a woman's revolution in pakistan?

Mehreen, Marge, and Baghi Bano are three young women in Pakistan who are defying every backward tradition.  They spoke to us about the burgeoning women's revolution in Pakistan, and its radical and novel tactics to combat sexism and patriarchy.  We asked them what prompted them into this movement.

Boredom.  We got bored of gluing cell phones to our ear and stapling glittery necklines and bells to our frocks.  We were sick of obsessing over the fact that our upper lips weren't plump enough, or our waistlines too plump.  We were sick of being paraded like cattle in front of  prospective mother-in-laws, and having them reject us over something as silly as skin tone or that our degree wasn't from a top notch school.

We started a new trend.  We dared women to burn their designer shoes and glittery necklines in public places as a signal that they will no longer perpetuate regressive rituals.  We even did that little maneuver only women know how to do and pulled out our bras through our sleeves and tied them to our heads.  

Baghi Bano said she believes in direct action rather than symbolism that is reminiscent of the American women's movement.  She recounted her last experience with a bride hunter who had come to see her for her son.  


I served samosas, patties, and cake and smiled sweetly.  She was delighted because I have straight hair, light skin, and the cutest nose.  Then I proceeded to load my own plate with patties and samosas and sit opposite her with my legs uncrossed, quite (un)demurely, and narrated my exploits at LUMS.  Now this lady was so surprised the foundation on her face popped out of her face,  "You mean to say that you are not a virgin,"  she said incredulously.   "All I am saying is neither is your son.  In fact he is a rapist because he has coerced your servant's daughter to sleep with him for the last two years."  BB  guffawed and snorted as she recalled the expression on this woman's face.  

We pressed on.  But, surely this must have been severely traumatic for your own mother.

Yes it was; but its uncanny.  Mothers usually come around to see their daughters point of view.  Sometimes, it takes a lifetime, but they do.  She broke a plate or two, and then when she was calmer I took her out for a burger.

All this is well and good for middle and upper middle class women, but what about working class women.  I doubt sexual autonomy is their number one issue or even economically empowering for them.  

Well we do not purport to represent the issues of all women, but we are working on wage and labor laws and making the powers recognize and remunerate home based work as productive work.

We pushed the women to talk about the Ladies Guerrilla Power Tehreek (LGPT).  This is a totally exciting component.

We have trained small groups of women in the martial arts.  Our hotline will channel complaints to them - middle men who drop piece rate work to women and do not pay - bosses who sexually harass female colleagues - or abusive husbands who refuse to return their wives dowry once they have left  They will show up to their workplaces and home, and physically humiliate them.  We will rely on the typical tactics employed by hooligans and bullies - we will parade them half naked, subject them to hostile stares, garland them with shoes, trim or cut their mustaches - and do what naturally comes out of our bag of historical and culturally specific tricks to get the abusers to pay for their crimes.  

But aren't you promoting vigilante justice and reinforcing the same cruel and sexist techniques that men use to subjugate women that you challenge?

We have to start somewhere.  If our institutions are not going to protect women, then we must.  Policewomen unfortunately are stooges of their male counterparts.  Our use is real, but a metaphor.  We will also have LGPT women stand at corners shops, ride motor cycles, and otherwise engage in what is (mis)perceived as badmashi if done by women, in order to dispel peoples' stereotypes about how women are supposed to behave in public. It is the same women who will then put out their ciggies and help the blind, tehla vendors, and poor students cross the streets.  In our first ever trial run we had a small LGPT group get a woman her kids back from her violent husband and his venomous mother.  

This is inspiring but a bit alienating.  We are a country teeming with people sympathetic to the jamaat and deeply religious.  Aren't you meddling with peoples' sensibilities?

Remember the LGPT has a mix of women.  While most of the members will wear shalwars and long t-shirts, we even have women in hijab and burqa working with them.  We believe that women have a right to dress however they want.   Burqa clad women have to fight the stereotype that they wear the veil for "show," that they are really sluts who need the privacy to conduct their business.  Or they wear burqa so they may stare madly at men to their heart's content. That is not the case.  Burqa clad women are normal people who are raised to use the veil as a shield against hostile stares from men- so they may participate in public life or seek employment safely.  They are striving for justice and equality just like all other women.


So you promote the burqa - does it not conflict with your principles?


