Working with people like myself......

Do you know that even though all Muslims seem the same, but there are huge differences amongst them when you start rummaging through their societies, culture and laws. Yes, there are as many kinds of Muslims as you can imagine, even though most times we are lumped together with Osama bin Ladin and his ilk. There are differences in how in each society, each sub group perceive and practice their religious ideology (or dogma). Each sub-group shares some basic principals with the other groups but may be dramatically different their understanding of the shariah and fiqh for everything in life like woman's rights, purdah, performance arts, food, etc.

I think the main problem of the Muslim world stems from the fact that though we acknowledge the different interpretations of our religion but we do not tolerate the differences. The Wahabis (aka Salafi, Ahl e Hadis, Demobandi, Salafi) would not tolerate the Barelvis or the Shias. Qadianis (a renegade sect) and are pronounced non-Muslims in several Muslim countries (add ref.) and Ismali Shias are looked at with suspicion because of their devotion to Aga Khan. Sufis another group who are greatly admired for humanity and non violence, are declared non Muslims by several sects. Well, there are smaller groups of liberal/secular/progressive consisting of people from these difference sects, who want to rise above the tussles we have within the deen. And then, we also have those who are so tired of all of this or just are not religious but call themselves Muslims and keep the religion as their cultural and political identity. These groups would perhaps be considered non Muslim by literalists among us. Each sect thinks that they are right and sometimes feels free to declare some other group as Kharij or out of the religion.

I feel frustrated to see that we do not have a Ummah which would act like a body, so that when part is hurt the other parts can also feel it. Each of us is fighting to win the battle for supremacy of our own ideology. May be the Western world is right in ridiculing us!!!

The pushes & pulls of modernity and mediavilsm

How do you define modernity and traditionalism very much lies with the person who is defining it. To some the dichotomy of modernity and traditionalism is a parallel to the duality of Oriental and Occidental. To name a few, just the notion of use of technology, especially those related to means of communications are very modern, very Western, to those who got them as ‘imported; foreign technological goods. In some cases, to a father in a village in Pakistan watching an advertisement of sanitary napkin while his young daughter is around is a ‘modern’ and ‘foreign’ idea and in this context modernity is of course not taken very positively. A scholar might reflect differently on this and consider the acceptance of a female to lead Namaz (Muslim prayer always led by a male) as "modern". The idea of modernity is also very temporal though there are many who remain fixated with the idea of maintaining the 'purity' of a practice or concept by following the 'words' of the law rather than the 'spirit.' However, with the passage of time there is an acceptance of certain technologies or social norms as traditional which originally started out as radical and modern. For example, though the Muslims do not eat non halal meat (non Kosher) but those residing in Western countries where access to such food is hard or impossible, many Muslim scholars have given the verdict that it is allowed to eat the non halal meat of those animals permitted by Islam. Similarly, there is a considerable amount of debate going on regarding the issue of female seclusion and purdah, both in the Occident and the Orient. Some call it a privilege and some a sign of oppression, and how it is practiced and to what degree it is observed is also a matter of preference for different people and is according to their reading of Islam. While Modernity by itself is a complex, dense and multi-layered concept which does not have very specific contour and shape, I considers the current transition of Muslims towards adoption of more secular values a sign of "modernization".

The failure of Pakistani feminism by Rafia Zakaria

The failure of Pakistani feminism, by Rafia Zakaria

JH represents failure of Pakistani feminism — Rafia Zakaria The Jamia Hafsa women have made a conscious choice to be part of a violent and radical campaign. But this choice represents the failure of Pakistani feminism to formulate an equally compelling, competing discourse that could truly empower them

The pictures of burqa-clad, baton-wielding women of Jamia Hafsa have made it to the newspapers and TV channels across the globe. For those Pakistanis who do not support their militant brand of vigilante justice (and there are many), these women are a bold and taunting illustration of the increasing Talibanisation of Pakistani society.

Questions abound. But the most important one has not been asked: why would these women choose a militant and radical brand of Islam, one that ultimately preaches the subservience of women, as their vehicle to political action?

Answering this question, and analysing why these women have launched a campaign that so brazenly challenges the state reveals important truths about the state of Pakistani feminism and its failure to provide a political and ideological discourse that could avert this very scenario.

It is important to pay close attention to the extremist discourse that has attracted these women. According to newspaper reports, the women of Jamia Hafsa are not just from Islamabad; most belong to religiously conservative families from all over Pakistan. The fact that they have travelled and live without their families in the madrassah represents the legitimising power that religious conservatism has provided them.

