Durre Shahwar

There are days and then there are days.  Karachi living gets to you.  The power fluctuated numerous times and my adapter got burned. Got the computer guy to replace it, and the same thing happened again.  TV wiring burned as well.  Repair guy said the new wire would cost Rs. 8,000 because that is what they charge people in Clifton-Defence who are not willing to cross into Saddar.  In the meanwhile, we wait for the smells of burning wires to slowly sift through our brains, and leave a residual stamp of the city's failing infrastructure.

Water used to be plentiful and now we are subject to the same dilemma - buy tanker or sit in a bureaucrat's office with your water tax receipts, flirt a little, and demand a free tanker.

Who cares if academics think Pakistan is a failed state or not.

My mother in law's back ache went from bad to worse.  Maintaining her reign, she orders food be cooked, tupperwared, frozen, and consumed in  piece-meal over the next few weeks.  Ever taste a qorma that's been frozen for over a week?  Its wicked.  I compulsively buy desserts from Pie in the Sky to compensate for the bad food situation. I could salvage with weekly lasagna and chicken in oyster sauce, and do.  Tipu Burgers are not sterilized.  Aylanto and China Kitchen are play pens for the rich and afflicted, and besides if I am going to pay Rs. 700 for a wad of fish and a sliver of carrot, it better not be dry.

The entire Mottas shopping area is such a slut show.  Khadda market is a slut show.  In fact the whole of Pakistan is a slut show.

Sharmeen Obaid, reportedly, got thousands from the US government to help launch films about empowered women.   Selling uplifting fictions so Pakistan can remain a good investment.  Media devours imagination with repetitive, high pitched drama to perpetuate the military-political-economic elite power and status quo.  Everyone is some shade of sleaze.  Some get to go to Cannes; others get goodie bags.

Coke tells us how great Pakistan is because that story helps them make money.  Pakistan has an exploding population, and serves as a gargantuan consumer market that will buy soda, burgers, shampoos, lifestyles; it provides a ready, able, and willing peoples to be bombed up north so Lockheed weapons can be tested; its labor courts are in shambles and unions few, so labor can be paid cents and in false promises.  Corporations have traversed seas, bought real estate, injected millions, and must see returns.

Its about making cash.  And cash necessitates presenting a yuppy ethnic-chic lifestyle for the upper middle -- where you can wear your labels, eat at Gloria Jean, sip Coke, and watch Coke Studio and feel artistic and modern -- as gutters overflow outside, there are power outages of epic proportions, people eat out of garbage cans, and talk of revolution is shifted to the back burner.  Street cleaners catch a brief reprieve under the tree as they listen to the radio on their mobiles.   But, its hot and humid and the world passes them by, despite how vivid their orange uniform maybe.  Nothing is funny.  Even the witty billboards selling boutique labels are unfunny - because of their desperation of spirit.  How long before maverick videos meet the same fate.

Its just that kind of day.  You pick up "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" for redeeming language, and the one thing that catches your eye is the story of a Brazilian family that fed on an amputated breast they scavenged.

The Urdu teacher's sister is divorced and carries shame in her eyes.  Everywhere I look, there's a I hate Luv Stories.  Girls get  attracted to the Ranbir Kapoor type; everyone is a Ranbir Kapoor type even the ugly and dull, because they feel entitled to acquire someone younger, prettier, and richer.  Girls feel guilty about chastity; and boys gallivant.  Everybody is a gangster.  Love died - the moment boys figured out just how much power exactly patriarchy bestows upon them.   

Families are oppressive; they control the young, yell, manipulate and shriek, brainwash them to adopt profitable careers, but when I see the same thirst for money and lust for early marriage in a student's eyes, I feel like a cat just got run over somewhere in the city.  Yes, accountancy is a very pragmatic choice.  If you are forty.

My contract says I can be fired at the owner's discretion, without so much as a token hearing.  Some capitalist elf out there rubbed his hands in glee when I signed that piece of paper and basically agreed that my four years of intellectual capital is erasable, me dispensable, and I will one day be replaced by some Casanova who calls me old guard and is willing to juggle too for half my salary.

Students think deadlines are flexible.  If you say 1st, it could be anywhere up until the 5th.  And when confronted, instead of burning the midnight oil and getting you something, they say dog ate homework, mama, and we still respect you.  