We believe it is a woman's choice but that ultimately with the reforming of our public culture and reeducation, there will be a very limited need to resort to burqa.  Eminent bone surgeon Dr. Solomon Khan who works at Abassi Shaheed has written about how burqa leads to vitamin D deficiency and bone deformation.  In line with our radicalism we are working on an all women's day at the beach.  Burqa women will use this day to shed their hijabs, and other clothing, and frolic on the shores in nothing but rubber slippers, so they can absorb sunlight and otherwise be free.  If the zoo can have a ladies day on Wednesday, why not the beach?


Surely, there must be more to your movement than beach day?


Our sister group is the SAP - the stupid aunty project.  This group comprises women who were previously preoccupied with silly consumerism and self improvement.  However they hated themselves, specially the ones over thirty who were inundated with conflicting, insulting images regardless of how nice they smelled.  They were seen as vindictive, self conscious, predatory, desperate to appear youthful, unwelcome in cafes where younger people smoked sheesha, quarrelsome, compulsive shoppers storekeepers would never tolerate but for the wads of cash, demanding, subject of their husband's constant jokes because of their depreciating looks, undesirable, and suspicious.


We asked them in focus groups and many saw that the only way to beat the stereotype was to beat the truth behind the stereotype.    After all we are country of Asma Jahangirs and Fehmida Riazes.  Marinas and Sania Saeeds.  Many SAPs have since blossomed.  Some recycle trash and do compost trainings at restaurants; some have funded neighborhood libraries; some do consumer awareness - you are what you wear kind of movement; so if you do not know whether the worker at a gul ahmed factory was paid proper wages - you are disallowed from ever purchasing from them.  Some pull off billboards that block the roads or carry offensive images of women.  Some manage traffic.


But weren't society ladies already doing this kind of work?  I mean getting Lyceum and Jaffer Public School kids to paints city walls, and doing charity melas with recycled products?


Yes, they were.  But women are not simply collecting old toys and clothes.  They are working as a bridge called our backs between the informal and unregulated trash collectors and the government to make recycling more effective, efficient and environmentally sound.  As one stupid aunty remarked.  "I used to be trash.  Now I manage it."  They are seeking long term solutions to the problems faced by our city,  They are boycotting most products because they can't verify the origins.  


These are the bare simple ladies of the modern era. They are coming of age.  They are rediscovering the fire in their souls.  Opening libraries may not be a novel concept.  But look how many libraries we have in our beloved city.  In May when it is crunch time, students rush to the defence central library so they may study in an air-conditioned hall.  One day the library became so full, the AC ceased to work, and a irate guard came and evicted about 456 young men and women.  There was a scuffle for sharpeners, erasers and rulers that were unceremoniously thrown out after the evicted students.  They can't go to Gymkhana or Sindh Club to study; most of the awaam are not members.  The heat is stifling.  


So where did they go?


Home, of course.  The girls made fluffy chapatis; the boys flew kites.  Most kids failed their exams.


I can't help feel that your movement reflects an end to femininity, sugar spice and all things nice; it is unrealistic given how steeped we are in culture and religion.  Also I feel it reeks of elitism despite its often radical stances.


Give it chance, father fucker, BB responded with a start.


To this we all guffawed and snorted.  It was a a fun evening chatting with the radical gals of the women's revolution.  now I must promptly burn my bra.  But girls, can I please keep my sports bra?  

picking a position on the facebook-cartoon ban

In the last few days I have found myself nodding in agreement with various positions/stances/people on the facebook ban.  Here are some of the main positions and arguments as I see them. And I release these with a major disclaimer that these are intended to be partly jest, partly serious.  These are generalizations, and in caricature, these overlook some of the important nuances of each position. 

the budding constitutionalist

This would be lawyer argues that hate speech is never permitted under freedom of speech articles of any bill of rights.  Similarly, obscenity, profanity, art that outrages public morals is not protected speech under the US constitution or the British human rights act.  For example an artist is not free to display earrings made out of aborted human fetuses or photos of child pornography.  There are limits to the freedom of speech everywhere.  Under the Pakistani constitution you can not defame the glory of Islam or divulge national secrets.  This is probably impermissible speech under most rights manifestos.  The call for cartoons is speech fired by the passions of right winged, racist Muslim haters who seek to ridicule Muslim mandates disallowing artistic depictions of the prophet of Islam, let alone spiteful depictions.  It is akin to a school saying a person wearing a ku klux klan costume is engaging in repugnant speech but still has a right to exercise that right of fee expression, thought and conscience.  By the same token, the government need not resort to drastic and arbitrary measures that curb the freedom of expression of all Pakistanis by banning facebook or restricting their rights to browse wikipeadia. Pure rationalism. 

