In collusion with Pakistan’s imbecile political leadership plans for the balkanization of Pakistan were going along as scripted until an unlikely interruption: floods of biblical proportions. Forces one to recall an almost wry verse in the Quran: wa yamkuruna wa yamkurullah wallaho khairul makireen- they plot and plan and Allah too plans; and the best of planners is Allah (Anfal 8:30, Al-Imran 3:54)
Michel Chossudovsky, Director of the Montreal based Center for Research on Globalization and author of America’s War on Terrorism in his article “The Destabilization of Pakistan” says: “Washington’s foreign policy course is to actively promote the political fragmentation and balkanization of Pakistan as a nation”. Chossudovsky points out that “the US strategy, supported by covert intelligence operations, consists in triggering ethnic and religious strife, abetting and financing secessionist movements while also weakening the institutions of the central government.” Chossudovsky’s analysis, Selig Harrison’s 2007 article “Drawn and Quartered” and Pentagon scholar Ralph Peters article “Blood Borders” are all based on a 2005 report by the US National Intelligence Council and the CIA. This report forecasts a "Yugoslav-like fate" for Pakistan "in a decade with the country riven by civil war, bloodshed and inter-provincial rivalries, as seen recently in Balochistan."
The purported interest for all this is control over Pakistan’s nuclear assets, the 25 trillion cft. of gas and 6 trillion barrels of oil sitting in Balochistan and angst over Chinese interest in the Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline traversing Balochistan.
With the submersion of thousands of acres it seems that this is the point that we can springboard to a fresh start. Abolish feudalism and every last remnant of it. Ownership is suspect and documents non-existent. It is time that we as Pakistanis begin to look to the Supreme Court and our judicial system as the sole working institution in the country, not the army as the default one. In a crisis that mirrors Partition, legislation must come from the Supreme Court that erases the iniquity of feudalism and the incalculable damage that it has caused Pakistan and its people. Our deeply corrupt feudal politicians that form a majority in the National Assembly have always worked for self, never for state, so expecting them to pass legislation is to expect the Indus to rewind.
Corruption and Pakistan have become synonymous and we hang our heads in collective national ignominy at the blatant monetary sellout by certain members of the Pakistan cricket team and their enabling by the Pakistan Cricket Board. Why do all roads lead to the same old place? PCB bigwigs are related to our President and that is exactly the point. The Pakistani nation is inured, immune, desensitized to any and all amounts of mind-blowing immorality. The hoopla about Zardari’s French chateau died down and now the news of his successful bid out of a bullet proof Mercedes of a £146 million flat in Hyde Park nauseates.
In my floods-induced depression I have an idea which might seem entirely insane to the President, but someone must convey it to him. He can become Quaid-e-Azam II from the gentle Pharoah that he is now. Mr. President bring all your assets back to Pakistan, each and every dollar/pound and rebuild Pakistan from scratch. Live in a 1000 sq. yard home. Wash your party and Pakistan of corruption and make it a prosecutable offence. You are now known as Mr 10%; you would be worshipped in life and hallowed in death with street corners bearing witness to your amazing vision, generosity and ability to make Pakistan forget mindless corruption. Washed eternally of all its pain rising anew as a beacon of hope and happiness.
Alright so I am being delusional. Pain and anger does that to people. The pain of the woman whose baby was delivered in the filthy graveyard that the village folk had taken refuge in. Starved herself she is unable to nurse the baby so it is dying slowly. The pain of children being swept away by the angry waters. The pain of gushing waters and inundated towns, gaunt, weathered faces and desperate eyes.
And anger is a mild word, fury is better. Fury at how the law of the jungle prevails in Pakistan. Parliamentarians have this sixth sense it seems that they may not be on public payroll too darn long, so why part with any donation? The brutality of the killing of the brothers in Sialkot, the many dead in the Yaum-e-Ali processions in Lahore and Karachi and mainly fury at the pervasive Pakistani mindset of minimizing everything and going on with business as usual.
Pakistan a largely agrarian economy has had its agricultural base destroyed and this will generate a chain reaction affecting all aspects of life in Pakistan. Estimates vary but the agricultural loss is Rs. 6billion. Inflation is 25%, over 10% are unemployed and a whopping 40% of the nation now lives below the poverty line. After the water recedes the support structure that will be needed for rehabilitation will require at least a year’s worth of food and a detailed, exhaustive plan to recreate from zero.
Not only has there been a loss of life and property, the education of the nation’s school and college going students in the flood affected areas has been compromised for at least a year.
Developed nations have trouble withstanding floods. Pakistan was teetering before they came. As a nation though we cannot feel that band-aiding the situation will do it. In calmer moments one is forced to think that perhaps there is a reason the floods happened: a maslihat maybe. Perhaps Pakistan was on its way to destruction, what with plans to carve it into four, bomb it every day and pillage it all the time.
If Pakistan becomes worse than sub-Saharan Africa, if cholera takes several more lives and famine descends upon it while its rulers luxuriate in Rs. 10 lakh-a-day maintenance of presidential and prime ministerial residences, then balkanizing Pakistan will be ever so easy.
But if our self-respect awakens and the blood of the millions who lost their lives to create Pakistan is valued we will realize that there are only three things we need to do as a nation, however simplistic they sound: abolish feudalism, prosecute corruption and establish speedy justice. We have a choice as a nation: perish or rise like a phoenix from the ashes.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
A thought revolution
I have spent years crying silently for the brothers that I lost to a car accident and my father who died within five years of them, overcome with grief. I have hated that life went on as though nothing had happened; the condolences faded and soon enough it was business as usual. For the world. My mother and I lost all the men in our family but we were not reduced to abject poverty; tens of thousands of flood victims in Pakistan have the burden of grief as well as economic ruin. Millions are homeless. But as the intensity plateaus and tries to fade, Pakistanis are practicing the infamous mantra: sub theek ho jaye ga (everything will be alright).
Capitalizing on the glaring absence of the government and its unforgivable inefficiency, political mileage is sought by all quarters. Subservience to the British and to martial law have penetrated Pakistani psyche almost to the point of being a part of the national DNA. In times of trouble, martial law seems to be the default solution. Public memory is short and the struggles and bloodshed to remove dictatorship are swept away and the deep corruption within the army becomes the food of amnesia.
Pakistani billionaire Malik Riaz Hussain has pledged 75% of his fortune to the flood victims. The King, Crown Prince and Interior Minister of Saudi Arabia have donated millions of dollars from private funds and Saudi citizens have thronged flood relief centers. In face of that philanthropy is the niggardliness of Pakistani politicians. The Sharif clan donated Rs. 10 million, Zardari Rs. 5 million as did Altaf Hussain, while Yusuf Raza Gilani, not a “believer in cash donations” sent his son down with donation in kind. Seems the Quran address this issue well in Surah Baqarah (2:268): when you get ready to donate Satan puts the fear of poverty in your heart and you hold back.
Back to the army worship issue, brought to the fore by Altaf Hussain and Imran Khan’s welcome of the army. Pakistan is rudderless and no leader in the current potpourri is its panacea. It is also highly unlikely that an Ayatollah, Stalin, Mao or Lee Kuan Yew will emerge from one of the tenements anytime soon. We have always looked up to leaders to bring about a change, perhaps we need to have a grassroots movement, in something as simple as a thought revolution.
Pakistanis should not be delusional to think that replacement of ruling parties or martial law is that answer. The problem is corruption, unfortunately a national trait; democracy should not be sacrificed at the altar of our collective fury. Placement of processes and institution building is sorely needed in Pakistan. The history of all politicians on offer is sordid and to work for dislodging the present government in the hope of a better future is grossly misplaced. Zardari, the Sharif brothers, Altaf Hussain or Imran Khan are all the different faces of the same termite that eats away at a nation that is busy covering over corruption, unleashing mafia murders and harboring extremism.
