A note to part-time activists, full-time humans

It’s hard to express an atypical opinion on social media and not get shouted at by random men or women. Before you know it, you’ve been called western or complexed or negative or faithless or unpatriotic or delusional. There is more, but let’s keep this civil, shall we? Honestly, if I got a dollar for each label I was extended, I’d get that Hermes bag.

Theater-goers already know that the loudest boos come from the cheapest seats. In conversations too, nothing screams louder and more crassly than the wounded pride of people who know that they are becoming irrelevant. 

The traditionalists you know can resent the so-called western thought processes and modernism all they want, but it is this enquiry and the permanent state of dissatisfaction with the status quo, that allows many people (not necessarily Westerners) to approach challenges as ‘problems to be solved’ rather than a divine decree to be endured. It was this enlightenment that had enabled Galileo, a conventional Christian, to go against the orthodoxy and claim that the earth revolved around the sun. These are the same principles at work in evolutionary biology that allow us to fight an invisible virus today with the tools we have (in contrast with say, the Black Death of the 16th century where the defeatist priests called it God’s punishment that could only be ended by praying). In sports and in life, where the eyes go, the body follows. If you keep looking back, you know where you’ll end up.

Enlightenment/modernism/liberalism/feminism, whatever else triggers people, are all products of human mind and collective experiences therefore they are not perfect. They don’t claim to have all the answers either. We can, however be sure that if what works today doesn’t work tomorrow, it will be replaced with something better. In that, both humans and their societies will remain a work in progress.

So sing along to Bono and Garrix:

We’ll build it better than we did before,

We are the people we’ve been waiting for.

Free Speech for Desi Zoomers

Dear Zoomers,

If you find some of my opinions shocking, you have probably not met many people who are different from you. And it is not surprising, since we live in a society which is 99% right-wing. Naturally, the only opinions you’ll hear are in a very narrow range. 

Of course, what’s acceptable in terms of thought and speech varies from person to person. Some people want to be politically or culturally correct. Many value groupthink over individuality. Some are too lazy to consciously update their opinions. A fraction is afraid of reprisals. But everyone benefits from getting cotton wool out of their ears. You, as young people need to defend and expand that space or acceptance zone, not shrink it further because of … umm … feelings. After all, real nastiness is in trying to silence all dissenting voices, and not really in people making unpopular statements.

You will, in your lives, come across opinions that you don’t agree with and which quite possibly offend you. It’s alright! The world is full of ideas and viewpoints that will mock or challenge your beliefs. Hearing them can be devastating at first because the beliefs that you picked up from your friends and family and now call your own, can be a part of your identity and you might have invested a lot of time and effort chasing those ideals. But you are still young so how can you settle on who you are, without being exposed to much at all? It’s actually called Identity Foreclosure 🤓. Google that. 

In progressive societies, we would usually start discussions where we go in with intellectual curiosity, not moral certitude. This allows our thoughts to mature. Good ideas can stay because they can be backed up and unsound ideas get filtered away. We may also realize that a lot of what we hold dear is dogma and superstition, that’s best discarded. For my part, I will defend a person’s right to drink cow piss if they believe in its medicinal properties, but I will also exercise my right to say: like, seriously!!! (See, I have already self-censored by giving an example that wouldn’t offend many from my country, but I do want you to extrapolate 👀). 

Also, just because you identify with a particular faith, or a particular political party, or a particular ideology, it doesn’t mean you have to agree with every opinion or policy or action or representative, within that affiliation. For example, I can be a Muslim, and still call out the sexism in Islam. I can be liberal without being a Protestant, even though John Locke was. I can also acknowledge that the PTI govt has handled this pandemic reasonably well, while still thinking that IK is an unreliable, self-involved, bigoted, populist. Phew! The point is, it doesn’t have to be an all-or-none subscription. I don’t see why I have to make my or your life miserable over opinions and interpretations from thinkers who lived hundreds of years ago, because this is a different age, and a different place, and we are more evolved humans, or are we?

Empirically, the more a country lags socially or economically, the higher its religiousity index. That’s how people cope with chaos and adversity! Hence, no surprise that with every passing year, Pakistanis get more and more conservative and paranoid. Looking at the opposite end of the spectrum, eg., in Scandinavia, where there’s guaranteed basic income, free education, healthcare and a baseline living standard, people aren’t really looking towards God to meet their needs, so their faith doesn’t hijack their lives. Sure, religiosity can be good if it solves more problems than it creates, but too much of it can backfire and keep us chained to the past, like it has in Pakistan. Often times, it also takes the focus away from the here and now to a distant hereafter, robbing people of agency and instead giving them a fatalistic attitude towards life. If we have learnt anything from history and by observing the rise and fall of other countries, it is this: people who create knowledge own the world. Those who consume it, may be able to improve their condition, those who waste time on retrofitting it to suit their beliefs end up at the bottom of the food chain. 