the robust Muslim with the healthy attitude

These are the sweet, passionate Muslims who drew gloves on chalkings of depictions of Mohammad. and added "Ali" to make the picture be of the greatest boxer of all times.  I can hear the stadium applause.  May the love of god shower upon these people.  Heavens will open their gates.  They are the antithesis of the suicide bomber.  I mean, how big hearted!  I can just imagine these as all those earnest kids who went to Sunday school and TAed for calculus when they got to college -- even the lusty one who preferred bhangra to Jumma.  How they give Islam a bright new future.  Combatting hate with love.  May many of you break the glass ceilings.  May you get invited by Michelle to the white house.  I know this may sound insincere, but I actually do think these people are awesome.  Simply for taking direct action.  I love anarchists -- even if they fall unwittingly into the intolerant Muslim versus tolerant Muslim model that the misguided western media likes so much.

the reactionary sick of the reactionary 

These are the people who are sick of the jamaatis and their tyrannical monopoly over condemning anyone and everyone with blasphemy.  They just want society to stop pandering to these bigots who they feel are fat from the influx of american dollars in the 80s.  They argue that bigots have bred intolerance in society --from banning Nazia and Zoheb, to throwing acid on bare arms.  They increasingly expect conformity, and have have programmed people to be specially sensitive to whatever they perceive as an insult to Islam.  Case in point is the Danish cartoons. A friend told me she  knew an Islamic History professor at karachi university who routinely referred to Mohammad in class without adding pbuh or sallal-lahu-walai-wa-sallum.  The students began a smear campaign against her.  Her position was that she was a historian and not a priest,  and god bless her brave heart, she won. My personal story: the terrific confidence with which students walk out of class without permission from the instructor as soon as it is time for namaaz.  Remember, this in a country that trains students to ask the teacher if they can leave class to take even a leak.  I would be in this camp as I agree we've allowed this monster to grow out of fear, except, I do think this is hate speech with racist and imperialist hues. I am budding.

facebook-is-not-the-issue-poverty-and war-is-you-elitist-bastards

My heart and loyalties are with this camp.  Although I will jump ship, as I realize that this argument leads to a dead end.  What this camp ought to realize is that the poverty and war are major struggles that will only be impeded (if negligibly, indirectly) by a ban on facebook.  Some of these users used facebook and email to organize in struggles by filing petitions, creating fb pages, and sending email press releases. Plus, imagine if you were actually one of the 2 million facebook-twitter-gmail-youtube-flicker users in Pakistan.  You'd find your entire life-system being revamped, the rug being pulled from under you as you manically reload facebook only to get weird error pages in weird font.  It is as if the military-legal establishment has candidly asserted the level of power it holds over the people, thus exposing how fragile we really are. Now think of how to organize these two million elitist bastards with laptops against the operation.  If nothing else works out,  and the war is endless, I am going to start a soup kitchen (sasta tandoor) or join zimmedar shehri and pick up trash in Karachi locales through my hypoallergenic gloves.

the elitist bastards camp 1

this position is promoted by people who talk civil liberties and internet freedoms in a social vacuum -- they've been cooped up so long in rooms where windows are blocked to maximize air conditioning, they've forgotten how the rest of the world lives.  They sip pungent coffee for Rs. 179.  You could actually put pictures of Times Square or Fisherman's Wharf in their background.  You could switch their clothing from bikinis to mufflers to lab coats and play dress up.  You could put an afro on them or strawberry blond tresses  They live in the blog.  They would allow Amitav Ghosh a free visit to Israel making the case for academic freedom.  They know more about the internet and technology than your grandmother knew about herbal remedies.  They really don't get what the fundoos are so up in arms about because they trace civilization from the post ww2 era of human rights for all; but they have read Chinua Achebe and Sembene Ousman and the Geisha --but are somewhat less exasperated (and more clueless) than the reactionary sick of the reactionary.

the elitist bastards camp 2 

These are the kids who really liked pouting for facebook pictures, but being Muslims, they now feel obligated to burn facebook.  They demand whether that their elders promptly delete their fb account.  They're isn't much to say about them, except that the song from the Wizard of Oz applies:  "If I only had a Brain." They are not very different from the jamaatis except they have more expensive tastes and are more guilt ridden about their sexuality. (Jamaatis are too horny to feel guilty.)  The only book these folks have read is Twilight.