As a citizenry we must bring about accountability, transparency, mandatory payment of taxes, the rule of law, abolition of feudalism and the marginalization of corruption. Every effort must be made to prevent corruption with all aid for flood victims. Be it a peon or a president, we must start with stark personal accountability and then apply that unchanging principle in each and every sphere of our influence. This, conglomerated, will be the flood that will salvage Pakistan.
As the floods take Pakistan back at least fifty years, perhaps a steady change in the way we think and live will cause the necessary paradigm shift. Maybe corruption will become unfashionable in Pakistan. What a thought!
Prior to the floods Pakistan was in the lower rung of the developing world. With 30% of the country under water, destruction of its agricultural mainstay as well as the ripple effect that this will have on its economy and national psyche, Pakistan is threatened with joining sub-Saharan Africa; a sea of brown water, outstretched hands and rampant disease as its marks on the memory.
Pakistani scholars, from Mufti Munibur Rahman to Tahirul Qadri and many others were asked whether they felt that the floods were a trial or a punishment. In a surprise show of unanimity they said that this was a time of trial for when God wishes to punish a people He wipes them off the face of the earth. Their Quranic quotations did not address the issue fully and they seemed typically smug. They unanimously discouraged Umra and non-obligatory Hajj trips as well as iftar and Eid parties, encouraging diversion of the funds to the flood victims.
But our patriotism starts and ends with the notes of the national anthem. Pakistanis both within and expatriate have this sickening survival of the fittest skill. Iftar parties are jamming along. Eid day invitations have arrived. APPNA, the Association of Physicians of Pakistani-Descent of North America will have its Fall Meeting in the ultra-luxurious Ritz-Carlton in Key Biscayne Florida. Lots of money has been raised for flood victims but nowhere near what could have been. I wonder what heart Pakistanis the world over have for celebrating iftars, Eid parties and the luxuries of the Ritz? It is tradition to not celebrate two consecutive Eids when we lose a loved one. Donating a paltry amount to flood relief and then skipping off to decide your iftar invitee list and your ritzy travel plans are representative of that same national rot that we love to blame the government for all the time. The enormity of the flood devastation calls for a decade of mourning.
The situation is so dire that any and all of our incomes beyond our basic needs must go toward rebuilding Pakistan. We must question each party, each purchase and each bite of food keeping the memory of the millions always alive in our minds.
This is our last chance as a nation. The change has to come from an individual level then a family level followed by a community level to permeate and repair the character and corruption leaks of Pakistan. It is a thought revolution that is needed in Pakistan, from the bottom up, not the typical blame game and passing the buck and always expecting change from leaders that put clowns to shame.
Mahjabeen Islam is a family physician, addictionist and columnist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Capitalizing on the glaring absence of the government and its unforgivable inefficiency, political mileage is sought by all quarters. Subservience to the British and to martial law have penetrated Pakistani psyche almost to the point of being a part of the national DNA. In times of trouble, martial law seems to be the default solution. Public memory is short and the struggles and bloodshed to remove dictatorship are swept away and the deep corruption within the army becomes the food of amnesia.
Pakistani billionaire Malik Riaz Hussain has pledged 75% of his fortune to the flood victims. The King, Crown Prince and Interior Minister of Saudi Arabia have donated millions of dollars from private funds and Saudi citizens have thronged flood relief centers. In face of that philanthropy is the niggardliness of Pakistani politicians. The Sharif clan donated Rs. 10 million, Zardari Rs. 5 million as did Altaf Hussain, while Yusuf Raza Gilani, not a “believer in cash donations” sent his son down with donation in kind. Seems the Quran address this issue well in Surah Baqarah (2:268): when you get ready to donate Satan puts the fear of poverty in your heart and you hold back.
Back to the army worship issue, brought to the fore by Altaf Hussain and Imran Khan’s welcome of the army. Pakistan is rudderless and no leader in the current potpourri is its panacea. It is also highly unlikely that an Ayatollah, Stalin, Mao or Lee Kuan Yew will emerge from one of the tenements anytime soon. We have always looked up to leaders to bring about a change, perhaps we need to have a grassroots movement, in something as simple as a thought revolution.
Pakistanis should not be delusional to think that replacement of ruling parties or martial law is that answer. The problem is corruption, unfortunately a national trait; democracy should not be sacrificed at the altar of our collective fury. Placement of processes and institution building is sorely needed in Pakistan. The history of all politicians on offer is sordid and to work for dislodging the present government in the hope of a better future is grossly misplaced. Zardari, the Sharif brothers, Altaf Hussain or Imran Khan are all the different faces of the same termite that eats away at a nation that is busy covering over corruption, unleashing mafia murders and harboring extremism.
As a citizenry we must bring about accountability, transparency, mandatory payment of taxes, the rule of law, abolition of feudalism and the marginalization of corruption. Every effort must be made to prevent corruption with all aid for flood victims. Be it a peon or a president, we must start with stark personal accountability and then apply that unchanging principle in each and every sphere of our influence. This, conglomerated, will be the flood that will salvage Pakistan.
As the floods take Pakistan back at least fifty years, perhaps a steady change in the way we think and live will cause the necessary paradigm shift. Maybe corruption will become unfashionable in Pakistan. What a thought!
Prior to the floods Pakistan was in the lower rung of the developing world. With 30% of the country under water, destruction of its agricultural mainstay as well as the ripple effect that this will have on its economy and national psyche, Pakistan is threatened with joining sub-Saharan Africa; a sea of brown water, outstretched hands and rampant disease as its marks on the memory.
Pakistani scholars, from Mufti Munibur Rahman to Tahirul Qadri and many others were asked whether they felt that the floods were a trial or a punishment. In a surprise show of unanimity they said that this was a time of trial for when God wishes to punish a people He wipes them off the face of the earth. Their Quranic quotations did not address the issue fully and they seemed typically smug. They unanimously discouraged Umra and non-obligatory Hajj trips as well as iftar and Eid parties, encouraging diversion of the funds to the flood victims.
But our patriotism starts and ends with the notes of the national anthem. Pakistanis both within and expatriate have this sickening survival of the fittest skill. Iftar parties are jamming along. Eid day invitations have arrived. APPNA, the Association of Physicians of Pakistani-Descent of North America will have its Fall Meeting in the ultra-luxurious Ritz-Carlton in Key Biscayne Florida. Lots of money has been raised for flood victims but nowhere near what could have been. I wonder what heart Pakistanis the world over have for celebrating iftars, Eid parties and the luxuries of the Ritz? It is tradition to not celebrate two consecutive Eids when we lose a loved one. Donating a paltry amount to flood relief and then skipping off to decide your iftar invitee list and your ritzy travel plans are representative of that same national rot that we love to blame the government for all the time. The enormity of the flood devastation calls for a decade of mourning.
The situation is so dire that any and all of our incomes beyond our basic needs must go toward rebuilding Pakistan. We must question each party, each purchase and each bite of food keeping the memory of the millions always alive in our minds.
This is our last chance as a nation. The change has to come from an individual level then a family level followed by a community level to permeate and repair the character and corruption leaks of Pakistan. It is a thought revolution that is needed in Pakistan, from the bottom up, not the typical blame game and passing the buck and always expecting change from leaders that put clowns to shame.
Mahjabeen Islam is a family physician, addictionist and columnist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Comprehending the catastrophe
Regardless of one’s persuasion when faced with catastrophes and personal suffering the question ‘why’ always comes up. And with all that Pakistan has been through in variegated forms from terrorism to economic collapse and now the floods, for Pakistanis it is not a simple question but a chorus of agony.
On a mundane and scientific level it appears that global warming is to blame. About 14 million people have been affected by the floods making it more disastrous than the South East Asian tsunami and the Haitian earthquake combined. According to scientists ‘a supercharged jet-stream’ is responsible for the floods and landslides in Pakistan and China and an extreme heat wave in Russia and one that killed 60 people in Japan in July.
Meteorologists are unsure of the root cause but seem to favor that rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere will drive up the number of extreme heat events. This same effect and the ‘supercharged jet stream’ are blamed for the floods in the UK in 2007 and the heat wave then in Eastern Europe.
