Recently, women raped in Pakistan are making an effort to seek justice. Mukhtaran Mai, Dr Shazia and recently Sonia Naz have made bold decisions by going public witht heir ordeals. Such acts are rare and against societal norms where women are supposed to be invisible, even moreso if they have been raped ie disgraced their family or tribe and subject to honor killing. Sonia Naz who literally went out on the limb for her crooked husband finds herself abandoned by her husband, his family her own and society in general.
Things are not very different in other muslim states, for example this story of a girl wasting in a Saudi prison waiting for execution, her crime was killling the man who wanted to rape her. Now she is dependent on the deceased families generosity to forgive her for killing their kin. Where is the state? where is civil society?
The woman was convicted of murdering a man while trying to stop him from raping her. Repeated efforts to sway the family of the murder victim to grant her pardon have failed, said the paper.
Question I would like to pose : where is the Pak civil society when its needed most?
You need instituitons for civil society to grow in..when they got rid of offical trade unions and student unions they deprived people of incubators to grow new leaders..similarly political parties are under constant stick and carrot policies from the powers that be so that makes the party system quite weak and leaders preferring to hold on to power. Add in courts which have no authority and you have a situation which people in the media used to complain about in the early 90's..whats the point of exposing corruption and abuse of power if nothing happens?
Cheebu jee,
what do we have but hope? Hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a mesiah, hope for our children. If we do not have hope then we have nuthin…
I agree with you, when you don’t have institutions which are govt-intereference-free then there is no justice, when there is no justice there is no “civility”.
Zakk,
What u say makes sense, but there are countries where civil society has flourished with or without political institutions in colleges/trade unions. In the case of Pakistan, student unions were never completely eradicated. Take the example of Punjab and Karachi university, they still have thriving student political entities, you and I may not agree with their political philosophies and tactics, but they are very much there. Trade unions are the unfortunate victims of globalization/militirization/corruption. Traditionally, trade unions have always been leftist oriented, thus became easy targets for successive military govts who always have had a rightist leaning.
Probably the biggest hinderance in nurturing civil societies has been the abject subservience of our judiciary. When ppl cannot hope for justice then there is total anarchy.
If we were to examine European history it shows us how various societies had to suffer but were able to create a civil society through sheer hard work, committment and desire to have a better tomorrow. It did not happen overnite, millions were killed, states were lost and socieities went thru tectonic shifts.
In my opinion, when society was able to separate state from religion the real benefits started to accrue. Fact is, religious intolerance breeds contempt for other religions and humanity in general, until and unless we do not make the state religious neutral, its very very difficult to develope a humanistic civil society.
f@rti! you post Arrabob stuff Woman awaits execution in Saudi… and start clubbing Pak with that. It is not fair. Post something about Pakistan and let’s discuss.
You say and I quote: Judiciary and religion are the two troublesome areas for Pak’s society. That is just a superficial and gupshup oriented analysis.
You talk about Europe, without realizing why Britain had the most controlled and steady evolution towards democracy. How come Monarchy survived and still the country became the super power. It was only possible because they allow English business class to become the drivers of the society.
What we have done in Pak is exactly opposite. The real cause of Pak’s pains is the commie leftie economic policies of our successive government. Bhattoo MAToo was the worst culprit when he nationalized Banks, Schools, and factories.
Still our hero is Bhatoo MAToo. While Bhataoo MAToos heroes were Nehru, and Gamal Nasir. These were all commie pipsqueaks who ruined their respective country’s economy.
Our taxation system is 200 years old. 80% of our population living in rural areas is subjected to draconian tax laws and tax collection systems.
Our cities under commie influence have been devoid of any entrepreneurship. Due to our leftie policies, we have not allowed our supply-chain to progress and provide better goods and services to an ordinary person.
Our leftie oriented revenue departments have set up chokeholds on our business pushing them underground and forcing white money to become black money.
So my f@rti friend! Economic freedom must precede the political or other freedoms. Otherwise you are all doomed to live under antiquated MAToo rule for the next 2 centuries.