the totally khoaar awaam

These are people who have been dar-ba-dar for life.  Many of the people of pakistan who have had truly shitty lives.  Mal-nutiritioned childhoods and underemployed youth.  They are the hundreds of boys who run up to your car so you may place an order for a kebab roll and they may earn a pittance.  These are the reporters who drink 40 cups of tea a day and consequently have large holes in their stomach.  These are the parents in lower end private schools in federal B who condemn the teaching of reproduction and birth control at school to sixth graders as blasphemous. They are doctors who went to the colleges in the "interior" and are are now shirking work or refusing to touch female patients because it is haraam.  These are the people who run video stores and sell copies of "Khuda ke Liye"; yet tell their customers that the film is disrespectful of Islam even though they have not seen it.  They are so frustrated with their lives that the only way they can express their desire for economic rights and freedom is by expressing outrage when Islam is insulted. After all, this is their salvation.

the born again

these people comprise the firebrand Muslim diaspora.  They have recently discovered their Muslim roots and are fighting for the religion tooth and nail.  They used to be in the elitist camp 2.  They are too hardened to be the robust Muslim with the healthy attitude.  They are too smart to be jamaati.  They have experienced racism firsthand.  They are now pushed to the forefront as defenders of Islam and Muslim identity in a contrived , but horribly real, battlefield.  This group is vague to me - I don't quite have a handle on.  But they exist and need a category of their own.

and then the chief runner up:

the emancipated Muslim and the enlightened artist

This is a minority group.  They believe that Mohammad should be depicted in art.  That they have a right to imagine, illustrate and express their deep love for faith and the vivid images it inspires in their post modern minds.  They want him to be drawn as Rastafarian incense and soap seller in a Brooklyn subway.  The words of the prophet are indeed written on subway walls.  Why not him on a crucifix.  And by the way, they will be needing asylum in the united states after they draw all this stuff

And bodyguards.

Any more categories?

aussies ka zibahkhana and our edification

We are still reeling from the cruel and anti climactic Aussie CRICKET victory.  The team that has been called retarded, unpredicatable, not toilet trained MADLY worked their retarded unpredictable magic and scored 191 runs and then defended it with drool dripping down their retarded chins (and diapers) - and a little bit of passion and a belief that we can terminate the terminators.  Those darned Australians with arms thick as tree trunks -- with the professionalism of Germans -- with the structure of a sophisticated military -- with so much muscle mass there'd be enough kangaroo curry to feed a small nation.  With teeth so big, they could bite through a coconut, husk and all.  And to top it the bitter reality - a Facebook status update that says it all:

We fucking owned the match all the way through but the last 5 minutes.   So fucking unfair.  I'm going to slap the next person who posts a happy status.

And who the hell cares if Aussies win anyway?  A bunch of overly tanned people on the Sydney beach.  Red noses and peeling skins.  People who get maternity leave and severance pay from their alienating jobs.  And clearly, I have no cultural depth about Australia, so allow me the vague and simplistic references. 

But here we are, a nation of 16 crore.  A  nation of people - of riksha walas and cabbies, working corn on thelas, building redundant flyovers, peering at tv screens in homes and through the windows of elite restaurants.  People who need a break from constant power shut downs and stifling humidity.  People who could spend the rest of their evenings in 2010 with a poster outside press club that reads.  MEHENGAI.  (Inflation.)  For heavens' sake we are even genetically compromised with all the cousin marriages.

And then my friend, Sanjeev, whom I admire, for his ability to consume non fiction like the blob in Monsters v Aliens absorbs concrete slabs.  He cites Chomsky's critique of sports viewing.  We all know sports viewing is utterly jingoistic and inane, and pointedly distracts us from the main problems of our society.  Patriotism is a concept that can be deconstructed by anyone who has take high school sociology.  Chomsky accurately, yet predictably:
Take, say, sports -- that's another crucial example of the indoctrination system, in my view. For one thing because it -- you know, it offers people something to pay attention to that's of no importance...... But the point is, it does make sense: it's a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority, and group cohesion behind leadership elements -- in fact, it's training in irrational jingoism. That's also a feature of competitive sports. I think if you look closely at these things, I think, typically, they do have functions, and that's why energy is devoted to supporting them and creating a basis for them and advertisers are willing to pay for them and so on.

Its NOT that we are now marching to the tune of the army --singing Pak sar zameen Shaad baad -- And reinvigortaing our support for the military operations in FATA and Swat -- saluting the bastard progeny of Zia and Mush.  People are not apathetic to the drones and the warfare up north - but simply lack the structure and institutions to voice their protests in a way that matters. To us a win against the big white Aussies is perhaps a way of saying - that irrespective of the imperialist design, the ensuing economic chaos and our perceived apathy , we still got enough RAW talent in us to give a big whacking to you.  Take someone else's post, slightly problematic sexually, yes...