Got a visit from overseas and suddenly I was in least favored daughter in law status.  Which idiom is it?  Dhobi ka Kutta?  Ghar ki Murghi?  Some aunt sends pulao for the guests.  I know I've hit a new low when I proclaim, there is simply NOT enough rice for everyone because I want to (insert knife, twist) rather than make there be enough rice.

Durre Shahwar, drama on Hum TV, turned out to be bogus.

Signs were good.  I expected a feminist message.  However, it messages that girls must suffer through a bad marriage because ultimately relentless in-laws relent, husbands realize, and rescue you from perpetual domestic servitude.  Its takes time, but its always safer to play the poor little match girl.  

The victimized daughter-in-law is from an elite family.  In contrast her in-laws are shabbier, their decorations tacky; her friends and family are aghast when they visit as she quietly admits that life is not a fantasy.  Patriarchy, asserted through the saas institution, fixes any fanciful notions she may have about her higher status.  Her upper class father submits as fathers of daughters must, and writes docile letters telling her to conform, submit, tolerate.  And who else to better subjugate her will to the dictates of patriarchy than a well mannered, educated girl of elite background?  The show thus emotionally blackmails audiences to think people with virtue settle into shitty arrangement;  its the uncouth who fight back.

Remember the match girl froze.

I thought Durre would rebel or be subversive; sleep with the brother in law who appears to have a crush on her; run away to her husband's house and seduce him silly; consult a witch like Ariel did.  But no.  Instead she cooks, cleans, irons, plays mother and servant girl; has her washing machine, clothes and jewelry robbed.  And her only solace is writing to her dad who says, suck it up baby girl, because if you come back and live with us, you ain't never having sex again.  Episode 13 and 14 that show her descent to conformity are probably the most mesmerizing.

She develops empathy for her oppressive mother in law as she too had suffered similarly years ago - and embraces an army husband who is distant and can only relate to his wife by making her jealous about a fictitious lover;  but the chemistry is there between the actors because whenever something damp, frozen and regressive is reinforced though pretty faces, we love it because it validates patterns and systems.

Yes, patience and communication could make a relationship work.  But this is not about that.  Girls should bend.  Boys will be boys.

And in other news, those are your testicles.

My 4 year old asked me at bath time.  But can you, like, not say that or touch them in school; they will throw you out because schools like family and media reinforce capitalist patriarchy and instead of calling an elbow an elbow they'd rather mystify, obfuscate, sexualize and render dirty.  

Law and Order, Epilogue

Was it a judicial coup or a witch hunt against an elected prime minister?  Is there a party you can take sides with in this case?  Gillani is not a hero or a martyr in popular imagination.  Yet, his lawyer, Aitzaz Ahsan, presented sound legal arguments in his defense in the contempt case.  


My students struggle to identify the correct legal argument to form the moral, ethical basis of their view on the issue.  But law is malleable, fallible, not absolute.  Article 63 may be read  in a way that permits Gillani's disqualification as prime minister.  The Speaker of the House may be correct refusing referral to the Election Commission to call the shots on Gillani. (1)  The Supreme Court calling a contempt case suo motu and then adjudicating on the merits in the same may reflect bias and violate due process.   Opinions may vary on what is an internal matter of Parliament.  Gillani may have been scapegoated for intriguing reasons; yet he has not been absolved on the merits anyway.  The issue of presidential immunity may not be relevant to what the court asked Gillani to do -- withdraw the communication earlier made by the former Attorney-General, Malik Muhammad Qayyum to the Swiss authorities. 


But rather than becoming intellectually mystified by legalese to the point of distraction, lets look at the larger political picture and how the public gains or loses in this debate.   


The Supreme Court was perhaps just and fair in declaring the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) void ab initio in their December 2009 Mobashir Hassan decision, PLD 2010 SC 265 - thus a) de-legitimizing military brokered deals in governance matters and b) putting culpable people back on trial and be held accountable in a country demoralized by corruption scandals.  This decision could be the basis of good political reform, following an arduous struggle led by the lawyers for independence of the judiciary.


Their decision in Mobashir Hassan meant that no action taken or amnesty given under the NRO was recognized by the law.  Thus, cases against all 8,041 bureaucrats and politicians, including Zardari, who were prematurely exonerated or released, could be reinstated.  The court declared the then Attorney General Malik Qayyum's September 2008 letter to the Swiss authorities, asking them to withdraw the case against Zardari and others, ineffectual in the famous paragraph 178 of the NRO judgment.  


