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Category: Editorial

  • ‘Arrest, sexism, political victimisation’: Keep women out of your politics

    ‘Arrest, sexism, political victimisation’: Keep women out of your politics

    Politics in Pakistan hits a new low every day. This past week, the nation witnessed two incidents that again prove how women in politics are seen as soft targets to settle political scores. Be it misogyny, sexist remarks targeted harassment or political victimisation — we have seen how women face the brunt of most of these attacks.

    Case one: Former Prime Minister Imran Khan passed sexist and controversial remarks about Maryam Nawaz at a political rally in Multan on Friday. Khan said: “I was sent the video of Maryam’s speech in which she took my name so many times with such jazba and junoon that I want to tell her to be careful, your husband might get upset at you taking my name so often.” Khan’s misogynistic remarks about his political rival were uncalled for, and not what was expected from a national leader. One would have thought that a man who is almost 70-year-old, whose first wife has had to deal with perpetual harassment to this date, whose second wife faces a plethora of abuse on a regular basis, and whose current wife has not been spared either, would spare women. Yet he made these comments about Maryam Nawaz while addressing thousands of people looking to him as the future of the country. What message is being sent to our younger generation? That it is okay to sexualise women, that it is okay to mainstream misogyny? Where will it stop is what one wonders.

    Case two: Punjab’s anti-corruption department took former human rights minister Shireen Mazari into custody in Islamabad yesterday. A video clip shows female police officers manhandling Mazari after she refused to step out of her car. The way that she was harassed and manhandled and the timing make it look like a clear case of political victimisation.

    Pakistan at the moment is facing a national crisis. The new coalition government is finding it hard to stay afloat, the country needs a financial boost from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to survive economically. Serious decisions are to be made for the betterment of the country but what are the male politicians doing instead? Demeaning, silencing, and mocking strong women to put them down. Arresting Mazari because she is a vocal critic while demeaning Maryam because she is giving a tough time to her opponents.

    One can criticise anyone’s politics but in the case of women politicians, resorting to personal attacks is unwarranted. Mazari has faced such attacks from the likes of Khawaja Asif and others. Maryam was threatened with violence by Gandapur during the previous government.

    No one is above the law but abuse of power can never be condoned, regardless of who it targets or from where it emanates. Khan must apologise for his remarks about Maryam Nawaz. Such misogyny needs to stop against women. The government has released Mazari but she has been arbitrarily arrested because of the whims of a few men. It is high time that men keep women out of their politics. They cannot scare women into quitting.

  • Why give Aamir Liaquat so much attention?

    Why give Aamir Liaquat so much attention?

    Aamir Liaquat is a public personality known for being in the limelight for all the wrong reasons. The man, nearing his 50s, is revered by one segment of Pakistani society and utterly despised by the other. Liaquat has recently been a hot topic of discussion for his third possible divorce with Dania Malik, who allegedly leaked two videos of Liaquat: one, where he can be seen roaming stark naked around in his room, and another where he is allegedly taking drugs. The two viral videos surfaced days after Aamir’s allegedly underage wife, Dania Shah, claimed that the televangelist takes illegal substances. The recent turn of events has clearly sparked a debate around a society glorifying child-and-adult unions. Dania claims she is 15, and Aamir knew it but still forged documents to get married. There can be no defence for a predatory act that takes advantage of class difference, age gap, and fame to trap a young teenage girl from a small city. Similarly, there can be no defence against revenge porn, even when it is against a person who has repeatedly aggravated public sentiment with impunity while disrespecting the institution of marriage, and religion.

    Liaquat has announced to leave Pakistan for good, but what still remains a question is why Liaquat or men like him are given so much limelight or attention. Where are we heading as a society? What examples are we setting for younger boys? We can expect no less in a country where misogyny is peddled as soon as children are born, and underage marriage is glorified as some invaluable social norm. This is the sad reality of Pakistani discourse.