Antiquated irrigation systems and the lack of repair of irrigation leaks have compounded the situation in Pakistan. And the deforestation mafia created the final straw causing rivers to barrel down in mammoth fury.
The count now is over 1600 dead and 20 million affected but what of entire villages that have been swallowed by the waters? As weeks go on and the floodwaters recede the actual devastation will become apparent and the fact that a struggling nation has been pulled back another fifty years from current civilization is likely to emerge. And now killer diseases like cholera can claim more lives.
After the 7.0 Richter scale earthquake in Haiti in January evangelical priest Pat Robertson claimed that the earthquake had hit Haiti as it had “made a pact with the devil” referring to voodoo rituals carried out before a slave rebellion against the French colonists in 1791. After Hurricane Katrina in 2006 John Hagee another evangelical pastor said "I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that. There was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that Hurricane Katrina came”. However in 2008, Hagee backed away from his comments regarding Hurricane Katrina by saying, "But ultimately neither I nor any other person can know the mind of God concerning Hurricane Katrina. I should not have suggested otherwise”.
But we love to second guess God, don’t we? Explaining the current floods crisis the ultra-right claims God’s wrath for the Lal Masjid fiasco and the pact with the Great Satan aka America. And the mystics say they knew His fury was not far when Data Ganj Baksh’s shrine was attacked.
If only His will were that simple and events so elementary to dissect. If the Lal Masjid fiasco is to be blamed, why does its primary perpetrator Pervez Musharraf sit in luxurious dry land in England?
Hadith Qudsi 25 states: “Whosoever shows enmity to someone devoted to Me, I shall be at war with him. When I love him I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks. Were he to ask [something] of Me, I would surely give it to him, and were he to ask Me for refuge, I would surely grant him it”. This is widely taken to describe the auliya-Allah or the friends of God of whom Data Ganj Baksh was one. And yet the thinking mind wonders why God would decimate thousands of innocents for the disrespect of one?
While the Bible and the Quran are graphic about God’s wrath and ascribe a reason each time, it is important to grasp the concept of Divine retribution, or sin and result, but not to play God and float theories regarding our terrible state.
Several verses in the Quran speak of God’s retribution against the defiance of the people of Prophets Lut, Nuh, Shuaib, Hud and Moses. Chapter Ankabut (29:40) encapsulates the other verses well: “Each one of them(wicked people) We seized for his crime: of them, against some We sent a violent tornado (with showers of stones); some were caught by a (mighty) Blast; some We caused the earth to swallow up; and some We drowned (in the waters): It was not Allah Who injured (or oppressed) them: They injured (and oppressed) their own souls.”
Like my friend Saeed Akhtar Malik wrote “our day of reckoning has come, it seems”. Something has gone awfully wrong with all things Pakistani: corruption, moral and monetary, is part of our social fabric. Even if we wanted to it seems we could not escape it. The disconnected power-elite wallow in it, the middle class and the poor indulge to make ends meet. Killing has no worldly or moral consequence it seems. Our moral compass was teetering, seems absent now. For all our claims to religiosity, there is widespread use of black magic for quick attainment of relevant desires. Black magic is akin to the unforgivable sin of shirk or associating an entity with God. Forget taxes to the State one wonders how many in the Islamic Republic practice the fourth pillar of Zakat. If the obscenely wealthy gave 2 ½ % of their assets to charity in Pakistan we would not be dirt poor.
The stark incompetence of the government at the time of its people’s greatest need, spending its time doing damage control over its leader’s foreign trips and shoe adventures is a travesty but another chapter in many similar ones. Extremist organizations are filling the void in the hardest hit areas promising to generate greater militancy in the future.
Our focus needs to be reformation at the personal, community and then national levels. It is very Pakistani to generate fire and brimstone explanations of natural disasters and also to theorize about the future. The Internet is replete with predictions of an army takeover or an Islamic revolution.
We would be better served if we went through an exhaustive personal moral inventory and contribution of any kind to the humanitarian disaster. If ever there was a wake-up call this is it. Pakistan already is in a state of anarchy. If we don’t galvanize quickly it is threatened with extinction.
Tail-piece: As events unfold one can’t help but think that the one thing that the populace can be incriminated for is electing a government that has institutionalized corruption. And it is entirely weird that the greatest ravages are in Sind, the stronghold of the PPP. The flood victims are hungry and homeless awaiting government help-the leader of which entertained himself and his coterie with an expensive European trip-all while his government is missing in action.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
On a mundane and scientific level it appears that global warming is to blame. About 14 million people have been affected by the floods making it more disastrous than the South East Asian tsunami and the Haitian earthquake combined. According to scientists ‘a supercharged jet-stream’ is responsible for the floods and landslides in Pakistan and China and an extreme heat wave in Russia and one that killed 60 people in Japan in July.
Meteorologists are unsure of the root cause but seem to favor that rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere will drive up the number of extreme heat events. This same effect and the ‘supercharged jet stream’ are blamed for the floods in the UK in 2007 and the heat wave then in Eastern Europe.
Antiquated irrigation systems and the lack of repair of irrigation leaks have compounded the situation in Pakistan. And the deforestation mafia created the final straw causing rivers to barrel down in mammoth fury.
The count now is over 1600 dead and 20 million affected but what of entire villages that have been swallowed by the waters? As weeks go on and the floodwaters recede the actual devastation will become apparent and the fact that a struggling nation has been pulled back another fifty years from current civilization is likely to emerge. And now killer diseases like cholera can claim more lives.
After the 7.0 Richter scale earthquake in Haiti in January evangelical priest Pat Robertson claimed that the earthquake had hit Haiti as it had “made a pact with the devil” referring to voodoo rituals carried out before a slave rebellion against the French colonists in 1791. After Hurricane Katrina in 2006 John Hagee another evangelical pastor said "I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that. There was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that Hurricane Katrina came”. However in 2008, Hagee backed away from his comments regarding Hurricane Katrina by saying, "But ultimately neither I nor any other person can know the mind of God concerning Hurricane Katrina. I should not have suggested otherwise”.
But we love to second guess God, don’t we? Explaining the current floods crisis the ultra-right claims God’s wrath for the Lal Masjid fiasco and the pact with the Great Satan aka America. And the mystics say they knew His fury was not far when Data Ganj Baksh’s shrine was attacked.
If only His will were that simple and events so elementary to dissect. If the Lal Masjid fiasco is to be blamed, why does its primary perpetrator Pervez Musharraf sit in luxurious dry land in England?
Hadith Qudsi 25 states: “Whosoever shows enmity to someone devoted to Me, I shall be at war with him. When I love him I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks. Were he to ask [something] of Me, I would surely give it to him, and were he to ask Me for refuge, I would surely grant him it”. This is widely taken to describe the auliya-Allah or the friends of God of whom Data Ganj Baksh was one. And yet the thinking mind wonders why God would decimate thousands of innocents for the disrespect of one?
While the Bible and the Quran are graphic about God’s wrath and ascribe a reason each time, it is important to grasp the concept of Divine retribution, or sin and result, but not to play God and float theories regarding our terrible state.
Several verses in the Quran speak of God’s retribution against the defiance of the people of Prophets Lut, Nuh, Shuaib, Hud and Moses. Chapter Ankabut (29:40) encapsulates the other verses well: “Each one of them(wicked people) We seized for his crime: of them, against some We sent a violent tornado (with showers of stones); some were caught by a (mighty) Blast; some We caused the earth to swallow up; and some We drowned (in the waters): It was not Allah Who injured (or oppressed) them: They injured (and oppressed) their own souls.”