To sum up: 

1. You as humans deserve dignity and respect. But your ideas and beliefs must stand or fall on their own merit. They’re not automatically entitled to respect. 

2. You will become a critical thinker when you get rid of the no-go zones in your mind. So, loosen up, come out of your echo-chambers, pick any one idea that you are absolutely sure of and research what its critics say. Then bounce it off friends. Discomfort often leads to growth.

Higher education (assuming you did get it) is supposed to make you lean left and liberal, sociopolitically speaking.

So go ahead, claim that space. Be you!

Peace, N

If Only

If she wore a shalwar kameez

And an abaya

And a head covering

And a face covering

And an eye covering

And gloves

And socks

And wore no scent

And walked demurely

And spoke less

Or stayed at home

And didn’t breathe

She should be safe.

But would she be?

Blindness

Blindness is looking out of a window and finding the view exactly as you remember it.

Sans Sense

Muslim women are born with a defective design.

Why, we are remarkably similar to other human beings in our anatomy and workings! We even have our sense organs on our heads. Now that would usually be fine for animals and other persons on planet Earth, but since we keep being told that the face is awra (a private part!), I wonder whether a trunk and snout might have been a more functional design choice for us. At least we could breathe, eat and talk in peace. The blasphemous British have said it for centuries that the eyes are windows to one’s soul, and some clerics have finally caught on to it by asking that one or both eyes be covered, lest your soul escaped through the open window. If you’re wondering what took them so long, it turns out that the brain may have been equally unnecessary to both sexes.  Now hold your sniggers, because I don’t think Darwin got it right, either. If all that evolution clap-trap worked as he claimed, we would be faceless, sense-less, brainless amoebas, by now. So there, you heretic!

Take a moment to ponder on the grand scheme, our religious patriarchs have prepared for the weaker sex. Even sunshine is a test for the pious. Never mind the fact that many of us live bang in the middle of the Earth, the rightly guided ones have either acquired Vitamin-D deficiency rickets by now, or are on course to giving it to their nursing babies. Even our immigrant sisters are teaching the West some humility. Those creeps were claiming that they had eradicated rickets during the Victorian era. Well, not any more.

Reader, if you do wear a niqab, you probably already favour a black one because of its heat-absorptive properties. In our climate, it may after all enable you to attain the perfect temperature for a tenderly sautéed brain masala, without the use of natural gas or cooking oil.

Wait. I have more to say about the face, or rather, it is the science book written by infidels that says that facial recognition is the principal way through which social primates have, for several hundred thousand years, identified family from non-family and friends from foes. They even say that the face expresses subtle or obvious emotional cues that are universal to humans and critical to communications. If you’re a Muslim woman, that information or any benefits purported to accrue from owing a face, are entirely superfluous to you, as the Muslim men may not think your identity or your emotions are worthy of attention, in the first place. Whether you’re happy, worried, angry, grieving, or plain excited, just shut the hell up visually and verbally, and go back to the kitchen. And for your own safety, don’t bother stepping out, because in a phenomenon that is present in uniquely eccentric proportions in Muslim societies, you are indeed quite likely to be jeered at, leered at, groped, molested, assaulted, or otherwise harassed by other men, veils notwithstanding.

If you’re wondering what the point of this mumbo-jumbo is, let me be more direct:

How can God in all his wisdom create humans in the best of designs and then limit half of them from using their endowments? How do women in other societies carry on with their lives without living in constant terror of harassment or a crippling fear of judgment based on looks?

If you are already forming a rebuttal in your head, AND if you are a man who has never worn a veil to work, let me tell you that you will never understand the limitations that it imposes on women when they’re interacting with the environment or other people. And please, stop chasing away common sense with the ‘religious obligation’ baton.

In case you haven’t guessed and cursed me for it already, I am phobic to the full-face veil, and I’m not even French. It’s a hard-wired human response to mistrust what isn’t apparent. If you’re in for a social experiment, try approaching an infant, wearing a mask, even a black one, for greater drama. This baby will be not only refuse to be held, but will be visibly distressed by your presence. Lacking may he or she be in language skills, but the baby definitely understands trust and security, warmth and goodwill. Unfortunately, a niqab is the exact opposite of trust, security, warmth and goodwill. While some may consider it to be their right to wear the niqab, let it be known that it encroaches upon my right to feel safe in their presence. For all I know, they may be shop-lifters, stalkers, or men wearing suicide jackets.

