Dishonour in silence!
Much of Pakistan was visibly unhappy when Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy won her second Oscar this year. They did not like her portraying our uncomfortably high rate of honour killings to the world. Why did she not project any of our many finer points instead, was the popular question. But for such questions to be even remotely relevant, those posing them must first do something to check social evils themselves. And going by the rate of our honour killings, as Chinoy rightly noted in her documentary, it is horrifying that the state continues to be limp as such crimes multiply.
That sad case of Zeenat bibi – the 16 year old girl burnt alive in Lahore, by her mother, for marrying of her own will – was the fourth such case in only two months. In all, hundreds of such cases are reported across the country every year and, according to human rights activists, many hundreds more are routinely hushed up. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed to eradicate this menace from society when he rightly went out of his way to support Chinoy and make sure everybody could see where he stood on the issue. Unfortunately, though, the premier’s own political survival has since then the bulk of the party’s attention. And matters such as honour killings receive the customary headline and subsequent condemnation at best.
Yet this is more than a government issue. This is a sickness that has its roots deep within the bloated conservative mass of our society. Its continued practice, all over the country, is proof that we are nowhere near the road to progress yet. Overcoming this attitude, among other things, was why the so-called national narrative – that was supposed to run alongside the war on terror – was so crucial. Our social, mental and political stagnation will take a committed social struggle on the national level. Both the government and the people must play along. But the government must take the lead. There is, now, greater dishonour in silence than even the crime itself.