FG: Student politics in Pakistan are effectively dominated by gun politics and patronage from political groups..they aren't nowadays really independant or in anyway have a system of internal democracy (they used to in the 80's and 90's when the groups knew they had to contest elections, now they have turned into tools of their parties and the administration). Trade Unions the elss said the better..the last time a Trade Union defied the government was the PTCL Unions over the PTCL sale ( i personally thought that opposing the sale was wrong but thats another issue) ..and the resources employed to break the movement were again stick and carrot.
As for the Judciary, I agree..from the Maulvi Tazimuddin verdict to ZAB's execution to the whole PCO/LFO farce..the judicial system effectively defends wrongful acts when needed and condemns them when forced to (a la Asma Jilani and the SC declaring Yahyas martial law illegal).
Economic freedoms don't make nations free or develop civil society ..and neither does it make a nation stable..in paksitans case you had Ayub Khans stint as an example..Pakistan had double digit growth between 59-64..yet when the economy slowed down there was masisve social upheaval..the reason being ..economic inequality and discrimination.
No it was never 59 or 64. The numbers were more along 10 %. Ayub Khan’s economic policies were the baby steps for a new country. Had Pakistan cherished it, and built upon it, we would have been an Asian tiger or lion or whatever you want to call it.
The problem was that the Commie lefties from within (the fifth columnists) and the outsiders Soviets, and Soviet Stooge Bharatis neve allowed Ayub’s policies to gain foothold and flourish.
Debacle of East Pakistan, and Commie pressures on the remaining Pakistan were ruthless and resulted in utter destruction at the hands of Bhattoo MAToo.
Paks needed 25 years of sustained economic growth and instead we ended up in self destruction within 10 years.
Anyway that was past, we learned our lesson and now we are on path of prosperity. No one will dare nationalize anything. Big units like PTCL are being sold regardless of commie leftie unions’ noise.
Ha! if you believe in what you just wrote, then may God help you, i.e. Khudai Payman.
Reference to the Saudi case was made to highlight similarities and depth of the problem. Societal attitudes are not very different across muslim states with slight variations. Fact is, these issues must be addressed by attacking the core ie source of such prejuidices which receive religious approval from vested interests.
Leftist/commie policies which you allude to is an incorrect observation. What we have in Pakistan is an outdated, beauracratic system which relies on power, influence, protection of the few and total control, sounds more like a ruthless state monopoly. Bhutto’s left wing revolution was never a left in its true spirit cause there was never any land reform which wud hv distributed the real power base to the people. Nationalizing industries and banks was meant to destroy any capitalistic tendencies which wud have inetreferred with the feudalistic/monopolistic state control.
Laws maybe 100years old that doesnt mean they are useless or outdated, some may need revisions but the real issue is the implementation of any legal system which is lacking in Pakistan. You talk about the strength of economic independence, well friend that can never happen w/o a proper legal structure which provides protection to investors, consumers and other classes. Recent success examples of South Korea and Malaysia are availble proof of countries who have managed to improve their living standards by strengthening their legal base and insitutions to support the economic miracle. Indonesia and Pakistan are fine examples of failed economic stories for they failed tp provide proper institutional and legal support.
Zakk: You have a point on students not participating in the normal election process as they used to back in the eighties-nineties, yet they do have the ability to participate in some form of political activity, not all of them actually the majority is not driven by gun culture.
Militarization of Pak society is visible everywhere, take colleges/universities, trade unions, Madrassas, mosques, political parties, landed elite and industrialists they all exhibit extreme attitudes which is best expressed by the number of armed gaurds they carry. When power groups are dictated by such martial attitudes survival or grooming of any indepedent civil society becomes near to impossible. Thereore, it is extremely important for Pakistani leadership to strengthen the judiciary, establish their credibility and for the Govt to observe their independence. Once we have a semblance of judicial credibility, then other levers of society can claim their rightful position in the state. For this process to blossom, state must delink itself from any social/religious prejuidices and work for the betterment of its people with complete neutrality.
I think you and either Ardeshir Cowasjee think alike FG :p ..what you are talking about is actually the rule of law: but there is a moral element to it and unfortunately we