    We can only hope that our society learns for the better and rather than giving so much limelight to people who are habitual of committing such acts with no remorse. We need to make people aware of the legal age of marriage, the exploitation of impressionable young girls, of the absence of justice, law, and order, which have led to a glorification of such vile acts of abuse in our society.

  • Civilian governments and completing their term

    Civilian governments and completing their term

    In the wake of the no-confidence move against Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan by the Opposition, a debate has started about several issues ranging from the government completing its term to defections from the ruling party. In Pakistan’s history, no civilian prime minister has ever completed his/her five-year term. Even when the last two civilian governments completed their tenures from 2008-2018, despite many hiccups and conspiracies against the governments. Of course, we do not know what the result of the latest vote of no-confidence will be, but if we are to believe speculations about what is happening in politics, this government may not survive and even PM Khan may not be able to complete his full term. Ideally, a civilian government, no matter how it has come to power, should be able to complete its full term. In a democracy like Pakistan, there are many factors involved in politics, which is why it is important for democratic governments to complete their tenures. 

    On the other hand, a vote of no-confidence is also a constitutional right that can be exercised in parliament to remove the Prime Minister from office if he/she loses the confidence of the majority of the members of the National Assembly. The number required to dislodge the premier is 172. The Opposition has followed a democratic procedure by moving a resolution for a vote of no-confidence, which requires signatures of at least 20 percent of the total membership of the lower house.

    Under the 1973 Constitution, we have seen two votes of no-confidence in the past against prime ministers. First against Benazir Bhutto in November 1989 and then against Shaukat Aziz in August 2006. Both Bhutto and Aziz survived the votes. After successfully defeating the vote of no-confidence, Benazir Bhutto gave a magnanimous speech and said she bore no ill-will against the opposition. Contrast her words with what is happening today — a prime minister addressing the nation with a short message to join his March 27 rally, bitter words by the ruling party on national television, threats of what is in store for those members who have gone to the opposition’s side, threats of a showdown, etc. This is not how politics should be but unfortunately, we have seen how the discourse over the last few years has led to politicians stooping to the lowest level just to settle scores. Add to it labels like a traitor, apart from other choice words. These add to the toxicity of political discourse, which is telecast live on our television screens.

    Parliament’s fights should be fought on the floor of the house through the vote of no-confidence, not on the streets.

  • Saffronised India: Shah Rukh Khan at Lata’s funeral

    Saffronised India: Shah Rukh Khan at Lata’s funeral

    Legendary Indian singer Lata Mangeshkar passed away on Sunday at the age of 92 and was given a state funeral by the Indian government. Music lovers from across the globe paid tributes for the “nightingale of India”. It is said that music transcends borders, which was proved by the condolence messages for Lata and shows how loved she was across the border in Pakistan.

    Prime Minister Imran Khan tweeted, “With the death of Lata Mangeshkar the subcontinent has lost one of the truly great singers the world has known.” Pakistani politicians, sportspersons, journalists, actors, artists, and people from across the country posted condolence messages on social media platforms. Pakistani state-owned broadcaster PTV and other television channels played Lata’s songs and paid rich tributes to the melody queen.

    Thus, it was extremely disappointing but not surprising to see the hate campaign against Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan after he went to Lata’s funeral yesterday and paid respect to the departed soul by saying a prayer for her and blowing the dua (prayer) in the air near her body, a custom that many Muslims around the world follow. The anti-Muslim, Islamophobic propaganda campaign against SRK was started by leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

    BJP’s Arun Yadav was the first to tweet a video of SRK at the funeral, blowing a prayer in the wind with the misleading and hateful caption: “Kya isnay thooka hai?” (Did he spit?)

    Soon after Yadav, another BJP leader Prashant Umrao tweeted: “Shahrukh is Spitting!” while he quote-tweeted another anti-Muslim tweet against the Bollywood star. These tweets led to many BJP-affiliated accounts and Hindutva trolls abusing and spreading false information about Shah Rukh’s actions at Lata Mangeshkar’s funeral on Sunday.

