Re: Mixed Marathon in Lahore-Finally
Enlightened Moderation or Farce?
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/cowas/cowas.htm
The run: double standards
By Ardeshir Cowasjee
OUR Leader, Enlightened General Pervez Musharraf, plays games with the four leaders of the ‘democratic’ parties and tries to keep all four happy. He is akin to a juggler who throws up four balls in the air, and keeps them all flying without letting one drop. This is no mean task, particularly when the juggler and the juggled have identical two-point agendas.
Now, for the ‘core’ issue — the run in Lahore. Confusion and double standards reign. This is nothing new.
On the last Sunday of February this year, Lahore hosted a marathon event sponsored by Standard Chartered Bank and by the Punjab Chief Minister’s Task Force on Lahore. Over 50 athletes from 16 countries had been invited to participate. The men, including City Nazim Mian Amer Mahmood, ran the true marathon course of 26 miles, 385 yards (the distance run by Pheidippedes in 490 BC, from Marathon to Athens to announce the Greek victory over the Persians).
The women, local and foreign, garbed as they chose, ran a shorter 10 kilometre course. Reportedly, 15,000 men and women ran, while the routes were lined by thousands more cheering them all on. Pervaiz Elahi, the enthusiastic chief minister, was the chief guest at the concluding ceremony, to which naturally the ‘elite of the city’, including parliamentarians and high officials, were invited. So successful was the event that it was announced that the international mixed marathon would henceforth be an annual event, the next one to be run on January 29, 2006.
Where were the mullah-maulvi brigade, and the gentlemen of the MMA? They were probably amongst the various VIP guests, or maybe they were lining the routes happily watching the runners run by. Wherever, there was not an anti-cheep to be heard from any of them, either before or after the event.
We move on to April 3 and Gujranwala. The administration of one of the cities of Punjab buoyed up by the Lahore experience, decided to organize its own marathon, backed again by the enthusiasm of its own local runners, male and female. Before the assembled runners could get going, they were attacked by a mob of diehard religious extremists (members of that one per cent which, complains that President Musharraf, holds the entire country hostage), wielding batons, Molotov cocktails and guns, spurred on by the local Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal MNA Qazi Hameedullah (the MMA were full of themselves, after the rather successful nation-wide strike they had called on April 2, and of course after the triumphant victory over our passports). The police entered the scene, crossfire was exchanged, and 80 people were injured.
On April 4, marathon-enthusiast Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi, who happened to be in Jhang addressing a public meeting, reportedly “slammed those against the participation of women in games and said such individuals exploited women when they needed votes…”. On the same day, the Punjab Assembly passed a resolution “condemning the attack on female participants by MMA activists of a marathon in Gujranwala saying it was terrorism and against the basic constitutional rights of women.”
On April 6, a news item informed us that the administrations of Multan, Bahawalpur and Sarghoda had ‘postponed’ their scheduled mixed marathons, and that even were they to be rescheduled, women would not be allowed to participate. It also informed us that MMA leader Hafiz Hussain Ahmed had issued a statement to the press : “We will be forced to stop the women’s races in the country if the present regime headed by Pervez Musharraf does not stop these un-Islamic acts.” (Is running really unIslamic?).
Further information, via Reuters, was that the brave Punjab Sports Minister Naeemullah Khan Shahani had declared that the marathons would be held, and with women participating, despite the MMA threats. To the best of our knowledge, there has been no rescheduling.
Now all this violent nonsense, and un-Islamic zeal, inflamed the highly inflammable activist lawyer Asma Jehangir, chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. She and the members of the Joint Action Committee for People’s Rights, decided to test out the president’s call for enlightened moderation, the Punjab chief minister’s outrage, and the declaration of Mr Shahani, and decided to organize a marathon of sorts in Lahore in which both men and women would participate.
The organizers sought permission from the various relevant authorities, who all brushed them off, one excuse being that Section 144 was imposed in the city. Now, Section 144 of the Pakistan Penal Code reads : “Joining unlawful assembly armed with deadly weapons.” A sporting event qualifying as ‘unlawful assembly’? And the deadliest weapon carried by the mini-marathoners could either be a dupatta or a mobile phone.
So, on May 14, 30-odd enlightened moderates gathered near the Qadhafi Stadium to start their rather short run to Kalima Chowk. Before they could get going, they were attacked, literally, by, not the bearded brigade, but by the police force, under the orders of Lahore Nazim Mian Amir Mahmood, an eager runner in the February 27 marathon. **Either the Punjab government and the Lahore administration had decided they were no match for the thugs of the MMA or a convenient ‘understanding’ had been reached between the three. The 30 were all ‘picked up’ which, as is seen in the photos published in the press, also included a roughing up. Asma had her clothes torn from her back and Iqbal ‘Groovy’ Haider was hauled away, carried horizontally by policemen grasping his shoulders and legs. They were all taken to the nearest police station, locked up and let off after a couple of hours.
**
Chaudhry of Gujrat Pervaiz Elahi, ruler of the ruling province, reportedly expressed his ‘shock and dismay’ to the press, making the excuse that the deplorable incident was the fault of the city government and had nothing to do with his pristine government. According to Iqbal Haider, who luckily is as chirpy and well as he normally is, he was rung up by Elahi, by secretary-general former mouthpiece of Mian Sahib’s thoughts, Mushahid Hussain Syed, and by various other ‘dignitaries’ of the party of pathetics, all expressing their ‘shock and grief’. What a farce!
However, undeterred, Asma, Haider and the group are pressing on. They will not give in. Why should they? Enlightened moderation is the call of the day, women have their rightful place at the poll booth, in our assemblies and in the federal cabinet. Why should they not be in the sports arena — or any other arena for that matter? Another mini-marathon was organized to take place yesterday evening. The participants were to meet at Liberty Roundabout and run to Kalima Chowk. It was advertised in the Lahore press as a “Maratho Race for Civil Liberties.” An “appeal was made to all citizens to join the race and help draw attention to the violations of the civil liberties of citizens.”
As of the time of writing I have to wait for Sunday’s newspapers to find out the fate of Asma Jahangir’s second attempt at trying to comply with the battle-call for enlightened moderation. As of Friday, things did not look too bright. A news report emanating from Multan once again quoted firebrand religioso Qazi Hameedullah, the MMA ‘leader’, as having issued another warning at a press conference. The MMA will resist mixed marathon races in any part of the country. “He said the MMA would not allow anyone to promote vulgarity, nudity, obscenity and indecency in the name of moderation and enlightenment.”
‘Confusion’ abounds in the minds of Pakistan’s guardians of Islam.
good one