PukhtunWomen

Yes, I know I could have done better than this – however, Courage under Fire was not my first choice. I toyed with A Mighty Heart for a while, but realised that it gave away the fact that I had been watching more E!TV (and less of any of the bouquet of news channels on my television set) and for long consuming the publicity material of the Angelina Jolie movie (which brings to celluloid Marianne Pearl’s story of that fateful month in Karachi). But no matter what I decide on, I admit my column header does at first glance have all the markings of a bad Hollywood production with a wide-eyed Sally Field plotting to escape a land of badly accented English speakers, kohl-eyed men compulsory, white chadors optional.

I have been meaning to write about Malalai Joya for a while – that her ouster this week in a surreal twist of serendipity coincided with the resignation of Nilofar Bakhtiar just reminded me of that long pending deadline. One needs not dwell on the details of Ms Bakhtiar’s untimely departure. Why should the custodians of our morality be content with patrolling the roads and bylanes of Islamabad, monitoring the air waves and what we choose to watch on our DVD player? The long arm of our ‘thought police’ has extended to air spaces local and beyond. So any images of the ‘good Pakistani woman’ taking to the skies, actually descending from the skies with her male skydiving instructor with no mehram in sight did raise the mercury, to put it very lightly. Though Messrs Musharraf and company hemmed and hawed and made small talk about ‘Project Enlightened Moderation’, the truth was Ms Bakhtiar discovered that sadly her job was getting downsized and downsized, and then some more by the day. Last week she finally tendered her resignation as minister of tourism, though as I write these lines I hear that she did turn up for work sometime later. Suffice to say some of us have to rethink the “Visit Pakistan Year-2007” spiel that the Ministry of Tourism has on offer.

But now returning to the really fascinating Malalai Joya. Early this year, the young parliamentarian from Afghanistan was a visitor to Melbourne. Her reputation, clichéd as it sounds, preceded her. (I realise that is turning into a gushing article along the publicity packs – read preceding paragraphs.) Joya, daughter of a medical student who suffered grievous injuries fighting against the Soviet forces, grew up as a refugee in Iran and Pakistan. She returned to her home country in 1998 and lobbied against the Taliban, however it was her address to the Loya Jirga convened in 2003 to draft her country’s constitution when Ms Joya, in the words of her admirers, “burst on the screen” in her frank views regarding her compatriots and their duplicity regarding some in their midst.

“I feel pity and I feel very sorry that those who call Loya Jirga an infidel basis equivalent to blasphemy after coming here, their words are accepted, or please see the committees and what people are whispering about. The chairman of every committee is already selected. Why do you not take all these criminals to one committee so that we see what they want for this nation? These were those who turned our country into the nucleus of national and international wars. They were the most anti-women people in society who wanted to…who brought our country to this state and they intend to do the same again. I believe that it is a mistake to test those already being tested. They should be taken to national and international courts. If they are forgiven by our people, the barefooted Afghan people, our history will never forgive them. They are all recorded in the history of our country.”

Her outburst brought her brickbats, death threats and a life of being constantly on the move – her friends tell me that she has to change houses every second day to avoid being murdered, such is the ire her candidness has earned her. However, there were many who admired her for her lack of guile on matters politic, and sometime later in 2005, Ms Joya was voted to Afghanistan’s Parliament as the people’s representative from Farah.

In Melbourne, the young woman who turned up for lunch was far from the image of the firebrand bent on besmirching the name of her “traditional elders”. At first glance, my colleagues mistook her for a student asking for our lecture notes, as she walked hesitantly to our table with her backpack. During lunch, her passion about her country and her plans for its future had us enthralled. When it comes to talk about all that troubles Afghanistan, my country cannot be far behind and I wondered how we would tackle that issue. However, Joya was very pragmatic when it came to the issue. She is sensitive in not confusing sentiments with geographical boundaries. She spoke of the affection and goodwill she has received from persons unexpected, a group of American mothers in the US whose sons died serving in Afghanistan, and the ‘warm hearted’ embrace she received from them and the simple words “we understand”.

Malalai is in the news again. In a recent interview, she deplored the state of affairs in the Afghan Parliament as some sitting in the august house of parliamentarians used “unparliamentary language”. The Parliament is worse than a stable,” she told Tolo TV. “A stable is better, for there you have a donkey that carries a load and a cow that provides milk.” Their reaction was swift and furious to say the least, with the speedy passage of a motion to suspend her from Parliament – at least till the end of the current parliamentary session (it will be 2010 until Ms Joya can hope to return) – under a piece of legislation the parliamentary spokesman Haseb Noor explained to newspersons actually “forbade politicians from insulting one another”.

Eva Mulvad, who has directed the documentary The Enemies of Happiness (based on Joya’s life) and is a proud recipient of the World Cinema Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, explains in an interview that she is not surprised by the turn of affairs. “Yes, I think they want to get rid of her voice. She is really disturbing to a lot of people. And I must say, she is also very, very radical, taken the situation in Afghanistan and the way that woman used to be talking in public. So I mean she is also really challenging a lot of the rules and traditions.” Joya’s former colleague, Soraya Paikan, who until recently was Afghanistan’s deputy minister of higher education, was more forthcoming regarding Joya’s ouster. Replying to a query whether Joya’s gender played a role in her “ban” from Parliament, Paikin concurred with the view: “Even the man if they are very crafty and they are killing and they are using very bad, bad words. Why are you using these kind of words for the woman? Because we are women, and women do not have any respect in this country.”

Which should not read as very foreign to readers in Islamabad. With a president who has stirred controversy by using quite ‘unparliamentary’ language when it comes to commenting on brave Pakistani women who want to raise our political conscience regarding the stare of affairs facing their sisters today. It was not so long ago when in reference to the Mukhtaran Mai issue, our president claimed that women in Pakistan were “getting themselves raped” to get visas, go abroad and make millions. Musharraf had said aloud what we know many of our dimwitted fellow citizens feel about the Mukhtaran issue, actually any woman who dares speak out about human rights abuses in Pakistan. They all believe that if she was a ‘good woman’ or saw herself as a ‘conscientious Pakistani citizen’, she would keep quiet about such matters rather than sully her country’s name by discussing the nation’s shortcomings when it came to ensuring citizens’ rights. There is increasing pressure on members of civil society in Pakistan in a twisted game of ‘enforced’ nationalism to keep quiet regarding contentious issues. It is a courageous person like Joya who realises that it is impossible to continue the farce of consolidating one’s national honour by sweeping all that troubles it under the carpet and hope everyone else is looking the other way!