Pakistan is in some ways as fundamentalist as Saudi Arabia. There are blasphemy laws which regularly get applied to people for “insulting” the “prophet”. A rape victim needs FOUR upstanding eyewitnesses in order to prove that she was raped and if she fails she can get convicted for adultery. Pakistan’s NWFP courts often hand down sentences like exchanging girl children to settle debts or scores. Honor killing is a huge problem in Pakistan that is unaddressed by the mostly religious parliament. Pakistan started as a somewhat okay state under Jinnah but has steadily regressed since his death.
Farhat, Did ISI “create” the Taliban? No, but they did support their growth over the years. They did support them with residual funds, equipment, train et al left over from the proxy wars of the 80s and 70s. Yes Pakistan is still fundamentalists in many ways, for the most part due to the Wahabist strain of religious fundamentalism prevalent in Pakistan. The laws and rulings regarding blasphemy and rape, the NWFP and the honor killings I’m familiar with. I spent a good portion of my adolescent years there, and returned after completing my undergraduate years in 2004, only to leave in 2006 for my Masters – and I’m returning late next month. Whatever you’re trying to tell me about, I’m already aware of it.
I was taking exception to your statement that those who behead women find little or no support from the Pakistani population. They find plenty of support in the general population. There was a mosque siege in the capital not too long back. If the capital city is like that you can imagine the rest.
Alright, your criticism makes sense, and I apologise if I may have sounded a wee snappy in my response. I’m familiar with the Laal Masjid siege, worried as I was about a friends covering the scene for GEO TV over there. When it happened, there was a considerable outcry at what the government was doing (attacking a religious building and possibly killing civilians) but at the same time people – working class people, not just the ruling elite – felt that what had happened had been brought on themselves, and that the fundamentalists had pretty much deserved it. There is support for groups such as Jamaat -e- Islami et al in rural and urban areas, no question, and they do get a fair amount of fair play. This is not to say that the support is in the overwhelming majority. Rather, it is anything but. The ordinary people who work in Karachi, Faisalabad, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi want to make money and have decent lifestyles. They don’t want religious nutters – who pretty much leech off others – telling them what to do. They’ll go to a mosque on Friday to pray, to be seen and to congregate with friends and family, but they’re not all planning to behead someone who was a “prostitute.” If this were the case, the streets of Heera Mundi would be awash with blood. As is it, they aren’t. I don’t disagree that the fundamentalists have considerable support, Farhat. It’s just that from what I’ve seen living in Pakistan, there’s less support than is generally made out to be. And being someone who’s an atheist and pretty much intolerant of fundamentalism (heck, I even dislike the whole veil/burqa shebang), that’s saying something.
No worries, it’s all good. I wasn’t kidding about having a face full of AK47s and Desert Eagles. Rather touchy, those in the NWFP. : P