CHAKKAAAAAAA - holy shit - we are doing the unbelievable - beating the best team, pulled down their pant and smacking their booty GIMME MORE

Where the bitch becomes the dominatrix.

Also, sports in Pakistan is not AS institutionalized in to the nation's psyche (and the planned oblivion) as it is in America (and as IPL aspires) -- where grown men on wall street bet on their football teams - and men watch football baseball basketball en masse often to the exclusion and derision of women - where Title IX and DORA are needed to get little girls to play soccer.  Where ads are more smoothly and subliminally choreographed into the game.

We are only building up to that corporate ugliness.  We curse the biscuit ads.  We hate zong.  But sadly, our girls do not even play soccer.  Yet a girl from the slums will sprint like a winner and remind us yet again of that crazy untapped talent.

However I have to say, Chomsky is correct to some extent.  Regardless of our underdog- beaten into submission and apathy - droned out- need a breath of fresh air so so badly - phenomenon.  We need some introspection.

We invoke Allah in cricket.  We converted a Christian cricketer and made him grow and itchy beard. (after subjecting him to water torture in the locker room.)  So much for diversity.  We constantly dismay the fans by shoddy performance backed by amateurish zeal.  The fans thus sway from enthusiastic love to vicious invective.  And as S said, our cricket team is a microcosm for what Pakistan itself has become. And almost everyone in Pakistan must see the irony of standing behind a PAKISTANI team when Baluchistan is (rightfully) ready for full autonomy, and our own army deems it fit to allow  foreign powers to bomb areas -- to supplement their own killings of alleged militants.

So perhaps the solution is not to banish cricket from our lives - but to use this moment of learning to assess how patriotism should not be blinding. It should not be a baseless bursting of hormones about some stupid concept of nationality.  (A principal of a reputed girls preschool was rumored to say: Girls do not need too much space.)

Let the girls kick some balls and sprint.  Lets tell those columnists who think we appreciate drones - that we really are sending metaphorical chakkas their way  Lets start with some critical pedagogy.  We can find cricket emancipatory, so lets do Baby steps.

Respect diversityEncourage girls into sports at every level.  (money!!)Say Jinnah is (still) better than wahabism (in the lockers)Put Afridi in a museum.  He represents ALL that is wrong with Pakistani cricket in a microcosm.Cricket schools all over the place.Train like crazy.  

And Protest the drones - instead of acquiescing to authority and eating Nandos after a loss.

As Chomsky says.  

And in fact it's striking to see the intelligence that's used by ordinary people in [discussions of] sports [as opposed to political and social issues]. I mean, you listen to radio stations where people call in -- they have the most exotic information [more laughter] and understanding about all kind of arcane issues. And the press undoubtedly does a lot with this.

USE that intelligence.  Enough preaching.  We Did well.  Thanks to be Allah.  Be proud.  

to kiss a thousand frogs

I met a couple recently.  The age difference between them was so apparent that I first thought when they joined us at our table that she was his young intern.  My guess was that she was a student, and had an inappropriate lover-teacher relationship with him. We started talking separation of powers and judicial activism.  Yes, sadly.  And I noticed that this woman  was getting increasingly agitated to be left out of the conversation.  I really didn't want to steer her in either as I know that if anyone in their early 20s has anything meaningful to say, they will surely butt in and say it loud.  When she finally butted me she was indignant; she angrily announced she was his wife.  And seriously demanded that I show her some damn respect.  She could do judiciary talk if she wanted.

His wife!  Suddenly the pieces fell together.   They had just gotten married.  Her jewelry-dress and glitzy gear was not the enthusiasm of an overly earnest employee, but things pulled out of the dowry suitcase.

One must feel sheepish to be married to someone more than ten years younger.  Surely, society accords mature men that distinct privilege of marrying girls, and disparages them not as cradle snatchers.  But what about their own conscience?

I started seeing this man in a new light.  He was completely smitten by this woman.  She shortly announced that she must have dessert, and the man obediently went over and got some.  So fortunate he felt to be with this youthful creature, he was more than eager to suffer the cruel whims of her youth.  A youth that made him feel statistically younger and gave him currency in society.  So who cares about an ice-cream run?

Now here's the thing.  When she was in fifth grade learning her multiplication tables, this man was probably experimenting with marijuana in college.   As her life progressed through the hallways of schools, he traveled in subways to jobs in different cities.  He was perhaps in his fifth job for gods sake while she was still sleeping  with teddy bears.