By donning the burqa and adopting the radical and fundamentalist interpretations of Islam espoused by the Lal Masjid establishment, they have rid themselves of the shackles of familial restriction in a way previously unknown to them. While it is true that the power they wield with the burqa and the stick is ultimately designed to impose an order that would all but eliminate their power in the public sphere, it is nevertheless heady and intoxicating in its ability to transform these women from being the receivers to becoming the perpetrators of violence.

The association of women’s empowerment with wealth and moral laxity is a disease that has afflicted Pakistani feminism for decades, the founders of it being women from the elites, who needed a social cause to ease the boredom of long days spent in luxurious villas. In recent years, with the advent of the NGO boom, Pakistani feminism has to some extent redefined itself and expanded its denizens to include liberal, educated middle-class women in urban areas. Despite this, it still remains largely limited to those who can speak the language of women’s rights as a result of English-medium education and the freedom afforded by liberal middle-class families who do not frown on co-education or working outside the home.

But few within the liberal NGO cadres have attempted to challenge the virulent combination of Islamic literalism and traditional patriarchy or engage with women from religiously conservative families. Also, disturbingly absent from the NGO discourse are uneducated women; women who work as maids in urban homes, poor women, rural women and those who have to wear the burqa so they will be permitted to get an education.

When these poor, rural or religiously conservative women do appear in the discourse of Pakistani feminism they appear always as the victim, being defended or empowered by their more educated, liberal counterparts. Other categories of women are somehow never envisioned as the stalwarts of the struggle towards women’s empowerment. Indeed, many women who professionally champion feminist causes never seem to realise the relevance of issues of economic equality and human dignity when dealing with their own female domestic workers. This double standard of who defines Pakistani feminism was most evident in the wake of Mukhtar Mai’s ascendance to fame and popularity. Many “empowered” Pakistani women spoke publicly about how they were offended by the fact that Mukhtar Mai, a rural and uneducated woman, was representing Pakistan internationally.

This double standard and the resulting elitist and exclusionary concept of Pakistani feminism that emerges from it, is in many ways at the heart of the Jamia Hafsa issue. In narrowing in on women excluded from the discourse of the NGO-brand of Pakistani feminism, Maulana Abdur Rashid Ghazi and his brother Abdul Aziz have accomplished a number of things.

First they have, by manipulating the religion, provided these women with a moral vehicle through which they (women) can transcend familial objections and partake of social and political activism. Second, through the use of Islamic doctrine, the Lal Masjid agenda is making a compelling critique of the economic disparities in Pakistani society and capitalising on the belief that women’s empowerment is a cause only for the wealthy and irreligious.

What is often critiqued as “immoral” is the economic exploitation of those who are neither members of the feudal elite nor the political and military classes bestowed with favours. The recent fatwa against Nilofer Bakhtiar, federal minister, is an apt illustration of the strategy. While aimed at the immorality of hugging her French coach, it also makes a compelling statement about the disconnect between a minister for women’s affairs who can go paragliding in France while millions of women in her country cannot leave their houses without a black shroud covering their faces. (Lal Masjid authorities have since denied issuing any fatwa against Ms Bakhtiar.)

This analysis is not meant to illustrate the viability of radical Islam as a vehicle towards women’s empowerment. If anything, I have taken pains to show the tragedy of how the Lal Masjid clerics have manipulated the powerlessness of women to further a grotesquely extremist agenda whose ultimate goal is to subjugate these women even more. The purpose is to show how current discourses in Pakistan on women’s empowerment have to tread beyond the comfortable confines of hotel symposia and rallies; they need to develop strategies that engage the vast swathes of excluded women.

The Jamia Hafsa women have made a conscious choice to be part of a violent and radical campaign. But this choice represents the failure of Pakistani feminism to formulate an equally compelling, competing discourse that could truly empower them.

Rafia Zakaria is an attorney living in the United States where she teaches courses on Constitutional Law and Political Philosophy. She can be contacted at rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

full text is avialble on Daily times.

9/11 hangovers

visited the bookshop Mr. books (the oldest bookstore of Islamabad). The books that were highlighted in their shelves gave me a sense of deja vous-- they were mainly related to Islam, terrorism, Pakistani authors writing in English. Most of the books are also part of my amazon.com orders and wishlist. Why is it so? Is it that I am reading what every Pakistani is reading? I doubt.

This is perhaps a manifestation of some other malice... Something that is eating the so called moderates.. The price of being a Muslim in the post 9/11 period. It seems the modern Muslim who wants to distinguish himself/herself from the overly liberated or fundamental lot has to be apologetic for all the misdeeds committed by those groups. They are trying to bridge the west and the east by pretending that there is no clash of civilization and an understanding between these two worlds is possible... Notable figures in this regard, that I can think of right now, are people like Fareed Zakria and Isra Nomani!