Like my friend Saeed Akhtar Malik wrote “our day of reckoning has come, it seems”. Something has gone awfully wrong with all things Pakistani: corruption, moral and monetary, is part of our social fabric. Even if we wanted to it seems we could not escape it. The disconnected power-elite wallow in it, the middle class and the poor indulge to make ends meet. Killing has no worldly or moral consequence it seems. Our moral compass was teetering, seems absent now. For all our claims to religiosity, there is widespread use of black magic for quick attainment of relevant desires. Black magic is akin to the unforgivable sin of shirk or associating an entity with God. Forget taxes to the State one wonders how many in the Islamic Republic practice the fourth pillar of Zakat. If the obscenely wealthy gave 2 ½ % of their assets to charity in Pakistan we would not be dirt poor.
The stark incompetence of the government at the time of its people’s greatest need, spending its time doing damage control over its leader’s foreign trips and shoe adventures is a travesty but another chapter in many similar ones. Extremist organizations are filling the void in the hardest hit areas promising to generate greater militancy in the future.
Our focus needs to be reformation at the personal, community and then national levels. It is very Pakistani to generate fire and brimstone explanations of natural disasters and also to theorize about the future. The Internet is replete with predictions of an army takeover or an Islamic revolution.
We would be better served if we went through an exhaustive personal moral inventory and contribution of any kind to the humanitarian disaster. If ever there was a wake-up call this is it. Pakistan already is in a state of anarchy. If we don’t galvanize quickly it is threatened with extinction.
Tail-piece: As events unfold one can’t help but think that the one thing that the populace can be incriminated for is electing a government that has institutionalized corruption. And it is entirely weird that the greatest ravages are in Sind, the stronghold of the PPP. The flood victims are hungry and homeless awaiting government help-the leader of which entertained himself and his coterie with an expensive European trip-all while his government is missing in action.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Death and taxes
A common Americanism attributed to Benjamin Franklin goes “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”. In Pakistan the only certainty these days is death. Everywhere you turn: the crash in Margalla Hills, the worst floods in a generation, endless terrorism and resurgent target-killings. But taxes are an alien concept in Pakistan
In a shaming July article the New York Times states “Out of more than 170 million Pakistanis, fewer than 2 percent pay income tax, making Pakistan’s revenue from taxes among the lowest in the world, a notch below Sierra Leone’s as a ratio of tax to gross domestic product.” A December study by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency reveals that the average net worth of a Pakistani parliamentarian is $900,000 with its richest topping $37million. The article quotes Zafarul Majeed a senior official of the Federal Board of Revenue as stating that Pakistan’s income from taxes last year was the lowest in the country’s history. And this in face of the PILDAT study which revealed that Pakistani Parliamentarians’ assets doubled in the last year.
To complete our humiliation, the article states: “The country’s top opposition leader Nawaz Sharif reported that he paid no personal income tax for three years ending in 2007 in public documents he filed with Pakistan’s election commission. A spokesman for Mr. Sharif, an industrialist who is widely believed to be a millionaire, said he had been in exile and had turned over positions in his companies to relatives. A month of requests for similar documents for Pakistan’s president and prime minister went unanswered by the commission; representatives for the men said they did not have the figures”
There is a reason for taxes being equated with the certainty of death in the West; they bleed you. And yet how else would health care, education, public transport, roads and railways be financed? The industrialization of Japan, Europe, Canada and the United States testifies to the steep and certain taxes imposed on their respective populace.
And in the injustice that is now so Pakistani, sales tax is imposed and breaks the back of the desperate driver who makes $123 per month while it’s a breeze for the Parliamentarian who makes $1400 per month. God forbid that the Parliamentarian should pay income tax on his millions. Feudals are so powerful and plentiful in Parliament that no federal tax on agriculture has been established.
Would eat into that income too, now wouldn’t it?
British Prime Minister David Cameron insulted Pakistan during a visit to India saying “Britain cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that Pakistan is allowed to look both ways and is able, in any way, to promote the export of terror”. Around this time the Airblue jet crashed in the Margalla Hills numbing an already worn people. Plans are already set for a Presidential jaunt to France and England. Pakistan’s security officials cancel a visit to England in protest of Cameron’s statement but Presidential plans are still on. And then all dams break loose and the worst flood in a generation claims 1400 lives, affects 3.4 million and erases 70% livestock.
One’s mouth hangs open watching footage of houses swallowed by the turbulent waters as though they were made of cards. You rewind and play thinking that it must be a simulation and forget to move because it is not.
It is a terrible day at work for those images keep coming back and block other brain activity. And somehow the day ends and I struggle back only to be hit hard with more devastation and the worst insult to Pakistan’s injury: Zardari’s trip to France and England on public expense. Now I feel like I have PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, I am not kidding. PPP diehards in England wail protests joining the national chorus of condemnation. But the French chateaus beckon.
Despite the noise of the naysayers, the President proceeds. But why the entourage of an entire plane load? The entire ninth floor of the Hyatt Regency, The Churchill a swanky 5-star hotel in London is booked. Tab-£7000 a suite. Dozens of Rolls Royces and Bentleys wait to entertain the entourage, not to forget the special chef and food.
Now I just don’t have PTSD, I feel like the girl in Exorcist: my whole head is turning around and green yuk wants to spew forth.
And when the bill is paid from the taxes of those stupid Pakistanis that did not know how to evade them or the millions brought in from sales tax, who is counting and who cares?
Zardari and his entourage may have missed the point, but British-Pakistani politicians have not for they stolidly refused to meet with him. “I’m not going to meet with the president because I believe that a head of state needs to be in his country of origin when people are drowning and have nowhere to go. He is spending poor people’s money on the launch of his son’s political career at a time when his country needs him shows that he’s out of touch and his advisors are ill-informed. Quite frankly, staying in five-star hotels with his huge entourage, tens of big cars that have been hired just to give him this protocol in London, it’s quite outrageous” said Labour peer Lord Nazir Ahmed. He was echoed by Labour MP Khalid Mahmood.
And then the foreign policy gaffes. Feeling the criticism, Zardari attempted to deflect it by some chest thumping: the coalition was losing the war on terror, he said in an interview to a French paper. Even if that is the case, a statement by the leader of a frontline state only serves to strengthen terrorism and cause more loss of life in Pakistan.
Maybe it is my mental handicap that I am still at a loss to understand this madness. “How do they sleep at night?” I scream at a colleague. He claims they do not have a conscience. I insist that everyone does. Well then, they have given it Valium and put it to bed! So there you have it: no conscience, no taxes. Just a flood of death-for the poor.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
In a shaming July article the New York Times states “Out of more than 170 million Pakistanis, fewer than 2 percent pay income tax, making Pakistan’s revenue from taxes among the lowest in the world, a notch below Sierra Leone’s as a ratio of tax to gross domestic product.” A December study by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency reveals that the average net worth of a Pakistani parliamentarian is $900,000 with its richest topping $37million. The article quotes Zafarul Majeed a senior official of the Federal Board of Revenue as stating that Pakistan’s income from taxes last year was the lowest in the country’s history. And this in face of the PILDAT study which revealed that Pakistani Parliamentarians’ assets doubled in the last year.
To complete our humiliation, the article states: “The country’s top opposition leader Nawaz Sharif reported that he paid no personal income tax for three years ending in 2007 in public documents he filed with Pakistan’s election commission. A spokesman for Mr. Sharif, an industrialist who is widely believed to be a millionaire, said he had been in exile and had turned over positions in his companies to relatives. A month of requests for similar documents for Pakistan’s president and prime minister went unanswered by the commission; representatives for the men said they did not have the figures”
There is a reason for taxes being equated with the certainty of death in the West; they bleed you. And yet how else would health care, education, public transport, roads and railways be financed? The industrialization of Japan, Europe, Canada and the United States testifies to the steep and certain taxes imposed on their respective populace.
And in the injustice that is now so Pakistani, sales tax is imposed and breaks the back of the desperate driver who makes $123 per month while it’s a breeze for the Parliamentarian who makes $1400 per month. God forbid that the Parliamentarian should pay income tax on his millions. Feudals are so powerful and plentiful in Parliament that no federal tax on agriculture has been established.
Would eat into that income too, now wouldn’t it?
