Pakistani Twitterati’s jihad against all the biggest evils in the country
When it comes to initiating epoch-making revolutions there are few who are more capable, and indeed more profound, than the Pakistani Twitterati. Not only do they have this uncanny knack of identifying the biggest problems, but they make sure that they clamour enough to generate awareness about it as well. And more often than not they end up nipping the evil in the bud.
Last week has been no different as the Twitterati found two massive causes to generate awareness about.
First of all we have Boom Boom’s booming misogyny. Now, misogyny is not a small matter at all. Considering that Pakistan finds itself second from bottom in PEW’s Global Gender Gap standings, it obviously becomes clear that Pakistan is the hub of gender discrimination. However, logic would dictate that our revolutionaries would not expect someone like Shahid Khan Afridi to have feministic ideals. And so people expecting Afridi to be a feminist was actually far more surprising than him saying that women should work in the kitchen instead of playing cricket.
And so to ridicule a man whom you can mock for a plethora of reasons (no, two miss hits against India and a cameo against the mighty Bangladesh does not change that), for a lack of feministic ideals is not the most effective thing that you can do.
In a country where an overwhelming majority follows a misogynistic ideology, where most of the people who have heard of the term feminism equate it with male slavery of some sort, you are expecting a man with a sorry excuse of a brain inside his skull to manifest ideals of gender equality? Seriously?
But this is precisely what makes our Twitter revolutionaries special. They would never pause for a moment to think whether or not their noble revolution is actually well directed. What they do care about is that their own PR’s graph goes skywards, and that they establish themselves as this embodiment of perfect ideals.
Feminism is a necessary ideal in the 21st century, but a feminist Afridi is a bit idealistic as things stand. Maybe let us work at the grass root level and then one day we can collectively whine about cricketing nut-heads not being feminists. Till then we have Paul Smith’s chappals and culture appropriation to whine about.
I still fail to understand what the fuss was about. Was it because the chappal was being sold for 300 pounds in the UK, when one could get them for around 600-700 rupees in Pakistan? Was it a case of “cultural appropriation”, because a British brand was selling what seemed to be replicas of Peshawari chappals? Or was it just a case of Paul Smith not giving credit to the creator of Peshawari chappals whose identity is, well, unknown?
If it is the first option then let us cry bloody murder over the price disparity of other things as well. You see, the price of Peshawari chappals/Paul Smith’s Robert is not the only thing that has such a prodigious price gulf between London and Charsadda. If it is a case of cultural appropriation, or plagiarism, anyone making jeans or suits in Pakistan could be considered to be guilty of the same, and maybe should put in disclaimers stating that the design has been inspired by (whoever came up with the idea of jeans).
Sure, if a brand copies a design without giving credit, it definitely should be pointed out. But a petition addressed to David Cameron and Sir Paul? Seriously? From Pakistan of all places where one would think that there are enough wrongs to sign petitions about. A British brand not giving credit to shoemakers in Peshawar (who seemed to be least bothered about it), is that big an issue?
Maybe we should all go and get a Peshawari chappal from a shoe store nearby and smack ourselves with it. That might wake us up from our slumber. Launching chappal revolutions or expecting overhyped cricketers to miraculously turn out to be feminists and humanists, would do little to solve the actual problems in this country.