Ahmadiyya Times: Pakistan & Talibanization: The parable of Swat flogging

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

"Pakistan's silent majority which, despite knowing that the wheel is inherently designed to come full circle, is too self-absorbed or apathetic to speak up."

Ahmadiyya Times | News Staff | Opinion

Source & Credit: The Nation | Pakistan

By Talat Farooq | Islamabad | April 06, 2010

This piece, dear reader, is from the heart. After reading Samar Minallah's article in The News (April 5) I decided to watch the Swat flogging video again; it immediately whipped up feelings of humiliation and indignation with the same force as when I had seen it the first time. I was once again reminded of the fact why the ordinary people of Pakistan reacted so fiercely against the sordid event and with their courageous outpouring turned the tide against the Taliban and their supporters. It happened not only because the ordinary citizens of this country are more God-fearing than many self-proclaimed soldiers of God but also because they could relate to the helplessness and indignity of the female in the video both at the conscious and unconscious levels.

The video is also a parable that symbolises our story. Our self-esteem has received various blows over the decades; the American drone attacks constitute just one of the items on the long list of humiliations and abuses that our nation has endured. The unfolding tragedy on the video reminds us that since the creation of Pakistan a large segment of our society has suffered perpetual humiliation at the whip-wielding hands of the powerful, be they influential feudal lords, affluent businessmen, military and civilian dictators, religious bigots or a stagnant bureaucracy. While they continue to hold us hostage to their personal agendas, our own hands and feet, like the hapless girl, are in the strong grip of their minions and cronies.

Both the elite and their allies are control freaks who continue to inflict excruciating pain on us to ensure we remain incapable of rational judgment, just like the silent spectators in the video. Their silence symbolises Pakistan's silent majority which, despite knowing that the wheel is inherently designed to come full circle, is too self-absorbed or apathetic to speak up.

The silence of the majority reflects a deep sense of inferiority that stems from decades of being denied the right to participate in the process of nation-building on our own terms. Forced into chasing imported dreams from America and the Arab world we continue to suffer from identity crises.

In the video the young woman on the ground embodies complex symbolism. On one level, she represents the vulnerable female at the mercy of physically strong males in a patriarchal social-structure, unequipped with the essentials of education and awareness of rights and lacking social and state support. Her fundamental human rights, of which her dignity is paramount, remain an elusive dream. The so-called Islamic state and its Nizam-e-Adl, as envisioned by the likes of the Taliban, can only function if she is incarcerated physically, mentally and emotionally to ensure her stunted growth.

On another level, the face-down posture of the female victim in the video signifies the faceless millions belonging to the marginalised and deprived sections of our society. They live and die as non-entities in their own land and are made to eat dust everyday in the face of red tape-ism and VVIP culture; their screams fail to move the affluent and the resourceful. Governmental institutions, feudal justice systems and tribal mindsets mete out a daily dose of humiliation and indignity to them; this, coupled with institutionalised corruption, compounds their helplessness and uproots all hopes of social amelioration.

The burqa-clad 17–year-old reminds us of the underprivileged for yet another reason. Like her, the faces of the poor are also invisible to the powerful elite; yet they themselves can clearly see through the veil and are able to bear witness to the identity of both their torturers and the onlookers. And to them, as to her, they are both on the same side.

The only promising factor in the video is also the most heart-breaking. The screams of the victim, sometimes loud sometimes muffled, demonstrate her ability to verbalise her pain under extreme duress. May her screams become consistently louder with every passing day till the silent majority discovers the courage to denounce both conspiracy theories and their creators. This alone would give them the nerve to snatch the whip from the hands of their torturers. Her screams may yet jolt, with greater intensity, the hearts and minds of the various segments of civil society that has begun to stir and squirm under the weight of injustice and hypocrisy.

The parable of the Swat flogging is incomplete; it is up to the people of Pakistan to give it a dignified ending.

Read the original post here: The parable of Swat flogging

About the writer:
Serving as the executive editor of Criterion Quarterly, an Islamabad based research journal, Mrs. Talat Farooq holds an M.Phil. in American Studies and has written two Urdu poetry collections. Mrs. Talat Farooq is a committed educationalist and social worker. She can be reached at talatfarooq11@gmail .com.