British Prime Minister David Cameron insulted Pakistan during a visit to India saying “Britain cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that Pakistan is allowed to look both ways and is able, in any way, to promote the export of terror”. Around this time the Airblue jet crashed in the Margalla Hills numbing an already worn people. Plans are already set for a Presidential jaunt to France and England. Pakistan’s security officials cancel a visit to England in protest of Cameron’s statement but Presidential plans are still on. And then all dams break loose and the worst flood in a generation claims 1400 lives, affects 3.4 million and erases 70% livestock.
One’s mouth hangs open watching footage of houses swallowed by the turbulent waters as though they were made of cards. You rewind and play thinking that it must be a simulation and forget to move because it is not.
It is a terrible day at work for those images keep coming back and block other brain activity. And somehow the day ends and I struggle back only to be hit hard with more devastation and the worst insult to Pakistan’s injury: Zardari’s trip to France and England on public expense. Now I feel like I have PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, I am not kidding. PPP diehards in England wail protests joining the national chorus of condemnation. But the French chateaus beckon.
Despite the noise of the naysayers, the President proceeds. But why the entourage of an entire plane load? The entire ninth floor of the Hyatt Regency, The Churchill a swanky 5-star hotel in London is booked. Tab-£7000 a suite. Dozens of Rolls Royces and Bentleys wait to entertain the entourage, not to forget the special chef and food.
Now I just don’t have PTSD, I feel like the girl in Exorcist: my whole head is turning around and green yuk wants to spew forth.
And when the bill is paid from the taxes of those stupid Pakistanis that did not know how to evade them or the millions brought in from sales tax, who is counting and who cares?
Zardari and his entourage may have missed the point, but British-Pakistani politicians have not for they stolidly refused to meet with him. “I’m not going to meet with the president because I believe that a head of state needs to be in his country of origin when people are drowning and have nowhere to go. He is spending poor people’s money on the launch of his son’s political career at a time when his country needs him shows that he’s out of touch and his advisors are ill-informed. Quite frankly, staying in five-star hotels with his huge entourage, tens of big cars that have been hired just to give him this protocol in London, it’s quite outrageous” said Labour peer Lord Nazir Ahmed. He was echoed by Labour MP Khalid Mahmood.
And then the foreign policy gaffes. Feeling the criticism, Zardari attempted to deflect it by some chest thumping: the coalition was losing the war on terror, he said in an interview to a French paper. Even if that is the case, a statement by the leader of a frontline state only serves to strengthen terrorism and cause more loss of life in Pakistan.
Maybe it is my mental handicap that I am still at a loss to understand this madness. “How do they sleep at night?” I scream at a colleague. He claims they do not have a conscience. I insist that everyone does. Well then, they have given it Valium and put it to bed! So there you have it: no conscience, no taxes. Just a flood of death-for the poor.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
An erosion of national character
Buffeted by air-crashes, natural disasters, economic collapse and terrorism at the Islamabad Marriott and Lahore’s Data Ganj Baksh shrine among numerous others, one wonders at Pakistan’s resilience. And the shot nerves of its populace. If fury rains from the heavens above, one can do the fatalistic thing and bow to God’s will; but how does one stem the tears when people wrong you?
National character is an extrapolation of individual, family and community values. And these have taken a steady downturn since Pakistan’s creation. The word sharafat has a deeper meaning than just decency- it is one of those untranslatables. Time was that as a nation sharafat was a concept that was recognized and referenced; with a bearing on marriages as well as national appointments. Lost in the chaos, confusion and cacophony of our national post-traumatic stress disorder is our moral compass. And though it sounds blasé in face of life and death issues, in and of itself it guarantees our perpetuity.
Islam underscores the means to the end; any and all means are not acceptable. Pakistanis seem to be emphasizing the end; the means seem entirely irrelevant.
The tragedy is not the mind-boggling wealth of the super-elite but the attitude that the 10% commissions did not happen as they were never proven. Even a cursory look at the net worth of MNAs is enough to give you vertigo. There has to be something deeply wrong somewhere if an American physician traveling to Pakistan feels poor around her friends who seem to be pulling out large denomination bills as though they had a veritable mint in their purses.
And how totally Pakistani to practice all the wrong that the West struggles with. One of the latest is the proving business. Take MNA Shumaila Rana for example. She calmly steals a woman’s credit card from a locker room, tries to buy jewelry with it and on failing and pressure from her party resigns. The entire interaction in the jewelry store and the conversation with the bank is caught on closed-circuit television, and when the banker is asking for her password, is particularly amusing, as she keeps saying “yes, yes”. The other lady does not press charges and so Ms. Rana now wishes to rejoin the National Assembly and has the gall to say that since the case against her was not proven she is innocent!
This same Shumaila Rana and women of her ilk riding in their top-of-the-line Lexus would have no problem harassing the poor vegetable seller and insisting he lower the price of tomatoes by a few rupees. Or abusing the farmer that tills the hundreds of acres that the elite own.
Pakistanis only concept of patriotism is to sing the national anthem with gusto. All else and thereafter is for self rather than state. Feudalism would be abolished, first thing, if that were not so. However broken, Pakistan has a democracy, but what use is it when legislators are feudal landlords and suck the blood of an entire stratum and keep them locked in illiteracy, poverty, debt, injustice and terror. With nothing for them or their families but a lifetime of tilling the land for pennies.
Another national fiasco is the issue of fake degrees, bringing home once again the point of only proof being relevant and not the truth. And in the wonderful vein of Pakistani resourcefulness, we have a plethora of fake degrees that the fraudulent had hoped would pass muster. What is even more interesting is the attempt by guilty parliamentarians to shift blame on the media and for female parliamentarians to actually pout and then sob. Have we no shame at all?
The Supreme Court has ordered a verification of the genuineness of these degrees by the Higher Education Commission. The disqualification of a significant number of parliamentarians could create a crisis for the ruling party. The HEC head Javaid Laghari is under intense pressure and has refused to “slow down” the process and as a consequence has suffered the arrest of his brother on purported corruption charges and a raid on his farmhouse and arrest of his servants.
Bill Clinton’s dalliance with Monica Lewinsky seemed to have downed America in a pall of gloom and shame. And was probably one of the reasons that George Bush slid into the White House. The ruling elite of Pakistan are deeply corrupt, their antics displayed time and again on national and satellite television, but outrage is eerily absent. For the stage is set from above. In a frayed economy and multiple crises the population has learned to negotiate life’s tedium by the tattered moral standards of the ruling elite. Love that Americanism: “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”.
Years ago as I took the professional exams in MBBS in Dow Medical College I vividly remember the invigilator order me to “help” one of my classmates. Horrified and panicked I refused. She went on to another student with whom she made a tacit pact. This student had various pockets stitched into her shalwar and she removed various pieces of paper from them, copied them with impunity and handed them over to the one that needed the help. My idealism was shattered when the invigilator’s little pet, a professor’s daughter no less, graduated in the top ten.
Farah Hameed Dogar the daughter of then Supreme Court Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar had her marksheet manipulated 20 points so she could be admitted to Islamic Medical College Rawalpindi.
Youth Prime Minister Hasan Javed Khan who died in the terrible Air Blue tragedy had some wonderful advice for a nation that would mourn him and all that lost their lives: good governance and accountability are only possible with supremacy of the law.
I grieve for all that died in the Margalla Hills as much as I mourn the erosion of my nation’s moral character. Festering at the top and trickling down, leaving our youth with the premise that any and all means justify money and power.
Mahjabeen Islam is a family physician, addictionist and columnist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
National character is an extrapolation of individual, family and community values. And these have taken a steady downturn since Pakistan’s creation. The word sharafat has a deeper meaning than just decency- it is one of those untranslatables. Time was that as a nation sharafat was a concept that was recognized and referenced; with a bearing on marriages as well as national appointments. Lost in the chaos, confusion and cacophony of our national post-traumatic stress disorder is our moral compass. And though it sounds blasé in face of life and death issues, in and of itself it guarantees our perpetuity.
