Resistance to change

Around the world, change was a while coming, but it arrived eventually

Education in Pakistan is not a right, it is conferred as a favor for which the female student must be eternally grateful to the father, hallowed be his name, his kingdom come, his will be done, on earth and never mind what heaven says. I see it at the school I teach, the difficulty some of the girls have in obtaining permission to study, and once there, to remain. At the slightest transgression, or what is perceived as such, the ‘favor’ is withdrawn, and back the girl returns to her stove to await the transfer of papers that will see another man take possession of her life.

Resistance emerges from unexpected quarters. There was Veena Malik’s wonderful ‘Mufti Sahib, yeh kya baat hui?’ response a year ago to Mufti Abdul Kawi’s ‘baigharat’ remarks, and now here’s Altaf Bhai calling the Taliban ‘inhumane, illiterate, stone age people’. It is a bit rich coming from him though, when you remember the Stone Age tactics often resorted to by the MQM, safely incited by Altaf Bhai himself over the airwaves.

There is little will for change at the top, and although there is undoubtedly anger among the public against the TTP and its dreadful crime against Malala, this has yet to filter through and translate into a general attitudinal change. Obviously, it is early days yet since this particular incident, but such crimes as the attempt on Malala’s life are not isolated or new. The lack of sufficient response can only indicate the depth of support these inhumane, illiterate, stone age people have, and the extent of its spread across society. The scary thing of course is opposing the access the other side has to the same hearts and minds. Before people can process such events, before they can marshal their arguments, much less change, the local Stone Age person scatters these arguments by roundly condemning even the thought as the work of the devil.

It takes time to bring about change, and some space in which to germinate, some slight help in the methodology of building supportive arguments. It is no help, for example, that the daily debate diet on television consists of people who do little beyond scream at each other without remit. Where are the programs and the curricula teaching people to reason from the Quran, from textbooks, and life, without emotion or sentiment? Where is the language that promotes such reason? Yes, the Taliban and all such groups and persons are inhumane, illiterate, stone age, but why should they be considered as such, with concrete supportive examples? And above all why, when people in areas where such groups are most active are being pounded to death by exactly those who supposedly agree mostly to that they are inhumane, illiterate, stone age people?

Around the world, change was a while coming, but it arrived eventually. The war against militants in Pakistan itself has received international support as we saw at the time of the PTI’s recent foray upto Tank. The movement to end gender discrimination is being fought probably in every country except Pakistan. Remember the time when airhostesses were supposed to be pretty? Well, anyone who has travelled British Airways or any of the American airlines will attest to how far those days have been left behind in many places. On my last flight on Delta I was served by a little uniformed grandmother with moustaches who stumped along the aisle chucking peanuts into everyone’s lap.

The racial war is still being fought, but societies have moved miles away from racial segregation, although there are plenty of Christian Taliban still around, such as Pastor Mark Downey who writes, ‘It is a misnomer to call other races or species ‘mankind’. In the book of Genesis, God’s Law of kind after kind was established, meaning species. The Bible we have in our hands today repeatedly teaches about ‘seed after its own kind’ in which each and every species of plants and animals propagate within their own kind. In the case of Adamkind, it is clearly the White race.’(sic)

Such people and their opinions can never be totally weeded out; in fact their existence is a foil to more enlightened philosophies. They will always have their adherents, but their stranglehold can be broken, only if there is the will to do so. As long as there are vested interests in preserving the status quo, such as feudals in places that bring about change, this will is likely to be thin in the ground and in Pakistan the Stone Age will continue; there will be other girls and women who share Malala’s fate, only because we allowed them to.

The writer is a freelance columnist. Read more by her at http://rabia-ahmed.blogspot.com/