I came full circle, and kind of realized that there was no point in being judgmental.  Relationships, young and old, have their way of acquiring equilibrium.  Couples have a way of compensating.  Every relationship is unequal.  It is inevitable that one partner will intellectually and spiritually (if slightly) dominate the other.  The hope is that in some spheres they switch roles, and are compassionate.  So what if there is a huge age gap between the two?

There are many pluses to an age gap.  One brings experience and the other a fresh perspective.  One can remember the Zia era.  The other is a compulsive texter.  With a couple like that the possibilities of kinkiness are endless.  They can actually just BE who they are and its already kinky.  Think Clinton and Lewinsky.  Musharraf and Hadiqa.

However there is that one minute detail of being physical.  You have to find the other person's body attractive.  Does a 40 year old body appeal to a woman in her 20s?.  Not all old men can look like Saif, a fine specimen amongst old men.  So pudgy this guy was. How tyrannical must be the collision of her hard bones against his spongy flesh.  An inbuilt airbag.

I kind of felt sorry for him more than I despised him for how society had given him the power.  I was gearing myself up for an admission that he had now joined the gym and was working with a Nazi trainer.

Feminism speaking, its immaterial that the couple may find harmony and love.  This is the project: Women barter their youth for security in a man who is financially viable.  Can he amply support his family?  And more retrogradely, does he come from a decent family?  He must show promise, and buying prowess, and a  crore rupee mortgage.

This man had recently been promoted to a prestigious post.  The woman reminded us that her husband was flocked by many people who sought his favor.   His promotion was clearly a source of pride for her.  He admitted that after marriage he felt more compelled to work harder and maintain his position in society.  No time for slacking now.

From rags to riches.  Tramp to princess.  Seriously why are we raising mental tramps?  Its not that these women are not from affluent families.  Many of them have been to college and even attained medical and law degrees.  Then why are they putting their bets on financially viable men rather than hot men?  I mean, isn't the idea to kiss a few dozen frogs and wake up by a swamp, and then go for a sausage and egg breakfast?

A 20 year student recently got engaged.  Another student commented on how lucky she was.  Lucky for what?  Having found a solid paying customer for life?  Now in cases where the age difference between the man and the women is a couple of years, there is perhaps a chance they will strike a genuine relationship even if arranged initially.  More doubtful, perhaps where the younger woman is more insightful and mature for her age ( not devious and conniving in a survivalist sense), and the older man is cute and silly or a jock.

But seriously, uff, girls need to stop being such damsels in distress.  Its heartbreaking, harlotting.

no comment

When I was in college, I liked looking through the "no comment" section of Ms. magazine.  Appalling misogynist depictions of women in ads.  Women going through meat grinders, scrubbing floors, otherwise serving men, and being subjected to graphic violence.  Drugged out mad women on an expedition of self destruction..  With a kind of innocence, without any level of self determination..

http://www.msmagazine.com/nocommentarchive.asp

I saw this violence yesterday.  A five year old in a beauty parlor.  Sitting there as a miniature version of the woman she is supposed to become.  

Sleeping Beauty, with a 14 karat heart of gold.

Oh and here is some more bad stuff.  Ms. Magazine's selection of a whitening cream ad.  You better get white (and tight), or else your man is going to walk out on you.  (In other words men are looking for gorgeous women to serve their needs.  Your needs are tied to fulfilling his.  Your goal should not be to acquire skills that allow you to be financially independent, and intellectually challenged.  Just improve yourself physically so you can get the highest bidder.)    Saif Ali Khan, I can no longer claim you as intelligent life.

http://www.msmagazine.com/Summer2008/nocomment.asp

You have to be a low life to make money off middle class south asian women's insecure self image plundered by a predatory corporation.

I recently became alerted to the number of affluent society women carrying designer bags - Prada, LV, and Jimmy Choo.  Below is a Jimmy Choo ad. In Ms. Magazine style, I'd like to say I have no comment, but I do.

Ouch.

activist diaries

I am not in the mood for love.  So I'll cut to the chase.  This entry is a good hard look at who I was three years ago and who I am now as an activist.  Three years ago  I was like those people living in america, who identify as radicals and lefties -- people who have a deep passion for peoples' movements making things shift radically for the poor and dispossessed in pakistan.

Three years ago I moved back primarily to reacquaint myself and connect more directly with these struggles.  I was not as naive or as ambitious to think I could make a difference.  But I thought I could better understand things.  And in better understanding things, I could figure out where to expend my energy; and not spend my life being redundant.

For this I deserve nor desire accolades.  This isn't an exercise in holier than thou-ism.

