Pakistan Press On Understanding Islamophobia, Journalists In Pakistan And Magna Carta For Pakistan: New Age Islam's Selection, 17 November 2020
By New Age Islam Edit
Desk
17 November
2020
• Understanding Islamophobia
By Yasmeen Aftab Ali
• Journalists In Pakistan Being Deprived Of
Free Will
By Munazza Siddiqui
• Women’s Charter Of Demands
By Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir And Nighat Dad
• Magna Carta For Pakistan
By Dr Nadeem Ul Haque And Malik Ahmad Jalal
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Understanding Islamophobia
By Yasmeen Aftab Ali
November
17, 2020
Despite the
fact that the ethical, cultural backgrounds of Muslims from around the world
are vastly different, they are all put together in a box. They are
discriminated against on basis of their perceived beliefs and names. The
Runnymede Trust in its 1997 Report acknowledged that the racism against Muslims
goes by without being challenged as Muslims are not sociologically &
geographically a ‘racial group.’ This is an interesting contradiction that
needs a closer look.
Racism is a
belief that certain race possesses behavioral traits and physical appearances
that are very different from the others and can be discriminated on grounds of
others being superior to them. Basically racism is antagonistic and prejudiced
against, because they are of a different ethnicity/race. However, it is clear
that different Muslims from different countries are different from each other
on the basis of culture, lifestyles, physical appearance and so on. So the
discrimination is strictly religious discrimination and placing it under the
umbrella of racism may not be correct. “While Islam is not a race, it is argued
that Muslims can nevertheless be racialized. Racialization is a contested
concept that arose in scholarly circles in the wake of the gradual discrediting
(not disappearance) of doctrines of biological superiority and difference,
which led-in some circles-to a shift from race to culture as the marker of
group superiority. White people could no longer speak openly about being
biologically superior but could claim to have a superior culture that makes
them more advanced, developed, and civilized, and this cultural superiority is
then used to justify policies of domination and exclusion.” (Caner K. Dagli
specializes in Qur’anic studies, interfaith dialogue, and philosophy: College
of Holy Cross)
The
question that arises here is: are all Muslims as a race religious extremists?
And are Muslims alone extremists to the exclusion of followers of other
religion? History does not support this view.
The world
must first understand that Islamophobia exists. And the fact that whenever
there is exclusion, antagonism; there will be reaction. Sometimes reaction or
action can come before exclusion
In any
given religion the beliefs followed may take different forms. These include the
Moderates. The Fundamentalists. The Extremists. The Militants. The moderates’
belief is not watered down as compared to other categories. They implicitly
believe in their beliefs & practices but understand that different knowledge
comes from different kinds of sources.
Until 1950,
there was no entry for fundamentalism in the Oxford English Dictionary; the
derivative, fundamentalist, was added only in its second, 1989 edition. The
Fundamentalists do believe that only their way of thinking is correct as
opposed to any other. However, a Fundamentalist need not be an extremist or a
militant. Extremism may broadly be defined as, “”the quality or state of being
extreme” or “the advocacy of extreme measures or views”. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
If one historically views the Christian Fundamentalists, one can see that they
observe the world from a Manichean view that bases its conflict of doctrine
like light vs dark. There are no shades of gray in-between. Christian
Fundamentalism for example began among British & American Protestants as
early as 19th & 20th Century. They opposed the theologians whom they
accused of misinterpreting certain doctrines that formed the basis of Christian
faith like biblical inerrancy. They always have an approach of interpreting the
Bible literally.
According
to authors Robert D. Woodberry and Christian S. Smith:
Following
the Civil War, tensions developed between Northern evangelical leaders over
Darwinism and higher biblical criticism; Southerners remained unified in their
opposition to both (Marsden 1980, 1991). Modernists attempted to update
Christianity to match their view of science. They denied biblical miracles and
argued that God manifests himself through the social evolution of society.
Conservatives resisted these changes. These latent tensions rose to the surface
after World War I in what came to be called the fundamentalist/modernist split.
(Woodberry, Robert D; Smith, Christian S. (1998). “Fundamentalism et al:
conservative Protestants in America”. Annual Review of Sociology. 24 (1):
25-56.)
Religious
Militancy is yet another layer of approach. Religion can be a powerful
aphrodisiac to unite people and mobilize them. They can be not only used but
also misused in this way. Religious extremism can & does arise within a
religion against different points of view that lead to conflict &
subsequently militancy. Many Jewish thinkers & militants hold the view that
Golan Heights & Gaza are a permanent part of Eretz Israel (Translated it
means “Land of Israel”). They support larger Jewish establishments in the
occupied areas with a view to marginalize Palestinian settlements. The Israeli
army has killed more Palestinians in the intifadas than the other way round.
