Smile — a spectacle of low culture

A video of the Joint Session of Parliament is circulating on social media showing the Federal Minister for Climate Change and Environment, Senator Sherry Rehman, in a happy mood (smiling all the way) while the Minister for Defence, Khawaja Asif, throws expletives against PTI women parliamentarians. She is seen in the video sharing notes with the Federal Minister for Commerce, Naveed Qamar, who also enjoyed Asif’s sexist remarks against women in the so-called august house.

Asif is known for insulting women parliamentarians, but Rehman is famous for taking an unwavering position on democratic values such as freedom of expression and the right to religion. She resigned as federal minister for information in 2009 when her party in power, the PPP, banned Geo News, one of Pakistan’s leading news channels, and used force to stop the protesters of the long march from reaching Islamabad. PML-N had called the long march to condone the Supreme Court’s order that banned the party’s supremo Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shehbaz Sharif from elected office. Though Asif Ali Zardari, as the President of Pakistan, called the clampdown part of his reconciliation mantra, Rehman preferred resigning instead of buying the confounded narrative.

Rehman had always been on the frontline defending the right to expression and religion. She moved a bill in the parliament seeking amendment to Section 295(C) of the Pakistan Penal Code. She had to go underground when the religious parties and organisations scorned the bill, which had grown into sharks over the years of government appeasement policies. Pakistan is replete with cases of high-profile murders on the insistence of religious organisations, for example, Salman Taseer.

Rehman enjoys respect in the media for her democratic values. I had the chance to meet her during a two-week-long media workshop organised by National Defence University in 2016. She preferred calling General by their first name than “General Sb”.

Seeing a woman of such a caliber and stature bowing to the filthy narrative of her coalition partner is hard to stomach, leave alone tolerate. Was she unaware of recording — a standard course during sessions? Was she at the wrong place at the wrong time? Or does she consider pulling a woman down through character assassination acceptable? We are not sure about any of these things. But we are sure that Rehman was sharing the comfort zone from where Asif accused PTI women parliamentarians of pleasing their boss and having unchaste character. He called them “depraved”, “ruins”, “remains” and “garbage” left behind by the PTI government.

Asif enjoys a bad reputation when it comes to respecting women. During a National Assembly session, he once insulted PTI’s Dr Shireen Mazari and called her tractor-trolley.

Pakistan’s politics go a notch lower almost every day.

After his ouster from power, Imran Khan, while speaking at a huge political gathering, told Maryam Nawaz to refrain from calling his names so often in her rallies lest her husband becomes suspicious of her character. We condemned him for stooping to another low in these lines and on Twitter. Maligning women is a norm that no party feels ashamed of using against their opponents. Unfortunately, in our country, women’s sexual life is considered shameful, but for men, it is met as business as usual.

That brings to mind a talk show of Javed Chaudhry on Express TV. He had invited three women politicians: Kashmala Tariq, Fardoos Ashiq Awan and Dr Shireen Mazari. Awan, as a parliamentarian, leveled allegations on Tariq for using her charm to get into the power corridor. The muck went unabated. Mazari remained silent all along, and finally, Chaudhry had to call off the show.

One remembers how Dr Zarka Taimur, the PIT senator, used to accuse her party women until she got a ticket for appeasing the PTI leadership to get a slot in the parliament. She had even registered a complaint with the PTI head office — it is on record.

It is not about Rehman, Awan, Mazari or Taimur. It is about Pakistan’s low political culture reflection.

It was wrong and pathetic when the PTI supremo and his stalwarts called Maryam Nawaz “Dako Rani”; when Khan accused her of liking him; and when he and his team did her character assassination on social media. It is equally wrong today when Asif, Rehman and others pushed the august house and Pakistan’s politics into a new low.

Politicians do mudslinging — everywhere. However, unlike our leaders they don’t claim to build Pakistan on the footprints of Madina ki Riyasat.

Our leaders start our conversations in parliament with the name of Allah. They visit Mecca and Madina in reverence to Allah and Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).They claim that Pakistan was made in the name of Islam and take pride in calling themselves one of the custodians of the two holy cities of Saudi Arabia. For the parliamentarians and politicians of this mindset, making a mockery of women, or any of their counterparts, is not only shameful but tantamount to negating what Islam teaches us. They also deny the legacy of ethics that Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) has left behind.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 27^th, 2023.

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