I admit I can neither undo centuries of brain washing by our patriarchs through a post, or address the social factors and prejudices that are leading to marginalization of Muslims in many parts of the world. But maybe you will agree with some bite-size logic: that the Muslims of today are increasingly adopting symbols of misogynist dessert cultures, in the name of Islam, to express their defiance, and to set themselves apart, in a world where cultures are blending together like ice-cubes in water.

If you are a Niqabi reader, donning this out of ‘choice’, for the sake of reason, or even God, please drop it – really!

History repeats…

History repeats itself, and probably because people who could most benefit from its lessons, rarely read or think.

If you never gi…

If you never give up anything, you will never have the time or the capacity to take up something else.

Take it. It’s free.

Advice (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Being a Pakistani, I just loooove to give advice. The line between my life and yours is a little blurry, you see. Everyone I know, or don’t know, between Gwadar and Parachinar, is an extension of my really extended family – bhai, baji, amma, baba, khala, chacha, beta, beti, uncle, aunty, bua. So naturally, I have your best interests at heart, muah!

Now, if you were clever like me, you would have realized that advice is free, just like a smile. Since smile is charity, advice is too. You should follow logic baba on twitter. He says A is equal to C (uff, we’ll talk about B when he’s left the room). Now don’t ask me for money – I have none to give, only advice, on how you should have spent yours, more prudently. As it is, I’m already over my budget this month because I bought this blessed pair of chappals that the phuppo next door swears by – they ARE the secret to obedient husbands. So for the rest of the month, I’ll give you smiles and advice.

What I’m about to tell you is derived from centuries of hair-whitening research from our nannies and grannies. It is specific to the Pakistani phenotype and genotype. If you are our Afghan or Saudi brothers, please triple the strength for each tip before use. If you’re Indian, Israeli or American, go flush yourself down the toilet. (That’s advice too.)

• Don’t work on Fridays. It is for baths, prayers and pelting stones on passing cars, if you feel offended.

• The secret ingredient in finger-licking good food is perspiration. Work up a sweat.

• The antidote to envy is to have a tablespoon of sour grapes soaked in gripe water at bedtime.

• Don’t buy lawn from Peepak Derwani. He has cheetah prints and even zebras know that cheetahs are not halal. Only Jay-Jay has halal lawn.

• Rickets is better than a sun-tan. You’ll get married as long as you’re fair.

• We have no CNG in cars and no electricity in homes, because there is no Haya in women. Stop blaming the government.

• Bald men are virile. Ladies use that information carefully, and use polio drops when necessary.

• If you want to be filthy rich, avoid frequent hand washing.

What did you just say? Mind my own business? No, no, no. I don’t own my business. It is in my great-grandmother’s name, because she doesn’t have an NTN.

Rising

This poem, by Maya Angelou, is dedicated to all the wonderful women who make this world worth living.

Onebillionrising.org

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops.

Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard

‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I’ve got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

Justice for Lama

I don’t know if I should cry or scream.

In the Arabia predating Islam, young girls were buried alive. Several centuries and a prophet later, the region shows little promise of reform. Now, young girls are raped by their fathers, burnt and tortured to death.

I can, with some effort, ignore the fact that the perpetrator is a Muslim and a cleric at that, because perversion, cruelty and evil transcend boundaries, religions, and professions. But, I shall forever begrudge it if Fayhan Al Ghamdi could atone for this crime by paying USD 50,000 to the mother, and worse, that any morally bankrupt judge, could sign off Ghamdi’s freedom, by negating everything the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) stood for, and instead quoting a weak hadith, that enables him to overlook the transgression.

Lama Al Ghamdi

I am ashamed to say that while most Muslims look towards Saudi Arabia for religious guidance, the Kingdom, in many ways tolerates or even encourages the hate, bigotry, stereotyping and abuse practiced by many Saudis in the name of Islam. I’m baffled as to how a society, that practices rigid gender segregation, even entrusts a father, with the care and custody of a minor girl? Isn’t incest and rape a crime that is worthy of stoning to death in the opinion of many Islamic scholars? Can you pay blood money for your own child?

I demand justice for Lama (#Ana Lama) – an exemplary punishment that I wish could be as gruesome as the treatment this little girl received.

Readers, spread the word and sign this petition. If you are not with Lama, you are with Fayhan Ghamdi.

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