Men who fear women

Bill to curb honour killings also appears to be dead because the maulana & his merry men do not like it

In Abbottabad, they locked her inside a car and burnt her to death. In Lahore, they strangled her, doused petrol on her and burnt her to death. In other places and in other times, they have shot her, stabbed her, hacked her and buried her alive. In every case, they have done so because they do not approve of her choices; or they do not approve of her thinking; or they do not approve of her actions. In every case they are the fathers, brothers, uncles and now even a mother.

And in every case they get away with murder — literally — because our laws support the murderer and condemn the victim. That’s how sick things are here.



This sickness starts with the terminology: we sanctify murder most foul by calling the most dishonourable of acts as ‘honour killings’, thereby implying that if honour is indeed violated, it perhaps justifies the act of murder.

The sickness then spreads to societal attitudes spawned by sick traditions of a medieval culture manifesting itself in modern-day aberrations of tribalism, biradrism and feudalism. It’s the done thing, you see, they argue fervently — it’s the done thing because a woman is a man’s honour and if the woman dishonours the man’s honour by her acts of omission and commission, and if she violates the norms of our society nourished over generations by our forefathers and their forefathers, then the least we can do to preserve our honour and that of our honourable family is to shoot her, stab her, hack her and burn her.

“It’s our tradition,” one parliamentarian from Balochistan famously remarked on the floor of the house when justifying the burying alive of some women in his province. While this particular gentleman can be dismissed as a lunatic fringe, his arguments sadly cannot. Too many people adhere to this ‘tradition’ and ‘culture’ argument and hold fast to so-called values that should have been honourably buried along with their forefathers in the soil nourished by the blood of their daughters, sisters and wives.

These abominable traditions persist because they have been allowed to persist; nay, they have been encouraged to persist. By whom? By the State, by the laws, by the elders, by the clergy. They flourish in an environment suffocated by the regressive mindset of all those whose masculinity is constantly threatened by independent women. Such timid men cower inside the shells of their pretend-masculinity whenever faced with the prospects of facing women who are not willing to be treated like chattel.



Many such men populate parliament. They come in all shapes and sizes, and hail from all shades of the political spectrum. They walk into the plush confines of the august halls like lords visiting their country manors, sporting attitudes wrapped in pomposity and smugness. Are they proud members of the ultimate boys club? Possibly, because when their pretend-manliness leaks into legislation, women get shot, stabbed, hacked and burnt.

But these timid specimens of the male species cannot overcome their fear of tradition, for if they could, they would have passed the bill into law that gathers dust in the National Assembly.

This is the bill that was drafted by a courageous young female senator, Sughra Imam. This is the bill that stated that if a family member murdered a relative for ‘honour’, he or she will not be able to walk to freedom as a result of a pardon by another family member. This is the bill that was surprisingly passed by a Senate that comprises fossils belonging to a pre-historic era and yet it sailed through the House. This is the bill that has now lapsed in the National Assembly because men in the lower House lost courage.

But is the absence of courage the only factor defining this travesty? In walks shameless political expediency. Who dare defy the clerics? Yes indeed, is anybody in the present government ‘man enough’ to put the clerics to pasture?

But the Punjab government passed the progressive women’s protection bill despite yelps from the clerics, didn’t it? Yes indeed, but please do remember that was before the Panama Leaks burst upon a hapless House Sharif. Please remember that was before the good Maulana Fazlur Rehman, sensing his moment in the sun, put his considerable political weight behind an embattled prime minister. Please remember this was before the government fell into debt of the maulana and his ample persuasions of the political kind. That was then. This is now.



Now when the maulana tells the government to jump, the government asks how high. And so it transpires that madrassa reform is dead and buried because the maulana and his merry men do not like it. The bill to curb honour killings now also appears to be dead and buried because the maulana and his merry men and their ilk do not like it.

Courage anyone?

Misogyny is now trending within the PML-N. Khawaja Asif may have made himself a poster child for this trend, but rest assured his front and backbenchers are more secure with their misogynistic tendencies than they are with their masculinity. For many of them and their allies, the length of their facial hair is inversely proportional to the breadth of their knowledge and exposure.

And so they hold on to archaic norms that should by culled like diseased cattle; they hold on to backward values that should be eradicated like a virus; they hold on to traditions and rituals that should be bludgeoned into oblivion.

It is at depressing times like these that one applauds the corrupt and incompetent PPP for saying the right things. All power to its members who are demanding a joint session be called to pass the bill against honour killings. But here’s the tragedy:

The PPP doesn’t have the numbers; the PTI doesn’t have the vision; the PML-N doesn’t have the courage and the clerics do not have the humanity to make this happen. So they all sit pretty and watch as yet another sister is shot, another daughter is hacked, another wife is burnt and another brother/father/uncle/mother makes the victory sign and walks off with blood on his hands.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 12^th, 2016.

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