Gillani's contempt was that he refused to refer the matter to the Swiss authorities.  He maintained that Zardari is immune from prosecution; the same argument was later made vehemently by Aitzaz in court while defending him against contempt charges.  The Supreme Court's response, in their June 2012 judgment, was that Swiss courts could decide the matter of presidential immunity for themselves, and Aitzaz could make his arguments there.  Moreover, the obligation Gillani neglected involved people other than Zardari - and hence his conviction stands. (2)

The Swiss case against Zardari that forms the basis of this legal political drama is kickbacks he allegedly received when he awarded lucrative contracts to Coctena and SGS to the tune of 6% of a $131 million contract. (3)  That is a lot of money.  If returned to the people of Pakistan, it could be invested in social good.  His trial is thus in the public interest.  But there is a competing interest of allowing democratic rule to continue and ensure a semblance of stability.   In addition, insistence that the case be reopened is possibly moot and futile.  If Aitzaz's argument on the immunity is irrefutable, or at least strong, there will be no trial in Swiss courts until the expiration of Zardari's presidential term in 2013.  Better to do it once and properly at a time when immunity will no longer shield him.

But that would imply that the judiciary has somehow acceded that its judgment declaring the NRO void will not be complied with until a later date - in the public interest of preserving the democratic rule of leaders who may have benefited from a reconciliation pact rendered illegal retrospectively.

Before their April 2012 decision against Gillani for contempt,  the apex court inquired about the government's compliance with (rather flouting of) their 2009 order.  In the Adnan Khawaja case, the court questioned his appointment as MD of the Oil and Gas Development  Company Limited (OGDCL) against merit and  promotion of Ahmed Riaz Sheikh as Additional  Director, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA). (4)  


This resulted in what some called political chaos.  Newspaper headlines on the issue reported the series of Shakespearean twists that ensued between 2009 and 2012.  One Attorney General resigned trying to push compliance of the 2009 decision.  Babar Awan, the law minister played hookie to protect Zardari.  The Court was slighted.


The crisis was compelling and newsworthy; it makes good law drama when a new event happens, most recently Gillani's sacking.  Tremendous amounts of judicial, parliamentary, media resources are expended on it.  But is this debate useful?  How do the people of Pakistan weigh in and what is their larger interest?   Accountability in corruption cases is in the public interest as is reopening of the cases of NRO beneficiaries.   Having laundered money returned to public coffers is in the public interest.  Respect for judicial decision making power, post lawyers' movement, is also in the public interest.  Yet, derailing democracy is not.  Having people pardoned by the NRO serve the remainder of their 4 to 7 year sentences may not be of direct value.  


How should all these interests be weighed against each other?   Is the judiciary and the parliament in an unresolvable dilemma?  Have we made a khichri of the separation of powers doctrine?  How do the citizens of Pakistan ensure that judicial time is spent in the preservation of their fundamental freedoms also guaranteed by the same constitution?  How do we protect that criminals are duly prosecuted without compromising the efficient running of democratic governments?  Is law for letter only, to exist in and of itself, or can we respect its spirit?  

References:
(1) Complete Text of Speaker, Fehmida Mirza's Ruling, http://www.geo.tv/GeoDetail.aspx?ID=50750
(2) Full May 2012 Decision Against Gillani, http://www.supremecourt.gov.pk/web/user_files/File/Crl.O.P.6of2012.pdf
(3) http://dawn.com/2011/09/16/court-acquits-only-arrested-in-cotecna-case/
(4) Adnan Khwaja v. The State, http://www.supremecourt.gov.pk/web/user_files/File/NROCaseDt.10.01.2012.pdf

Alice's Prayer, Hanif's Karachi

An Informal Book Review of Mohammad Hanif's "Our Lady of Alice Bhatti."

Mohammad Hanif's "Our Lady of Alice Bhatti" is a book alive with the dangers of Karachi. It maybe rambunctious and vulgar as one reviewer wrote, but also the only contemporary way in which you can really write about Karachi.

A series of shocking events -- visceral, violent, and epic -- A Christian junior nurse slashing a penis thrust in her face; a police helper doing small talk with a suspect about to be eliminated, and seeing him to his last piss or a cigarette; a dead baby's bluish hand hanging  from its mother's birth canal like a big wart; an acid death; an assassination at the traffic signal; a villain dying to the sound of blaring horns and a display of bad manners; a mother lost on the slippery marble floors of a bungalow, raped perhaps; an inconsolable Communist chain-smoking doctor injecting mifeprex, inducing abortion because he can't marry a minority girl.

