There is no honour in killing

Qandeel Baloch and our misplaced honor

We have vigorously promoted the notion that women’s subordinate and secondary position to men is ordained by religion. Our fallacious and mythical norms of drawing divine tales of male’s domination over women from religion also reflect our deep hypocrisy towards our other half.

The outpouring of grief and rage in the aftermath of Qandeel Baloch’s murder by her brother has been unparalleled. Qandeel’s murder was not just another incident of so called honour killing; rather, it was a murder that surpassed all existing limits and bounds of how as a society we look at women.

Our values, norms and cultural mores feel imperiled from the likes of Qandeel Baloch. Our deeply sexist attitudes objectify women as mere tools. Our muscularity and manhood is so delicate that it spring into action with the mere idea of a woman beside us. Culturally, we have regulated our fears by segregating women’s role and status in public – if not voluntarily then with force. We socialise our women to be passive, dependent and subordinate to their male counterparts.

We have vigorously promoted the notion that women’s subordinate and secondary position to men is ordained by religion. Our fallacious and mythical norms of drawing divine tales of male’s domination over women from religion also reflect our deep hypocrisy towards our other half.

The tale of our honour doesn’t just end at keeping women indoors and conserving their levels of puberty. We exercise our honour by disparaging women, limiting their roles and accomplishments. We celebrate the birth of a male child while feeling horrified with the arrival of a girl. We expect our girls to obey and encourage procreation and docility. We are more interested in discussing the morals of women rather than objecting and questioning the violence they endure.

Our outrage finds no limits over matter of obscenity and nudity but is tight-lipped over incidents of violence against women. And if we come around any “Qandeel’s” who try to object to these decrees, we find them morally bankrupt and unruly who should be “beaten lightly” at the least, thus encouraging strangling and absolute silence.

Everyone, including the so called liberal feminists of this country who pride on being the champions of women rights, laughed and objected the way Qandeel pushed back and tried to break the shackles of patriarchy. Some of us thought she looked for attention while others believed she was fake and dishonest. But the truth is that she was brutally honest, braver then many of us combined and hit us where our insolvent and charlatan moral insecurities are. Unlike many of us, not only did she candidly own her views and expressions, she fiercely fought to defend her right to do so while colliding with the deeply ingrained patriarchal structures.

“The way Qandeel Baloch’s life has been brutally snatched away, shows the way some in our society deal with those who challenge misogyny, prejudice and hatred. The culpable hands which strangled her may have been her own brother’s, but the despicable mindset is shared by many others. Hers is an inspirational story of upward social mobility, reinvention and fierce self confidence in face of ignorance, poverty and deprivation. The values she believed in are the future and the apes who do not get that are long dead,” said Hammas Hassan, a feminist and women rights advocate.

It’s a shame that she had to give her life to make us believe in her ideals. It’s a shame that the outpouring of support for her cause and recognition came only after her death. It’s a shame that it took thousands of deaths and the killing of a beautiful person for the state to plug loopholes in legislation to deter such crimes.

The Pakistani state has, for a long time, propagated gendered politics whose patriarchal character is reflected in existing laws. By and large, the governments in Pakistan have always dealt with women related legislations as part of the religious matters: political parties have always surrendered before the religious parties’ insistence of debating women rights as religious issues.

In the Pakistani context, the state, in a way, has encouraged violence against women by leaving loopholes in legislation that indirectly find traces in religion, hence ought to be protected at all costs. “It is disturbing when power and male domination is expressed through violence but it’s most intense and durable when it runs silently through the repetition of institutionalized practices,” says Heelam Hussain.

While the enactment of the anti honour law is encouraging, its agreeable acceptance by society and successful implementation will remain a dream unless the socially and culturally accepted bigoted narratives of violence again women are shunned.

The state needs to exercise its role and writ beyond legislation; it needs to influence and control social and cultural boundaries, for only then the implementation of legislation will truly succeed.

Moreover, debates surrounding women rights cannot continue to become scapegoats for other political and religious interests. The clergy which is fixated with defining and debating women rights from the prism of Sharia, needs to be shutdown. Unless this happens more Qandeel Baloch’s will continue to die and that too in vain.

Lastly, if women rights are to be truly protected, the state needs to take on the more challenging project of redefining “honour” that should have less to do with killing and more with celebrating their accomplishment and independence.