    Many rightly called out the BJP leaders as well as their followers for starting an evil campaign against SRK just because of his faith. Minorities in India, especially Muslims, have been facing the worst persecution and injustice under the Modi government. Such misleading campaigns are nothing new under the BJP regime. When the coronavirus pandemic started in India, the Modi government and its mouthpieces in the Indian media falsely blamed the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi for being a super-spreader event, which was later rubbished by Indian courts. Such misleading, false, and ‘communal reporting’ has become a norm in India now.

    Therefore, it was not surprising to see the false and malicious attacks against a superstar of Shah Rukh’s stature just because he is a Muslim. A Muslim artist saying a prayer for a Hindu singer at her funeral could be communalised to such an extent that some people would actually think that SRK would spit on Lata’s body is unimaginable. It just goes on to show how India under Modi has become extremely communal and uninhabitable for minorities. The Saffronisation of India seems to be complete.

  • New terrorist wave

    New terrorist wave

    A new wave of terrorism seems to be gripping the country in recent months, with the Lahore blast being the latest in a series of attacks that have targeted security forces, policemen, and civilians. From Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to Balochistan, from Sindh to the capital city to the heart of Punjab, there is a rise in such attacks across the country.
     
    Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police chief Moazzam Jah Ansari told Dawn and Geo News that the Islamic State group’s Khorasan chapter (IS-K) is a different and bigger threat than even the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Coming from the police chief of a province that has been one of the worst victims of terrorism in the country, his statement should raise alarm bells for the state. Pakistan has given immense sacrifices in its war against terrorism – 70-80,000 people lost their lives at the hands of terrorist attacks. The APS attack is a tragedy that can never be erased from our memories. Our security forces and police officials have fought bravely against terrorist outfits and now for terrorism to make a comeback, it is even more important that the state should build a consensus on this issue and tackle the hydra of terrorism.
     
    A study conducted by the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Study (PICSS) says that the rise in militant attacks in Pakistan coincided with the Afghan Taliban’s military offensive and their eventual takeover of Kabul. Many had been pointing out to the Pakistan government that a government that does not believe in the rule of law and does not abide by any international covenants cannot bring any stability in the region and will in fact lead to instability in the neighbouring countries when Pakistan was celebrating the takeover of Kabul by the Afghan Taliban.
     
    With the withdrawal of the US and NATO troops from Afghanistan, the fall of Kabul and the rise of the Afghan Taliban were inevitable. However, the support that they got from Pakistan has led to many problems, including the tensions between the US and Pakistan when it comes to diplomatic ties. But the most critical consequence of the new government in Afghanistan is the rise of militant outfits who are rearing their heads once again in neighbouring Pakistan.

    The rise of the Afghan Taliban has given new ideas and strength to militant outfits that had gone underground since the security forces defeated the TTP and crushed other terrorist outfits some years ago. We hope that the state will not let them wreak havoc with the country’s future again. Pakistan needs peace and stability, not chaos. 

  • Equal citizens

    Recently, we heard about two bakeries in Karachi that refused to write ‘Merry Christmas’ on cakes. Both Delizia and Aunty Munaver turned away customers who wanted cakes with Christmas greetings. It is deeply disturbing to see such acts of bigotry in a country whose founder and others who fought for its freedom believed in rights for all and equality regardless of caste, creed, and faith. Yet we see how non-Muslims in Pakistan continue to face discrimination on a regular basis.

    Today, when we celebrate Christmas with our Christian brethren and wish them a day full of joy, we hope that our society will change for the better. Today is also the birth anniversary of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who taught us the meaning of tolerance and who believed in pluralism and inclusiveness.


    We often repeat and quote Jinnah’s August 11 speech but it is important to reiterate what he said again and again: “We are starting in the days where there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state.”