Islam underscores the means to the end; any and all means are not acceptable. Pakistanis seem to be emphasizing the end; the means seem entirely irrelevant.
The tragedy is not the mind-boggling wealth of the super-elite but the attitude that the 10% commissions did not happen as they were never proven. Even a cursory look at the net worth of MNAs is enough to give you vertigo. There has to be something deeply wrong somewhere if an American physician traveling to Pakistan feels poor around her friends who seem to be pulling out large denomination bills as though they had a veritable mint in their purses.
And how totally Pakistani to practice all the wrong that the West struggles with. One of the latest is the proving business. Take MNA Shumaila Rana for example. She calmly steals a woman’s credit card from a locker room, tries to buy jewelry with it and on failing and pressure from her party resigns. The entire interaction in the jewelry store and the conversation with the bank is caught on closed-circuit television, and when the banker is asking for her password, is particularly amusing, as she keeps saying “yes, yes”. The other lady does not press charges and so Ms. Rana now wishes to rejoin the National Assembly and has the gall to say that since the case against her was not proven she is innocent!
This same Shumaila Rana and women of her ilk riding in their top-of-the-line Lexus would have no problem harassing the poor vegetable seller and insisting he lower the price of tomatoes by a few rupees. Or abusing the farmer that tills the hundreds of acres that the elite own.
Pakistanis only concept of patriotism is to sing the national anthem with gusto. All else and thereafter is for self rather than state. Feudalism would be abolished, first thing, if that were not so. However broken, Pakistan has a democracy, but what use is it when legislators are feudal landlords and suck the blood of an entire stratum and keep them locked in illiteracy, poverty, debt, injustice and terror. With nothing for them or their families but a lifetime of tilling the land for pennies.
Another national fiasco is the issue of fake degrees, bringing home once again the point of only proof being relevant and not the truth. And in the wonderful vein of Pakistani resourcefulness, we have a plethora of fake degrees that the fraudulent had hoped would pass muster. What is even more interesting is the attempt by guilty parliamentarians to shift blame on the media and for female parliamentarians to actually pout and then sob. Have we no shame at all?
The Supreme Court has ordered a verification of the genuineness of these degrees by the Higher Education Commission. The disqualification of a significant number of parliamentarians could create a crisis for the ruling party. The HEC head Javaid Laghari is under intense pressure and has refused to “slow down” the process and as a consequence has suffered the arrest of his brother on purported corruption charges and a raid on his farmhouse and arrest of his servants.
Bill Clinton’s dalliance with Monica Lewinsky seemed to have downed America in a pall of gloom and shame. And was probably one of the reasons that George Bush slid into the White House. The ruling elite of Pakistan are deeply corrupt, their antics displayed time and again on national and satellite television, but outrage is eerily absent. For the stage is set from above. In a frayed economy and multiple crises the population has learned to negotiate life’s tedium by the tattered moral standards of the ruling elite. Love that Americanism: “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”.
Years ago as I took the professional exams in MBBS in Dow Medical College I vividly remember the invigilator order me to “help” one of my classmates. Horrified and panicked I refused. She went on to another student with whom she made a tacit pact. This student had various pockets stitched into her shalwar and she removed various pieces of paper from them, copied them with impunity and handed them over to the one that needed the help. My idealism was shattered when the invigilator’s little pet, a professor’s daughter no less, graduated in the top ten.
Farah Hameed Dogar the daughter of then Supreme Court Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar had her marksheet manipulated 20 points so she could be admitted to Islamic Medical College Rawalpindi.
Youth Prime Minister Hasan Javed Khan who died in the terrible Air Blue tragedy had some wonderful advice for a nation that would mourn him and all that lost their lives: good governance and accountability are only possible with supremacy of the law.
I grieve for all that died in the Margalla Hills as much as I mourn the erosion of my nation’s moral character. Festering at the top and trickling down, leaving our youth with the premise that any and all means justify money and power.
Mahjabeen Islam is a family physician, addictionist and columnist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Patriarchy the hijacker
Patriarchy is the worst hijacker of Islam, right up there with terrorism. And to think that a simple partition in a woman’s anatomy could be the real or imagined basis for horrific acts of violence is difficult to accept.
The Muslim male’s obsession with virginity, and by extrapolation chastity, plays out in conflict at the domestic level where fathers and brothers apply a standard to women that is flagrantly dichotomous. Muslim societies completely accept a young man dating, drinking and engaging in premarital sex. Some families just look the other way, in others it is open and accepted.
In the days of old chaste women were sequestered from prying male eyes. And now the tacit order remains in effect: female virginity can be proven and so it must be protected at all costs. Current day England is not free from honor killings or threats toward women. Afshan Azad a 22-year old actress in the Harry Potter movies has been assaulted and threatened by her brother and father in disapproval of her Hindu boyfriend.
Jamal Badawi in his book Gender Equity in Islam shatters patriarchal models as well as the propaganda that Muslim women are inferior to men. Most of all the distinction between equality and equity is brilliant.
Twenty years ago a young man in Pakistan was dining a young, brilliant corporate executive. Excitedly my mother persuaded him to propose to her. “No, no Auntie, one does not marry women like her, one just has fun with them” was the decimating answer.
This shameless patriarchy and double standard have become part of the genetic complement of the Muslim male. Contrary to Islamophobic hysteria, the only two points in which men and women are set apart, in Islam, is in the man being the head of the household and inheritance laws. The analogy of having only one CEO applies in terms of the head of the household issue. This is also part of the other Abrahamic faiths. Women in Islam inherit less than men as women are not required to share their earnings or wealth and when they become orphans, divorcees or widows they are deemed the financial responsibilities of first degree male relatives. If males do not fulfill their role here, it is their greed and irresponsibility; Islam cannot be bashed.
Spiritually men and women are treated as total equals and many a verse in the Quran addresses “the believing men and the believing women, the Muslim men and the Muslim women”. Men may not have physical proof of virginity but premarital sex and adultery carry the same punitive damages in the eyes of God, regardless of the gender of the perpetrator. That the reprehensible Hudood Ordinance and the deep corruption in Pakistan allow the man to go scot-free is an essay for another day.
Women outnumber men in Pakistan and somehow the number of marriageable Muslim women in North America also appears to outnumber male counterparts. This has served to strengthen patriarchy and deep hypocrisy in Muslim households. Men, even if they are drunks and nincompoops have a pick of the crème de la crème, while girls may have to weigh their options: go with a loser or witness the maddening inexorable ticking of the biological clock.
A strong premise in Islam is that of niyyah or intention. The reason for a Muslim man to sport a beard or a woman to wear the hijab may not be entirely a strong personal inclination toward Islam; it may well be multi-factorial.
But men seem to have this distorted sense that hijab equals holy. Some savvy families have latched on to the concept of market economics; knowing that the demand for hijab wearing girls seems higher attempts are made to increase market value by adorning the hijab. “I had to kick out my hijabi roommate because she wanted to bring her boyfriend to sleep over every third night when I was on call” said a disgusted young physician, adding that the hijab served as a great cover for the deep affectionate impressions he left on her neck.
Another manifestation of market economics melding with entrenched societal tradition is the effort to regain what has been lost. While the furious kill the one that stains their honor, other parents take no chances in ensuring that the necessary stain does occur on the wedding night and their daughter is not sent packing for promiscuity. Plastic surgeons in Egypt and Europe have been doing hymen reconstructions for young Muslim women for a while now.
Jamal Badawi repeatedly challenges Islamophobes to show to him which chapter or verse in the Quran speaks of 72 virgins promised in heaven for violent jihad. And yet out of context and weak Hadiths superimposed on tales of Western hegemony and imperialism are continually used to brainwash teenagers to make an explosive exit taking many with them.
And fair is fair. Deeply conservative and sexually uninitiated men wishing to marry their own kind should have every right to. But households where sons can come home at any hour, alcohol and drug use is no issue, premarital sex is considered grooming but daughters are monitored and cloistered, the expectation to marry a virgin half the man’s age is beyond reprehensible.