The brief
discourse hopefully clarifies that any religion has different cultural,
ethnical groups of people that cannot be jointly labelled under one heading.
Even within one religion different individuals have different approaches
towards religion. Also, this is not one-religion specific. It applies to all
religions.
It was not
until the Islamic Iranian Revolution that the term ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ was
coined. This made it easy for the West to relate to what was happening in that
part of the world, as they were well aware of Christian fundamentalism.
Pew
Research Center in an interesting research, in a report stated that from a
period of 2007 till 2017 government restrictions on laws, religious freedom,
beliefs & their practices have increased manifold. In its Tenth Annual
Report, PEW presents the data that 52 governments including Russia & China
placed a high restriction on religion. The percentage has gone up by 40% from
2007.
Religious
militancy is intertwined with religious terrorism. According to Juergensmeyer,
religion and violence have had a symbiotic relationship since before the
Crusades and even since before the Bible. (Juergensmeyer, Mark (2004). Terror
in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. University of
California Press)
The world
must first understand that Islamophobia exists. And the fact that whenever
there is exclusion, antagonism; there will be reaction. Sometimes reaction or
action can come before exclusion. There are no hard & fast rules. However,
the issue to be handled needs better understanding at grass root level of
strands involved. Generalizations are self-defeating. The majority of Muslims
around the world are moderates & do not support religious militancy.
Clubbing all Muslims in one group-in unjust and in turn gives birth to more
negativity.
International
media can play a pivotal role in putting forth in a balanced view that shun
confrontation and encourage inclusivity. Media must transform the general
culture of blame game & promote one of tolerance and promoting
understanding between communities hailing from different religions. The
hostility and hate lets out in different areas may it be civil society,
academia and activism. The narrative of women wearing hijab for example is part
of their religious belief, just as nuns covering their hair. The covering of
hair is attributed to modesty since time immemorial. A traditional
interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:2-6 in the New Testament inspires covering
of head while “praying and prophesying”. (Osburn, Carroll D. (1 July 2007).
Essays on Women in Earliest Christianity, Volume 1. Wipf and Stock Publishers.
p. 208)
This world
needs inclusivity.
And more
inclusivity.
-----
Yasmeen Aftab Ali is a lawyer, academic and
political analyst. She has authored a book titled ‘A Comparative Analysis of
Media & Media Laws in Pakistan.’
https://dailytimes.com.pk/690028/understanding-islamophobia/
------
Journalists In Pakistan Being Deprived Of Free
Will
By Munazza Siddiqui
November
14, 2020
Buridan’s
donkey was quietly dying. Philosophers were ripping apart the paradox at the seams
when it suddenly acquired a new lease of life. It assumes that a hungry donkey
standing precisely midway between two identical piles of hay will be unable to
choose between the two and starve to death because reason provides no grounds
for choosing one rather than the other. Despite its inherent contradiction,
this philosophical paradox is about ‘free will’, assuming absolute free will
exists.
Either way,
free will has never been as fictional as it is today. Before technology went
exponential, before recent waves of populism and nationalism swept the world
with their histrionics, and when the world was somehow easier to understand,
free will was just that: free will. Sure, we knew it was a profound philosophic
problem, but at least we believed it existed, even if it was relegated to the
shadows. We also believed we had a right to it. But now, not so more because
those shadows are fading and lines are being drawn in blood.
According
to a voguish critique of free will: “The very concept of free will is incoherent;
therefore, it obviously doesn’t exist.” In order to endure such an
over-simplification of this basic yet complicated human right, self-proclaimers
have built for themselves a carapace – an elaborate system of rationalization,
if you will. Basically, this system justifies monocratic actions in the name of
the greater good. As a logical outcome of this system, patriotism and
nationalism become interchangeable. Who cares if these are as different as day
and night. As long as they feel the same, they must be the same. Laws don’t
understand feelings so populism gets to decide who’s a patriot and who’s not.
The first casualty of this whimsical environment is the perception of free will
– and hence the freedom to choose.