    This is what Pakistan stands for as this is what our founder taught us. It was good to see many people raising their voices against those bakeries that refused to write Merry Christmas on their cakes. It was social media outcry that led to Delizia bakery management on the backfoot and saying that it was an individual act. Whether it was an individual act or not can be ascertained as this isn’t the first time that such an incident took place. This year, we saw the horrible lynching of a Sri Lankan national. The government took strong exception to the incident and promised to take action against all those responsible. But the incident also showed how intolerance has seeped into our society. It is this bigotry and intolerance that has to end. On the birth anniversary of Jinnah, we should pledge to make this Jinnah’s Pakistan and not a Pakistan where extremism prospers. Once again, Merry Christmas to all those celebrating. 

  • Imagine the horror

    Imagine the horror

    Imagine a mob so ruthless, so violent, so remorseless that first, they kill an innocent man for tearing down a poster with religious text on it, then they burn the body in front of hundreds of people and several cameras because somehow their thirst for blood was not enough so now they had to humiliate a dead body. And then some of them had the audacity to take selfies with the burning body. All because he did something without even realising that he could be lynched to death for it. 


    Imagine that this man was a foreign national — a Sri Lankan — working as a factory manager in Sialkot, and whose wife heard about this most tragic incident from news and the internet. Imagine his wife’s shock and horror. Imagine the bereaved widow looking at those videos, those gruesome images, those murderers taking pride in killing her husband. Imagine her helplessness. Imagine that this man has two young children, nine and 14 respectively, who will have to live with this fact for the rest of their lives that their father was killed, nay lynched, by a frenzied mob in Pakistan. 

    Imagine that we live in a country where every other day is a ‘black day’, where every other incident is bone-chilling, where no one is safe, where so many horrors unfold that we move on from one terrifying incident to another and forget about the previous one. What have we become? How have we come to this point? Will our state introspect that our society has become so intolerant that it cannot even protect anyone? Will our state realise how extremism has permeated our society because it has been officially sanctioned through our policies? It is the responsibility of the state to protect the lives of every human being. The misuse of religion for political benefit, the misuse of religion for some vested interest, or allowing the misuse of religion for some external policy will eventually have consequences. And those are the consequences that we are facing every day. There are no words to express what this country is going through — those at the helm of the affairs have to now challenge this extremist ideology or the path ahead is very dark. And every second will then be dark and there will be no turning back. Let people live without fear. A society that has to look over its shoulders all the time cannot progress.

  • Well done, Boys in Green!

    Well done, Boys in Green!

    Today, the final of the T20 World Cup is being played between Australia and New Zealand. We wish that instead of Australia, Pakistan would have been facing NZ in the final but we lost a close contest to Australia in the semi-final on Thursday. It was extremely disappointing and truly heartbreaking but if truth be told, Pakistan’s overall performance in the tournament made us proud. 

    Pakistan cricket team was the only unbeaten team in the group matches. Nobody could have predicted this performance. Every match had a different Player of the Match, which means the Pakistan team did not just rely on one or two players but performed well as a team. Look at how well Rizwan played against Australia despite being admitted in the hospital prior to the semi-final. This is called team spirit. And we broke one jinx — beating India in a World Cup. We still have to break this other jinx of beating Australia in a knockoff game. Breaking two jinxes in one World Cup was perhaps a lot. But break we will!

    We made some mistakes in the semi-final. We should have made a few more runs and bowled better. Our fielding could have been better too. But everyone learns from their mistakes and this young team will learn too. But let’s not forget that arguably, Australia has probably one of the best sporting cultures in the world and also world-class facilities. In a recent transmission, Wasim Akram revealed that our gymming facilities are decades old and hardly any new machines have been added to the gym at the National Cricket Academy (NCA). Training equipment should be the latest and world-class but unfortunately, we don’t have such facilities here. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) must pay attention to these issues as well.

    Babar Azam is a brilliant captain and the unity in the team and their faith in the captain is something that is very good to see in Pakistan cricket, where mostly we have seen a lot of politics behind the scenes against the sitting captain in the past. This team is different. This team stands behind its players. Hassan Ali was not thrown under the bus. The response by Pakistan Twitter in his support is also something these boys will remember. They made us happy in uncertain times. They gave us hope when things looked gloomy. 