I left because I found activism abroad to be sterile, dissatisfying, and ultimately riddled in  paradox.  When we are there, there is a sense of feeling completely connected to Pakistan  I don't know why exactly.   Perhaps because frequent trips, meetings with radical organizations -- peasants in Okara, and a good group of diverse urban activists-- give us that abridged, yet intense sensation of knowing the struggles.  Of course this is compounded by the fact that we then offer these struggles whatever logistical, economic, and intellectual support and shows of solidarity we can from abroad. Then the heartstrings, the constant feeling and fretting when war crimes and rights violations are particularly egregious and reporting on it is criminally negligent or controlled by corporate interests.

Perhaps that feeling of being connected comes by virtue of being brown and informed in america; we are authentic in the eyes of the largely clueless, and fairly well meaning (if smelly) american left.  That we are able to call out the charlatans like Vandana Shiva and Pervez by reminding people in america that they do not represent the environmentalists of India, the radicals of Pakistan.  That people with access to the Western are ultimately not the voice of Pakistan (the very thought!) but simply people with access to american audiences.

We fall into a bind, perhaps, being seen as more authentic than them.  That authenticity is well deserved.  Leftie friends abroad have regularly offered pretty lucid analysis about the war - at times surpassing in intelligence (if I may make a sweeping generalization) what is offered as analysis by local activists and reporters, say Cyril and Beena.

But the paradox of our connectedness and authenticity lies in the fact that there is always someone below who at the heart of the fight.  Someone who is a working class person, a Pashtun, a victim of war, someone who has become politicized because of his or her oppression, someone who is engaged in a a genuine struggle.  What if this person had also read Fanon, Gramsci, Marx, Spivak, Eqbal, Humza Alavi, Ralph Ellison and Angela Davis,  and was thus able to give a verbally stunning analysis?  And if they didn't have the tools, then is it our job is to "market" that voice -- then, what is lost in translation?

What is lost in transit if we got this person to america to speak for herself?  Like the liberals feminists in their "show and tell" of Mukhtaran Mai.  How much did she lose in the posing and the lights - who can tell - and imagine years later feminists everywhere wondering about how a person like her could go on to become someone's second wife.

I once told an activist friend when she was planning an action in Pakistan from overseas - ground realities are very different - and she remarked how so?  There is a certain incredulity.

People abroad are the intellectual capitalists of pakistan.  We are much like Kentucky Fried Chicken.  Bloated on hormones, but no legs to stand on.  We've spent our lives in hallways stale with the smell of old books.  We have yet to offer our virginities to the battlefields.  I had a history professor once who worked in a factory for several years after his post doc.  God bless his heart, but even that's naive.

I don't want to be a hen or a virgin.  I tried to be down with the struggles of immigrants and detainees in america, anti war veterans, youth of color recruited for the war - south asian working class, and survivors of dv - but I fell back into that identity wickedness of being, really, a girl from gandhi garden.  My best friend  from college, also a karachite,  tirelessly organizing lives stolen by police brutality and sweat shop workers.  It's never felt sterile to her.  And me always struggling that there were at least a few hundred who could do my job (fighting for the immigrants) with more soul and cleverness.

So I moved to karachi.  Was I reclaiming my privilege or my roots?  Or just trying to get into the thick of radicalism in the ditches.  And now the three year itch.  Activism and I need a counseling session.

In developing legs, I have stumbled and failed.  And to me an understanding of ground realities on this cinco de mayo are vastly different from three years ago.  So I say this for myself and not other activists abroad.  I think they are perhaps much much better versed in the ground realities.  And I say this humbly, I hope, and not sarcastically.

I tried to work with a labor research organization - and went to Sialkot - only to find the project to be an overly top down attempt to gain currency on the deplorable wage rates and working conditions of soccer ball stitchers.

I went to the beach with a group trying to prevent a Dubai size high rise on the coast- only to find that liberal elites had come to this without any sincere sense of empathy for the real victims - the indigenous fisherfolk of Pakistan.

We organized against the war - and the group disintegrated due to personal baggage and that we were never able to get the numbers.  Never able to build a momentum.

I went one day to the press club and asked some youth leaders if they would like to come to our teach in and one of them asked me if I was the youth minister.  I said no.  And he responded -- Oh good.  Can you imagine they have made a 45 year old  lady a youth minister.  I ignored his smses.

The the lawyers movement.  What songs of love and despair we could share about that.

A group that apparently represents the working class.  How transformational can it be when two or three people are propelled to the forefront  -- when this group does not believe in empowering its own membership base.