The most vital piece is educational and economic empowerment of women. Women must stop this cycle of abuse that they perpetuate against their own gender. The birth of a son is hailed and he is given preference in food, education and favors. These same women become economically and psychologically insecure mothers-in-law and generate horrific abuse toward the poor woman that sonny boy gets married to. And that daughter-in-law, herself marginally educated and disfavored, does the same to her daughters. And the cycle of abuse and disempowerment goes on.
“Say to the believing men and women to lower their gaze and guard their modesty” says Surah Nur (24:30, 24:31). Note that the exhortation is to both men and women-not to women alone.
Testosterone-infused patriarchs have knowingly and unconsciously vilified Islam and misinterpreted it to satisfy their virginity-obsessed lusts. To save family units, and indeed the world, a strong swift swipe must be made against the steel-webs of the mind. Either we accept promiscuity in our wives, daughters and daughters-in-law or work toward the simple standard of gender equity, spiritual and physical modesty. Either way, what’s good for the goose must be good for the gander.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
The Muslim male’s obsession with virginity, and by extrapolation chastity, plays out in conflict at the domestic level where fathers and brothers apply a standard to women that is flagrantly dichotomous. Muslim societies completely accept a young man dating, drinking and engaging in premarital sex. Some families just look the other way, in others it is open and accepted.
In the days of old chaste women were sequestered from prying male eyes. And now the tacit order remains in effect: female virginity can be proven and so it must be protected at all costs. Current day England is not free from honor killings or threats toward women. Afshan Azad a 22-year old actress in the Harry Potter movies has been assaulted and threatened by her brother and father in disapproval of her Hindu boyfriend.
Jamal Badawi in his book Gender Equity in Islam shatters patriarchal models as well as the propaganda that Muslim women are inferior to men. Most of all the distinction between equality and equity is brilliant.
Twenty years ago a young man in Pakistan was dining a young, brilliant corporate executive. Excitedly my mother persuaded him to propose to her. “No, no Auntie, one does not marry women like her, one just has fun with them” was the decimating answer.
This shameless patriarchy and double standard have become part of the genetic complement of the Muslim male. Contrary to Islamophobic hysteria, the only two points in which men and women are set apart, in Islam, is in the man being the head of the household and inheritance laws. The analogy of having only one CEO applies in terms of the head of the household issue. This is also part of the other Abrahamic faiths. Women in Islam inherit less than men as women are not required to share their earnings or wealth and when they become orphans, divorcees or widows they are deemed the financial responsibilities of first degree male relatives. If males do not fulfill their role here, it is their greed and irresponsibility; Islam cannot be bashed.
Spiritually men and women are treated as total equals and many a verse in the Quran addresses “the believing men and the believing women, the Muslim men and the Muslim women”. Men may not have physical proof of virginity but premarital sex and adultery carry the same punitive damages in the eyes of God, regardless of the gender of the perpetrator. That the reprehensible Hudood Ordinance and the deep corruption in Pakistan allow the man to go scot-free is an essay for another day.
Women outnumber men in Pakistan and somehow the number of marriageable Muslim women in North America also appears to outnumber male counterparts. This has served to strengthen patriarchy and deep hypocrisy in Muslim households. Men, even if they are drunks and nincompoops have a pick of the crème de la crème, while girls may have to weigh their options: go with a loser or witness the maddening inexorable ticking of the biological clock.
A strong premise in Islam is that of niyyah or intention. The reason for a Muslim man to sport a beard or a woman to wear the hijab may not be entirely a strong personal inclination toward Islam; it may well be multi-factorial.
But men seem to have this distorted sense that hijab equals holy. Some savvy families have latched on to the concept of market economics; knowing that the demand for hijab wearing girls seems higher attempts are made to increase market value by adorning the hijab. “I had to kick out my hijabi roommate because she wanted to bring her boyfriend to sleep over every third night when I was on call” said a disgusted young physician, adding that the hijab served as a great cover for the deep affectionate impressions he left on her neck.
Another manifestation of market economics melding with entrenched societal tradition is the effort to regain what has been lost. While the furious kill the one that stains their honor, other parents take no chances in ensuring that the necessary stain does occur on the wedding night and their daughter is not sent packing for promiscuity. Plastic surgeons in Egypt and Europe have been doing hymen reconstructions for young Muslim women for a while now.
Jamal Badawi repeatedly challenges Islamophobes to show to him which chapter or verse in the Quran speaks of 72 virgins promised in heaven for violent jihad. And yet out of context and weak Hadiths superimposed on tales of Western hegemony and imperialism are continually used to brainwash teenagers to make an explosive exit taking many with them.
And fair is fair. Deeply conservative and sexually uninitiated men wishing to marry their own kind should have every right to. But households where sons can come home at any hour, alcohol and drug use is no issue, premarital sex is considered grooming but daughters are monitored and cloistered, the expectation to marry a virgin half the man’s age is beyond reprehensible.
The most vital piece is educational and economic empowerment of women. Women must stop this cycle of abuse that they perpetuate against their own gender. The birth of a son is hailed and he is given preference in food, education and favors. These same women become economically and psychologically insecure mothers-in-law and generate horrific abuse toward the poor woman that sonny boy gets married to. And that daughter-in-law, herself marginally educated and disfavored, does the same to her daughters. And the cycle of abuse and disempowerment goes on.
“Say to the believing men and women to lower their gaze and guard their modesty” says Surah Nur (24:30, 24:31). Note that the exhortation is to both men and women-not to women alone.
Testosterone-infused patriarchs have knowingly and unconsciously vilified Islam and misinterpreted it to satisfy their virginity-obsessed lusts. To save family units, and indeed the world, a strong swift swipe must be made against the steel-webs of the mind. Either we accept promiscuity in our wives, daughters and daughters-in-law or work toward the simple standard of gender equity, spiritual and physical modesty. Either way, what’s good for the goose must be good for the gander.
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Surging suicides in Pakistan
VIEW: Surging suicides in Pakistan —Dr Mahjabeen Islam
It is true that there have always been suicides and always will be, in any society. But to relegate it all to mental illness in current day Pakistan is representative of the mental insulation that typifies any party that acquires power
Fauzia Wahab, the PPP information secretary, and her government are fast becoming the Pakistani versions of Marie Antoinette. The Queen of Louis XVI of France, when told that the population could not afford bread, is reported to have said, “Then let them eat cake!”
Suicides are surging in Pakistan and now there is an increase in murder-suicides. Surviving relatives detail their financial desperation or crushing debt. And when fathers, like the rickshaw driver, poison their entire family and then kill themselves, it seems to take the whole nation’s breath away. The many stories are essentially the same, the characters and details a bit different. The refrain is invariably poverty and the frank inability to feed, clothe and shelter a family.
But Ms Wahab’s take is different. When asked about this issue, she felt that it was related to “despondency, mental illness and the media glorifying suicides”. She went on to say that “these people need to understand that there is no namaz-e-janaza for the one who commits suicide, that suicide is haram and that suicide is cowardice!”
This is a classic case of mental insulation; how can one live, drive, watch and hear and still not sense the screams of desperation of a populace? The poor kismet that I have of living thousands of miles away and just watching the news, even I can sense the pervasive economic desperation in Pakistan. It is adding insult to injury for the many dead of so many households that the powerful in Pakistan speak in such contemptuous terms of such a grave situation and offer no solutions except finger-wagging admonition.
The Quran does say in Surah Isra and Anam (17:31, 6:151), “Kill not your children for fear of want: We shall provide sustenance for them as well as for you: verily the killing of them is a great sin.” In the vicissitudes of life though, the most comforting is Surah Zumar (39:53): “Do not feel disconnected from the Mercy of God, for God is Oft-forgiving, Most-Merciful.”
And yet, to understand this sad scourge of suicides, one must understand that it is not abrupt but rather very slowly sequential. The onset of trouble is with a situational depression, precipitated in this case by economic burdens. The person tries to deal with it and if there is relief, the situational depression resolves. If there is none, the person’s depression progresses, thought processes start to fuzz out and major depression sets in. The hallmark of major depression is suicidal ideation.