    We love you, Team Pakistan. There are plenty more World Cups to come and we will win for sure!

  • Pakistan cricket fights back…hard

    Pakistanis are on a high these days after Pakistan cricket team’s three consecutive wins at the T20 World Cup. Pakistan is on the top in their group with three out of three wins against India, New Zealand and Afghanistan. We still have to play the remaining two matches against Namibia and Scotland next week (November 2 and 7) before the semi-finals.

    Pakistan cricket team broke its jinx by beating India for the first time in a World Cup match. And what a win it was! We restricted the India side to just 151 runs and we chased the score without losing a single wicket. The second match against New Zealand was even more special as this had come after the team pulled out of its tour to Pakistan last month.

    In September, cricket fans across Pakistan were heartbroken after New Zealand’s disappointing decision to abandon the Pakistan series over “security threats” just minutes before the first One-Day International (ODI) match was about to begin in Rawalpindi. Following New Zealand’s unilateral decision, England also decided to cancel their men’s and women’s teams’ tour to Pakistan in October. New Zealand was to play in Pakistan after almost 18 years while England’s men have not played an international match in Pakistan since 2005 and their women’s team were to visit the country for the first time.

    It was not just the cricket fans who were disappointed; apart from the huge financial loss to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) because of these cancellations, it must have affected the Pakistan cricket team as well. After the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore in 2009, Pakistan has had to play their ‘home series’ away from home for many years. Cricket came back to Pakistan due to the efforts of Najam Sethi and others at the PCB.

    We Pakistanis criticise our team a lot when they don’t perform well but we need to understand what our players have been through for more than a decade now. They have been away from their families for months on end due to home series in the UAE; they have had to rebuild the team after the 2010 spot-fixing scandal; Pakistanis are kept out of the Indian Premier League (IPL) due to political reasons; and they have had to face discrimination in cricket because of India’s influence at the International Cricket Council (ICC) – Pakistan does not get enough bilateral series and enough international matches to compete with other teams. Under such difficult circumstances, our team has won the ICC Champions Trophy, ruled the Test rankings, made the Pakistan Super League (PSL) a huge international success and much more. We are proud of our Men in Green. They have cheered us up in the most depressing of times. Pakistan Zindabad.

  • Forced conversions are against the spirit of the constitution 

    On Wednesday, a parliamentary committee rejected the anti-forced conversion bill after the Ministry of Religious Affairs opposed the proposed law. According to Dawn, Religious Affairs Minister Noor-ul-Haq Qadri said the “environment is unfavourable” for formulating a law against forced conversions and warned that forming a law on forced conversions would “create further problems for minorities” as they will be made more vulnerable. He also said the proposed law will deteriorate peace in the country.

    It is unfortunate that the minister thinks such a law will lead to problems and will affect peace in the country. Minorities in Pakistan make up a very small number as more than 96 per cent population of the country is Muslim. So why would a bill that is against forced conversions, something that our religion also does not allow, make the minorities vulnerable? The Constitution of Pakistan guarantees that the rights of the minorities would be fully protected. Forced conversions are against the spirit of the Constitution as well as our religious teachings. 

    The Joint Action Committee for People’s Rights (JAC), a collection of  37 human rights groups, in an open letter has urged Prime Minister Imran Khan to take legal as well as administrative measures to protect minorities, especially the under age girls from forced conversions and marriages. The letter has also urged PM Khan to ensure the approval of the draft bill for timely legislation. The JAC also expressed its concern on the statements of the Minister for Religious Affairs on the draft bill to curb forced conversions, recalling that such statements are not only against the spirit of the Constitution, judgments of the Supreme Court of Pakistan but are also in contradiction with the stand taken by the PM against forced conversion of minority groups in Pakistan.

    Hopefully, the government will address this issue soon. We know that the majority of these forced conversions are underage girls from minority communities. Such practices should not be condoned by the government. Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah had envisioned a Pakistan where the minorities would feel safe. We should not let our founding father down.