The concept
of casualty is central to the idea of free will; that effects have causes. So
what happens when equal enticements are replaced with equal threats, when two
alternatives are judged to carry equally frightening consequences. Deriving
from the conclusion of 14th century French philosopher Jean Buridan of the
Donkey Paradox that in such a situation no rational choice can be made and
action must be suspended until circumstances change, it would be logical to
conclude that in case of equal threats one has no choice but to freeze from indecision.
Journalists
in Pakistan today are being forced to do exactly that. Fear is freezing
honest-to-God journalists every day. As if there weren’t enough menaces
impeding sound judgement already, the last few of years have seen a dramatic
rise in multidirectional yet equally menacing reasons for practicing
indecision.
There was a
time when pressures to censor were – for lack of a better word – distinctly
unidirectional. We never came to terms with the pressures but at least we knew
what they were about and how to play around them. It gave a semblance of
liberty and allowed us the freedom to do our jobs, albeit creatively. Not so
much anymore. Every pillar of journalism is struggling to cope with fear, and
laws meant to protect journalists as professionals and as citizens no longer
work as well as before. Yet they should, more than ever before, because laws
are not there just to protect the weak but also to protect us from our
individual and institutional autocratic impulses.
To give an
example, journalists in Pakistan are being labelled traitors for doing their
job. One third of the journalists facing legal cases in Pakistan risk being
charged under the Anti-Terrorism Law, and most of these cases have been filed
by government officials who are often ranking bureaucrats. The most common
allegations against journalists include “acting against state institutions” or
“defaming state institutions”.
Journalists
in Pakistan are being systematically deprived of free will. They are being made
to believe that theirs is an unholy job. Fear of retribution is forcing them to
freeze with indecision. That is akin to not having the right to choose. The
current extent of threats facing journalists in Pakistan today prove Jean
Buridan’s paradox: that if the situation doesn’t change soon, journalists will
start to wither away.
----
Munazza Siddiqui is an executive producer, Geo
News, and editor of Jang-The Economist annual edition.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/743446-between-fear-and-fear
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Women’s Charter Of Demands
By Imaan Zainab
Mazari-Hazir and Nighat Dad
November
14, 2020
On the
28the of October this year, the women of Pakistan released a letter and Charter
of Demands, which was addressed to the state of Pakistan, and copies of which
were shared with the president, prime minister, minister for law, minister for
human rights, minister for interior and all members of the National Assembly.
As of now,
over 1700 women across the country have signed the Charter of Demands, while
over 200 men have endorsed it. Over 1700 women came together to express their
grievances to the state, and recommend solutions for the way forward in
protecting women, and the state’s response is apt: pretend like there is no
problem to address.
The 22
demands contained therein encompass a broad range of issue areas, where reform
can be pushed without substantive resource re-allocation and financial cost.
For example, one of the demands calls for the expedited and increased
recruitment of female police officers. Where women police stations cannot be
immediately established, it has been recommended that women-staffed units be
set up at each police station nationwide. This is the least that can be done to
ensure that barriers to access for women in filing complaints and pursuing
remedies are removed.
We are all
well aware of the fact that when women go to police stations to register cases
of harassment, they are discouraged from pursuing them by male police officers,
who can neither empathize nor process the trauma and humiliation inflicted upon
women as a result of what has been accepted as routine harassment.
In a
similar vein, another demand provides for the expedited inclusion of female
prosecutors and provision of adequate resources and facilities to Gender Based
Violence (GBV) courts. Even after women overcome the hurdle of dealing with
police, the next obstacle in their way are judges and lawyers who have not
received gender sensitization training and, therefore, do not deal with issues
of sexual violence in a tactful and sensitive manner. Women who have been
subjected to sexual violence or harassment already have trauma inflicted upon
them. No woman wants to relive the trauma, especially not in a criminal justice
system where the odds are stacked against her.
Another
important demand of relevance considering recent developments is the immediate
removal of all elected and appointed state officials that engage in the
victim-blaming of survivors of sexual assault. The charter demands that a
zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment and misogynistic remarks be
implemented. Recently, a government representative attributed a leading
opposition figure’s “beauty” to “plastic surgeries” allegedly paid for with
taxpayer’s money. As if it isn’t bad enough that women politicians’ physical
appearances and clothes are commented on ad nauseum, now even the beauty of
some female politicians is subject to question and turned into political
fodder.
There is a
history and context for these sexist attacks. Senior male leadership from the
PPP, PML-N, PTI and JUI-F have all made remarks of this kind at one point or
another, often even on the floor of parliament. What we see in response to such
attacks is a classic deflection tactic: but others have done so too. That is
exactly the point – everyone has done it and it is not acceptable. It can never
be tolerated, regardless of where the attack against a woman is coming from.