It is only in the very early parts of a person’s emotional decline that they are able to understand and value the importance of Quranic injunctions and societal condemnation. After major depression sets in, the decline begins so precipitously that unless there is immediate removal of the precipitating factor as well as medical treatment of the depression, the person is liable to proceed down the path of suicide.
The actual rate of suicides in Pakistan is not available or accurate for suicides are not always reported due to the attendant shame. It is true that there have always been suicides and always will be, in any society. But to relegate it all to mental illness in current day Pakistan is representative of the mental insulation that typifies any party that acquires power. I have named it the ‘Kursi Syndrome’ in past articles; even if a Sufi acquired power in Pakistan they would become arrogant, delusional and disconnected from the very people that elected them.
Major depression, or like Ms Wahab puts it, “despondency”, is an equal opportunity disease. If, in their Marie Antoinette supercilious arrogance, the ruling elite seriously believes that they are somehow inured to the ravages of depression, or the turning of fortune, a reality check is immediately in order. It would be the ultimate irony if, God forbid, one of them had to be declined for a namaz-e-janaza.
The insensitivity of calling such a tremendous societal tragedy an act of “cowardice” is beyond my ability to condemn adequately, especially when the government has devoted more money to the war against terror than economic and educational uplift.
The dichotomy of the ultra-right in the face of these suicides is also sad. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and other similar groups brainwash teenagers to commit suicide, convincing them with perverse and unfounded logic of reward in the afterlife. In Islam, a male is classified as an adult when he comes of age biologically and a woman when she menstruates; and both at adulthood become responsible for their actions. “Killing one person is as if he has killed all of humanity,” (Surah Maidah 5:32) says in the Quran rather directly. And regardless of the brainwashing by men who themselves stay away from suicide vests, the young perpetrators of these heinous crimes are in full control of their mental faculties.
The only individuals who are exempted from accounting for their five daily prayers are the insane and mentally challenged. When a person has crossed over from the blues to major depression with psychosis, they would not be considered mentally competent in a worldly court of law. So what is one to think of the Oft-Forgiving and Most-Merciful?
Ijtihad, or re-interpretation of Islam in the light of modern knowledge, is dead. It is no wonder that religious scholars in Pakistan do not have the vaguest clue of what depression is except 'a weakness of faith’. The government gives monetary support to families of murder-suicides. Should not this monetary help have arrived sooner?
Rapid and effective economic and health relief needs to be provided to the people of Pakistan. Suicides as a whole are preventable and those based on financial desperation, completely so. Food, clothing, shelter, education and health are basic rights and need to be provided urgently and across the board. Human rights activist Tahira Abdullah said rather forebodingly: “Some of the hungry are committing suicide now. The government needs to fear the day when the rest of the hungry come onto the streets and demand justice.”
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist with a practice in Toledo Ohio. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
It is true that there have always been suicides and always will be, in any society. But to relegate it all to mental illness in current day Pakistan is representative of the mental insulation that typifies any party that acquires power
Fauzia Wahab, the PPP information secretary, and her government are fast becoming the Pakistani versions of Marie Antoinette. The Queen of Louis XVI of France, when told that the population could not afford bread, is reported to have said, “Then let them eat cake!”
Suicides are surging in Pakistan and now there is an increase in murder-suicides. Surviving relatives detail their financial desperation or crushing debt. And when fathers, like the rickshaw driver, poison their entire family and then kill themselves, it seems to take the whole nation’s breath away. The many stories are essentially the same, the characters and details a bit different. The refrain is invariably poverty and the frank inability to feed, clothe and shelter a family.
But Ms Wahab’s take is different. When asked about this issue, she felt that it was related to “despondency, mental illness and the media glorifying suicides”. She went on to say that “these people need to understand that there is no namaz-e-janaza for the one who commits suicide, that suicide is haram and that suicide is cowardice!”
This is a classic case of mental insulation; how can one live, drive, watch and hear and still not sense the screams of desperation of a populace? The poor kismet that I have of living thousands of miles away and just watching the news, even I can sense the pervasive economic desperation in Pakistan. It is adding insult to injury for the many dead of so many households that the powerful in Pakistan speak in such contemptuous terms of such a grave situation and offer no solutions except finger-wagging admonition.
The Quran does say in Surah Isra and Anam (17:31, 6:151), “Kill not your children for fear of want: We shall provide sustenance for them as well as for you: verily the killing of them is a great sin.” In the vicissitudes of life though, the most comforting is Surah Zumar (39:53): “Do not feel disconnected from the Mercy of God, for God is Oft-forgiving, Most-Merciful.”
And yet, to understand this sad scourge of suicides, one must understand that it is not abrupt but rather very slowly sequential. The onset of trouble is with a situational depression, precipitated in this case by economic burdens. The person tries to deal with it and if there is relief, the situational depression resolves. If there is none, the person’s depression progresses, thought processes start to fuzz out and major depression sets in. The hallmark of major depression is suicidal ideation.
It is only in the very early parts of a person’s emotional decline that they are able to understand and value the importance of Quranic injunctions and societal condemnation. After major depression sets in, the decline begins so precipitously that unless there is immediate removal of the precipitating factor as well as medical treatment of the depression, the person is liable to proceed down the path of suicide.
The actual rate of suicides in Pakistan is not available or accurate for suicides are not always reported due to the attendant shame. It is true that there have always been suicides and always will be, in any society. But to relegate it all to mental illness in current day Pakistan is representative of the mental insulation that typifies any party that acquires power. I have named it the ‘Kursi Syndrome’ in past articles; even if a Sufi acquired power in Pakistan they would become arrogant, delusional and disconnected from the very people that elected them.
Major depression, or like Ms Wahab puts it, “despondency”, is an equal opportunity disease. If, in their Marie Antoinette supercilious arrogance, the ruling elite seriously believes that they are somehow inured to the ravages of depression, or the turning of fortune, a reality check is immediately in order. It would be the ultimate irony if, God forbid, one of them had to be declined for a namaz-e-janaza.
The insensitivity of calling such a tremendous societal tragedy an act of “cowardice” is beyond my ability to condemn adequately, especially when the government has devoted more money to the war against terror than economic and educational uplift.
The dichotomy of the ultra-right in the face of these suicides is also sad. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and other similar groups brainwash teenagers to commit suicide, convincing them with perverse and unfounded logic of reward in the afterlife. In Islam, a male is classified as an adult when he comes of age biologically and a woman when she menstruates; and both at adulthood become responsible for their actions. “Killing one person is as if he has killed all of humanity,” (Surah Maidah 5:32) says in the Quran rather directly. And regardless of the brainwashing by men who themselves stay away from suicide vests, the young perpetrators of these heinous crimes are in full control of their mental faculties.
The only individuals who are exempted from accounting for their five daily prayers are the insane and mentally challenged. When a person has crossed over from the blues to major depression with psychosis, they would not be considered mentally competent in a worldly court of law. So what is one to think of the Oft-Forgiving and Most-Merciful?
Ijtihad, or re-interpretation of Islam in the light of modern knowledge, is dead. It is no wonder that religious scholars in Pakistan do not have the vaguest clue of what depression is except 'a weakness of faith’. The government gives monetary support to families of murder-suicides. Should not this monetary help have arrived sooner?
Rapid and effective economic and health relief needs to be provided to the people of Pakistan. Suicides as a whole are preventable and those based on financial desperation, completely so. Food, clothing, shelter, education and health are basic rights and need to be provided urgently and across the board. Human rights activist Tahira Abdullah said rather forebodingly: “Some of the hungry are committing suicide now. The government needs to fear the day when the rest of the hungry come onto the streets and demand justice.”
Mahjabeen Islam is a columnist, family physician and addictionist with a practice in Toledo Ohio. She can be reached at mahjabeen.islam@gmail.com
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