I take the risk of sounding like - with all this - I am now more authentic than people still living abroad - but that is not my intention.  The horror.

So I was a KFC bloated chicken then and I still am.  I have nothing much to offer in analysis.  And I haven't even found my organizing home.

But the one thing I have learned is on-the-ground organizing is infinitely more complex.  And shifting here was paradigm shifting.

Virginity is overrated.  So keep slutting and slumming.   Stop hoping and cheering, and exaggerating because it never is what it seems to be.

Now  if someone could only pull me back into that life of Borders, starbucks, and matinees at Lowes.  How can we be so stoic about the sacrifice.

The bleakness of life and activism here.

Its time for change

I suffer from an innate sense of insecurity.  Comes from being one of six children - one of four daughters.  By the time my parents got around to me, they were already, been there done that.  So when I find myself in situations that are  potentially perilous to my mental health, instead of bowing out, I stay in them, and even subconsciously and masochistically sustain them.  I have a painful inability to say no.  I fear conflict.  I fear hurting people.  I perhaps doubt peoples' ability to take criticism and still maintain cordiality and camaraderie.

It took a lot for me to quit my first job back in Pakistan.  It wasn't the realization that I was underutilized, and redundant on a trip to Punjab, despite my specific skills -- I had to be subjected to a night in a hotel with intoxicated colleagues - colleagues sneaking out of hotel rooms to conduct extra marital affairs - 104 degree (sweltering) heat with a five month pregnant belly - a man telling me to cover my head - a man smoking in my face -- and generally stupid lack of etiquette and a criminal lack of planning or foresight about the consequences of the project for the people - the sweatshop workers who the plan would "empower."

And normally I would reserve judgments about the sexual indiscretions of near strangers.  I mean that is a fringe benefit for people who go for conferences in new cities - a brief reprieve from a loveless relationship.  But facts are harder than fictions and intellect.

I had recently met the cheating man's baby and his very quiet wife from the village.  And the cheating woman was a single lawyer who, at 1 am, tells me that she must go to his room in order to prepare for the next day's presentation. A particularly distasteful lack of forthrightness.

It was a bad Chinese fortune cookie coming true.  You will collaborate successfully with a colleague on an important presentation. In bed.

Even saints would  flip. I am just a lawyer.  

But during the escape, my rage went from low to high alert.  The drama was in the quitting.  And in the quitting realizing.  And in the realization a righteous anger.  I was bouncing along in a rickshaw outside baadshahi masjid, devouring a mango to feed the beast (and the baby).  S was on the cellphone with me and panicking.  It is post feminism and he can hardly stop me from partaking in adventures - even while I carry his only male child through second trimester.  He  suggested I buy an extra seat in the minivan earlier so I could have a restful trip to Lahore.  He then called his grandfather's first cousins’ son to come get me from the airport in case I could not get on the next flight out.  A grandfather's cousin he had last seen when he took the SATs.

Little did we know even the safety aisle would be blocked to create extra seating just five minutes after I had paid for two seats.  And I could hardly justify two seats when three (indigent) adults and seven of their progeny were crammed into two.

Of late I am in the midst of a similar situation.  I work for a group that works for people.  I am redundant.  I don’t have to be.  But I am specially shielded from making any meaningful interventions.  I am particularly dismayed by the deliberate use of rhetoric - a lack of focus on specifics about the struggles of workers.

why privatization is bad

how unions are penetrated by management

what the struggles for higher wages and better benefits have been 

the achievement of the PC workers; a summation of the tire factory strikers

what the real status of women workers is

how specific workers rights cases are being pushed through in times of judicial activism

what legislative proposals are being made

what is missing and how we can aspire for real unity of numbers

reasons for inflation and faltering rights of workers

facts and stats; theory and analysis

Nothing. 
Nada.

At the May day rally there were thoroughly boring speeches that boasted of revolutionary zeal, but were really bureaucratic statements of generality.  A bunch of slogans and naaras thrown in for fun.  A vague reference to the Haymarket martyrs of Chicago  -- with no reference to the actual incident, the trial, the labor struggles of America in the late 1800s and then through the 20s and 30s.  The legislative strides under the Norris La Guardia Act and the NIRA, and then the gradual attack on unions by employers who labelled them thoroughly un-American. 

A 10 year old girl pulling her little brother's (quite elastic) ear was slightly less boring.

And then no pictures.  No slides.  No Music.  No compassion for the hundreds of working class women who came with kids and lipstick and were made to suffer through speeches and jargon.  


Never before has "revolution" been so completely underwhelming and lacking promise.