Behind these intermittent episodes is the backdrop of institutionalized oppression.  What it means to be a lower caste Christian in Pakistan - a choohra, a junior nurse, a cleaner of clogged gutters.  What it is to grow up around abuse and domineering fathers.  How violence permeates the life of the poor.  How women's bodies are subjected to scrutiny, evaluation, and claimed by violence.  How the clutch of caste never permits social mobility.  Softly yet, how one Christian bypasses discrimination by passing as Musla while secretly kneeling before Yassoo.  How the state's final assertion of power - the Borstal Home -  is reserved for the poor.

The book is the absurd documentation of the multiple layers of legal, social and economic oppression experienced by the city's most wretched -- who are invisible to most, and a passing interest to others in the blasphemy section of a human rights report.

But the story is not frightful like a train wreck or the news channels.   Miraculously, it is mostly soft and well-paced, with some jitters and turbulence.  The brutality is well camouflaged in a story about love;  its characters are engrossed in their own humanity.  Alice cures; she falls in love; she sways between God and revenge.  Noor vigilantly watches over his mother dying of cancer and shares with her a strange humor.  The 51 year old thrice married Sister Hina Alvi does her duty.




The main characters are necessarily comic, caricatures of their real selves with extraordinary powers of raising the dead, and being summoned by apparitions of the Holy Mother on the top of the Sacred Heart Hospital, acting often like superheroes, accosting and injuring deceptive men who had it coming; but sometimes real, vulnerable, feeling the pains and sorrows of life.

There are no exceptional elite characters who blur the morality of this narrative with their own -- present only in their distant villainy where you can see only their zippers and their dicks.  The other villains are the middle men and the butchers. The casually brutal police officers; their neurotic assistants who accept the worst murders, ethically unhinged but obedient; spineless leftists; miserly fathers who cut women's ears during Partition for gold earrings; the local Diocese that would never accept a choohra for sainthood.

Sometimes, Hanif exaggerates the beauty and the sadness; sometimes  he overdoes the meanness.  But that is the poignant excitement that makes this story, and the characters that inhabit it.  At twelve, the protagonist Alice Joseph Bhatti has lost her mother; as she furiously scrubs a pot trying to be her own mother, her father brings her a baby peacock he salvaged from the gutters, dripping in black filth;  at 27 she packs all her belongings, her beggar's dowry, in a gym bag and leaves her choohra father's home to marry a Musla;  her husband Teddy stares at her walking around without a shalwar and feels a seething anger.

Alice's body is described in cruel strokes.  Her collarbones stick out like sharpened boomerangs; but her breasts have somehow survived lack of proper nourishment.  An old nun quips she's a cross with tits when she has her picture taken behind a cross after an Easter play.  It seems pornographic except it is a simple statement of a destitute upbringing and the premonition of a sexually violent future.  Even possible comrades and faith sisters are middle villains.

The research work done by Hanif; perhaps walks through Neelam Colony in DHA, watching chicken throats cut at Empress market, interviews at the Holy family Hospital in Soldier Bazar, a visit to a woman's hostel -- Hanif has inhaled Karachi and its deep roughness, poverty, and violence, held it in, - presented its politics without romanticism, its conditions without the bandages.  He has pinned Karachi down and held a knife to its jagged edge.  Graphic and gutsy, this book can only get better in a film where all the glorious Urdu and local details would burst at the seams taking away that slightly sanitized quality English brings.

And in Alice Bhatti's prayer, he even offers a prayer potent enough to make good christians out of all of us.  And if not that, then at least revolutionaries and atheists.

She prays like she has never prayed before.  Its doesn't matter if there is a God listening or not.  She just conjures up her Lord Yassoo and gives it to Him. She Holds Him by His throat till He can't breathe, she hangs from His robe till He can't take a step forward, she grabs His goblet of wine and flings it across the room, she heckles Him when He descends from the Mount of Olives and starts to give His sermon, she snatches the fish from His disciples...She sings Him lullabies.  When He washes His disciples's feet, she accuses him of being a deadbeat Lord leaving poor wretched girls to bring dead babies into this world; she actually starts cursing him in Punjabi when he starts to raise Lazarus.