Equally
important is the demand for introducing, and making compulsory, intermediate
and secondary level courses highlighting legal and moral viewpoints on gender
sensitization, harassment and sexual violence. It is pertinent to recognize the
prevalence of rape culture and teach children in schools about the concept of
consent. At present, women in Pakistan are not viewed as having agency of their
own – that is the fundamental root cause of violence against women.
Another
significant demand in the charter is to decriminalize defamation in Pakistan,
particularly in light of the decision by several democratic governments around
the world to get rid of their criminal defamation laws. What we have seen in
Pakistan is this criminal defamation law being used to silence survivors of
harassment and sexual violence. Safe spaces for women cannot be created –
online or offline – till the culture of silence is broken.
The only
way to ensure silence does not persist is through the creation of a safe and
enabling environment in which survivors can speak about their traumatic
experiences of violence and harassment. The United Nations Special Rapporteur
on the promotion of freedom of expression has already stated that criminal
defamation laws are an unjustifiable restriction on expression and that the
same must be abolished.
Despite the
scale of violence and harassment prevalent in Pakistan, Gender Based Violence
(GBV) courts have not been operationalized throughout the country, reflecting
the non-serious attitude of the State towards women’s issues. Former CJ Asif
Saeed Khan Khosa had directed all the high courts across the country, in
October 2019, to ensure the establishment of GBV courts by November 4, 2019.
This apathy
towards the plight of women is also reflected in non-implementation of the
Criminal Law Amendment (Offence of Rape) Act 2016. This law was an important
piece of legislation; since it was introduced, women have not been charged with
zina for reporting rape. However, the law is not enough – there also needs to
be awareness of the law and here is where state apathy is reflected. Most women
do not know that if a police officer, or medico-legal officer, refuses to
proceed in accordance with law where the crime of rape is reported, they can
invoke Section 166 of the Penal Code 1860 (public servant disobeying law, with
intent to cause injury to any person).
While cases
of abduction and kidnapping for rape, sexual abuse, etc. have to be decided
within a three-month time frame, this time period is not strictly adhered to.
Women who do approach the courts for some form of relief in these cases are
often left disappointed and disgusted as proceedings linger on and they face
additional trauma and humiliation in court.
Understanding
that these are not isolated incidents of violence but part of a larger pattern
stemming from how women are viewed in Pakistan is crucial. Some facts in this
regard are pertinent to expose the scale of violence. Since the motorway
gang-rape incident on September 9 this year, there have been 123 cases of rape
and gang rape reported in the country. On September 13, a young girl was
gang-raped and killed by three people in Jhelum. On the same date, another girl
was repeatedly raped by her stepfather in Gujranwala; and also on the same
date, another girl was sexually assaulted at gunpoint in Bahawalpur by an
influential person.
On
September 14, a woman in Bahawalpur was gang-raped after returning home from a
marriage ceremony. Also on September 14, a man, his brother and other
accomplices stabbed his first wife to death in Lahore. Again, on September 14,
a woman in Sargodha was killed by her nine year old nephew over ‘honour’.
On
September 15, a female lawyer was killed by her husband in Hyderabad. On
September 16, a woman was shot by her brother in Lahore. There are too many
cases and not enough space here to narrate the data from September 13 this year
till November 11.
Is the
state asleep? Does it not realize that no woman in Pakistan is safe anywhere?
Does it have no responsibility towards its citizens – except to mobilize after
public pressure when news of a horrific incident surfaces? It has been weeks
since the president and prime minister were sent the Charter of Demands. Acts
of violence continue with impunity on a massive scale; we only come to know of
those cases reported. Yet, neither the president nor the prime minister has
felt it appropriate to respond to these 1700 women or to take this charter
forward.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/743441-women-s-charter-of-demands
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Magna Carta for Pakistan
By Dr Nadeem Ul Haque
And Malik Ahmad Jalal
November
17, 2020
In 1215 AD,
King John of England signed the Magna Carta (‘The Great Charter’) – a historic
power-sharing arrangement with a group of rebel barons. Its philosophy is
enshrined in the British legal system, as well as the American constitution.
What were the principles of Magna Carta that led to the emergence of two
successive superpowers?
In its
sixty-three clauses, the thirteenth century barons engaged in deep thinking on
a mechanism for opposing power holders to co-exist by constraining their own
powers, with a system of local government (city charters), granting greater
protections to citizens from themselves to ensure that power was not
concentrated in a few hands – a far greater vision for nation-building than the
twenty-first century leaders of our country.
