I may be wrong but if we had fielded our womens cricket team against Afghanistan, we would have likely won. Lest the Afghans misconstrue this statement, let me say that they have won impressively and, given that they are new to the game, they are to be commended. So, congrats friends!
My point is a larger one and I hope I am not to be taken literally on the issue of fielding women against men in cricket. I have to add this disclaimer because our penchant for literalism as a society has grown in direct proportion to our outward piety. Subtlety in such a society is the cadaver we see being carried in a hearse every day. (In fact, kudos to the mens hockey team for picking up the gold!)
But lets move on. It is my experience that by and large Pakistani women are much smarter, pluckier and possess a greater sense of responsibility than us men. One can use several benchmarks to determine that, educational performance in the last 20 years being one such where, on the whole female students have performed much better than boys, but there is an easier one the average Pakistani household.
If I were born a woman here, roughly constituted as I am at the moment of writing this, I would have probably perished within 10 years of my birth. I just dont have the guts to fight on multiple fronts and against such heavy odds as are stacked against an average woman in this country. Let me here add for good measure, if this be of any use, that I would have loved to be born a woman, the condition being that this had occurred in a civilised society, by which contention it should be obvious that I do not consider ours being such by any long shot.
For 63 years now we have done two things: we have tried to suppress and oppress our women and we have tried to run the affairs of this country through male-dominated systems and using the male brain. We have failed miserably in running this country, which makes me immensely sad, and we have now begun to fail at suppressing the women too, which makes me immensely happy. Our women shooters in the military have performed better than men; we have fighter pilots now and other women officers and they are all first-rate and make us proud. Ditto for women in other professions, teachers, lawyers, doctors, managers, the list is long and growing.
This latter failure, our inability to continue to leash our women, may just be the beginning of good news for us and may well, if this phenomenon continues apace, begin to correct our failure at running the affairs of this state. If we were smart, we would have co-opted our women and even let them freely compete with us. But we didnt for the most part and some of us are still not convinced. Now, women are claiming their space and their rise is good for our homes as well as the functioning of this state and society.
Ironically, it was the radio mullah of Swat, Fazlullah, who understood, better than we have, how important women can be. He began his nefarious exercise in influencing the area by targeting the women. I realised this in my various travels to Malakand from October 2007, when Fazlullah was reigning supreme in that area, to December 2009, the last time I went there to do a series of TV programmes post-military operation.
Out of that experience came out an article I captioned, That girl in Swat. It opened with the lines: Faiza Khan is my metaphor for Swats future. And if I am right, turning Swat around post-military operation should not be difficult.
I wanted to go to girls schools in the area. It wasnt easy because the principal of the Government High School for Girls in Mingora was reluctant to allow a man to film in the school and I was relying on my producer, a woman, to convince her that it was a good thing to do. Of course, I also had the weight of the district education officers permission. Even so, it took much persuasion.
While this was going on, I could see girls peering through the windows of the classrooms around the quad where I was standing with the crew setting up cameras. I was finally told that I could get limited access to a group but only after the girls had themselves covered properly. Other students were told to stay inside the classrooms while we filmed, and yes, to keep their heads down.
This is how I described the scene in a December 2009 article for The Indian Express: Curiosity and their vigour to challenge the principals order came to my rescue. I could see them looking out, faces uncovered and exhibiting the artless freedom that comes natural to young women. And then one of the doors opened; I heard giggles; some girls were trying to push another out of the classroom.
But then the sluice gates went up. Another door opened and out walked this girl, uncovered head and face, confidence bordering on cheekiness. She walked up to me, extended her hand to shake mine and said in accented Urdu: I hope I am not disturbing you, sir. But would you tell me when your programme is aired and on what TV channel? I shook hands with her and asked her name: My name is Faiza Khan.
I wrote down the details of my programme for her in a notebook and while I was doing that, doors opened one after another and girls came rushing out, surrounding me, shaking hands and chattering animatedly. As I watched the footage later I was convinced, more than before, that Swati women are not just beautiful, they have it in them to turn Swat around.
So are women everywhere in Pakistan, beautiful and terribly smart. And I am relying on them to wrest from us what is deservedly theirs.
The writer is Contributing Editor, The Friday Times