Sunglasses Sherry & Swat
A picture says a thousand words they say, if so then the above pictures say many thousands. On the left is the one and only ‘Sunglasses’ Sherry Rehman and on the right the Swat Taliban’s notice banning women to enter markets.
The contrast says it all for on one hand we have the suave Sherry Rehman dressed to impress and free to live as she wishes in a land called Pakistan. The other picture bans women from entering markets in a place called Swat which would you believe is also in Pakistan!
Unlike Sherry who can adorn sunglasses and other ornaments at her pleasure, the women of Swat have no such luxury. Worse, Swati women have been reduced to third class citizens in Sherry’s Pakistan. Ignored are the legal rights afforded to women by the Constitution and more importantly in Islam to live with respect and in freedom.
The evil of the Taliban is not the issue here for all agree that these vile savages are Indian agents hell bent on destroying Pakistan. Instead my main quarrel is with the impotent Gillani government in the Centre and the ANP-led government in NWFP who are blatantly looking the other way.
Except for thundering statements from Gillani, Mr 10% and others that no-one will be allowed to challenge the writ of the state, the state is impotent to act as the Swati Taliban orders the closure of girl schools in Swat. Today the same ‘Sunglasses’ Sherry forever ready to parrot the newest diatribe from the impotent PPP government announced that girls schools in Swat will reopen on March 1.
Yet not one action has been ordered by the provincial or federal government against the vile lot that make up Fazlullah’s fanatical fan club. Instead Fazlullah is allowed to run a state within a state, he is as Mr 10% would say ‘a non-state actor’ and Fazlullah it seems reigns supreme in Swat.
The biggest sinners however are women like Sherry Rehman, Farzana Raja and other PPP mouthpieces who as women should be leading their party to act to save Swati women from such ignomy. Instead Sherry and others look away in reality save for a statement here or there, it is not enough.
So ‘Sunglasses’ Sherry before you adorn your sunglasses again tomorrow and powder your nose, before you walk out confidently on your high heels and travel in luxury again, think of the Swati women. Think again and again and have shame that your party, the party of Benazir Bhutto the winner of the UN Human Rights Award stands idly by as Swat is taken over by militants who prescribe to their own savage laws and human rights.
An article by Khurshid Khan on the suffering of Swat is a must read and is shown below:
Plight of women in Swat By Khurshid Khan
The current situation in Swat is such that any sign of peace in the valley has been washed away. The people are living through the most miserable phase of its history. No doubt, the valley has witnessed invasions, turbulence and chaos from the time of Alexander?s invasion in 327 BC to the formation of the Swat state in 1917.
However, at least in living memory the present chaos engendered by militancy has no parallel. It has adversely affected the physical and cultural environment, the economy, tourism, trade, governance and social life in the valley.
Unfortunately, in all this, women have been the worst sufferers. The militants obscurant version of Islam begins and ends with womenfolk. According to their belief, women are the source of all sins. A cleric while delivering the Friday sermon in Marghazar village was heard telling his flock, ?My fellow Muslims, listen! The prices of daily commodities are rising because women abandon their homes and loiter about in the markets.
In fact, the Fazlullah-led militants have announced a complete ban on female education from Jan 15, 2008 on FM radio. Some days ago, they announced that no government or private educational institution would be allowed to enrol girls and that all schools and colleges should stop educating them by Jan 15. Schools found violating this ban would be blown up. Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan somewhat modified the announcement saying that schools would remain closed until an Islamic curriculum was devised for imparting education to girls.
Parents and students have lost hope of schools reopening in this volatile atmosphere. The militants have usually been seen to follow up on their words and, despite the armys presence, there have been no signs of the restoration of peace and harmony.
The militants have bombed or torched more than 100 girl schools and colleges to forcibly stop 80,000 girls from going to school in the district. There were ten high schools, four higher secondary schools and four degree-awarding colleges and a network of primary schools across the district for girls and women, besides a postgraduate institution for young men and women to study at the masters level.
Against the culture of keeping womenfolk away from development, the rulers of Swat state (1917-1969) encouraged female literacy, the first step on the way to progress, by establishing girl schools and colleges. The valley had the highest female literacy rate as compared to neighbouring districts.
After the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, their repressive activities started getting support in the Pakhtun areas of Pakistan along the Durand Line. Swat is among the more recent victims of Talibanisation. The secular nature of Swati society is slowly and gradually leaning towards extremism.
The clergy first started speaking against girls and womens education through unauthorised FM radios and at public gatherings. But as they got more emboldened, they attempted to stall female education and eliminate the presence of girls and women in the market through fiercer means including bomb blasts. Many schools have been destroyed in this way.
Then they turned their wrath on women doctors and the female nursing staff in hospitals warning them to observe strict purdah, confine themselves only to wards for women and not to attend calls on their cellphones. The medical superintendent of a group of hospitals complied with the order and circulated a notice to the entire female staff telling them to do as they had been told. Women patients and visitors were also advised to conform to Taliban instructions.
Militants also ordered the segregation of students at the Saidu Medical College, telling the principal to keep away women students from research labs after a certain time. Meanwhile, another college refused to take in women because of the continuous threats of the militants from 2007 onwards.
Militants regularly monitor hospitals and colleges. In fact, working women and those attending school or college, or going to the doctor or in the marketplace are given a bad character by the militants.
Indiscriminate mortar shelling has hit houses and killed and injured civilians. In these the toll for women casualties has been higher since they are more often at home, while unannounced road obstructions or curfews have made sudden medical emergencies, especially among pregnant women, difficult to be attended to.
As a consequence women have lost their newborns as they have not been able to make it to the hospital in time. Besides, with their men also casualties of militancy, many of them are losing breadwinners in the family.
The threatened closure of educational institutions has proved to be the last nail in the coffin. The mindset of the militants who routinely resort to the violation of fundamental rights in order to accomplish their goal is clear and their misused and illegal authority has led them to establish a state within a state.
Swat is not a no-mans-land and is very much an integral part of the country. By tradition its inhabitants are not religious bigots. In fact, society in Swat is more civilised and accommodating of opinions than the rest of the Pakhtun belt. Islamabad should understand that and break its silence to take assertive action against the militants if it does not want Talibanisation to engulf the area and paralyse the entire structure of society.
Where are all the international and national human rights organisations and women rights groups? They must raise a collective voice against this victimisation of Swati women and girls. It is also time for the media to take drastic steps to highlight the current lot of Swati women whose repressive treatment should also serve as a wake-up call for women parliamentarians to take an active part in rescuing them from the spread of a venomous culture.
- WRITTEN UNDER MARTIAL LAW (My thanks to cowards Tariq Pervez. Sabihuddin, Sardar Raza & Co for selling out)
This is all very very sad, and I hope the people of Pakistan find the strength to face these barbarians and defeat them. However, why do you insist on believing that “the evil of the Taliban [... and] vile savages are Indian agents hell bent on destroying Pakistan”. Do you really think India would fund these crazy self styled Islamists, when they cause so much havoc in our own country? This hatred of India, is just a tool used by the authorities in Pakistan to wrest power from the common people, and explain away their inability to deal with these terrorists. By believing these lies you are only trying to find a foreign bogeyman to explain away everything wrong with your country. To some extent that is what the Indian authorities also did by blaming Pakistan instantly after the Mumbai bombings. Although they found some evidence linking it to Pakistan later, it was only after investigation, and to make this link instantly is just a way to deflect blame from our own inablity to counter terror, don’t buy into these lies, please.
↓ Quote | Posted January 25, 2009, 8:47 pm