The Magna
Carta eventually led to the creation of a governance system of parliamentary
democracy, affirmed liberties of local management for cities like London,
giving all English subjects the right to a fair trial. Most importantly, the
document established a balance of power between the barons and the king, so the
nation could progress without being paralyzed by struggles for power. The
history of great nations and empires are marked with such grand bargains and landmark
arrangements which demonstrate great statesmanship and sacrifice, of
constraining the power of your constituency and devolving it to citizens to
become more united and powerful as a nation.
Looking
back at 73 years of our own upheavals – competition for absolute power between
strong constituencies, from “vote ko izzat dou” to hybrid regimes, the National
Reconciliation Ordinance, Charter for Democracy, but no statesmanship of the
Magna Carta level. Our charters are about gaining absolute power, or perpetuation
of self-power- for my family, clan or institution. They are mere affirmations
of ‘my might is right’ and not an act of state-craft by distributing power and
creating an ownership society.
All
institutions want a say in policymaking, but there must be an institutional
mechanism for engagement between different state institutions for long-term
policy development, though no key players address the central issue of setting
up the rules of power sharing and accountability. So, we live in a state of perpetual
crisis, from commissions to reconciliations, or from the Alliance for
Restoration of Democracy (ARD) to the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM).
Without
agreed rules of respective responsibility and accountability enforced through
an institutional setup, we act like spoilt children seeking absolute power –
what King John too craved. Instead of collaboration, cohabitation, we seek
total domination and unquestioning loyalty. This is the reason our fight is
about getting into government, but not whether parliament performs or not.
Political
families keep party leadership within the family. Such tight control of talent
to run the party, and hence government, precipitates mis-governance and
mis-management. Family comes first, then political party and the nation perhaps
last. The establishment too are caught in the game, with hardly any strategy
for systemic improvements.
And
Pakistan continues to wait for statesmen or intellectuals who can develop
blueprints of a grand bargain for our country’s progress. We dream of a
Pakistani Great Charter which will strike a settlement between players, to
reframe the existing zero-sum and divisive political game of maximizing their
share of national wealth, to aligning all constituencies to increase the size
of national wealth, so everyone has a greater share to themselves. For this,
thinkers and ideologues must develop grand reform ideas.
A consensus
is required on a new electoral system which creates a level playing field for
new knowledgeable entrants, without privilege or established power. We need to
think beyond the first-past-the-post system of winner-takes-all and governments
forming with only 30 percent votes. A system of ranked choice on the ballot
with proportional representation will make our electoral process more
egalitarian, inclusive, and break old political monopolies.
There
should be a clear definition of a party that can be listed on the ballot, as an
entity with regular ECP-managed internal party elections. Without this
condition, a party should not be listed on a ballot. There can also be a
requirement of a minimum membership in each province to be registered on the
ballot, to force political parties to appeal across linguistic, ethnic
boundaries.
Legislators
must be legislators. They can have no say in development projects or in
executive decisions. No more than five percent of the legislature can have any
executive position – to keep a clear divide between legislature and executive.
Term limits must be reinstated not only for the PM, but for legislators too.
Representation is not a lifetime entitlement or subject to the ability to buy
votes.
A Great
Charter must be backed by a process of deep consultation, involving small
town-hall meetings to draw up plans for the deep reform of all our colonial
institutions, from the civil service to judiciary, from intellectual spaces to
defence forces – to build an institutional and governance architecture for the
digital age. The process should culminate in parliament, and not in half-baked
ordinances or amendments that are orchestrated in the dark of night.
The concept
of Charter is embedded in Hadith. When Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) entered Mecca in
a glorious victory, instead of retribution he sought co-existence with local
power players by assigning houses as refuge of peace forging humanity’s first
City Charter with the residents of Mecca. The reverent final sermon at the Hajj
was about protecting property, keeping trust and equality before Allah of Arabs
and non-Arabs – forging the Charter for Muslim Nationhood, to progress as a
unified cohesive body, even as diversity increases.
Nation-building
is a decades-long project that requires statesmen to think beyond themselves,
their families, and to strive for the growth of our nation by bringing out its
best facets and strengths of constituencies together. This is not only
politically correct, but an obligation incumbent upon all of us.
-----
Malik Ahmad Jalal is the founder of Zambeel
Partners and Pakistan2047.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/744672-magna-carta-for-pakistan
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