It would be interesting to see how our righteous and virtuous MMA reacts to this (my comment(s) in italics):
http://archives.theglobeandmail.com/search97cgi/s97_cgi?
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The Vagina Monologues takes message to Pakistan
Writer calls play’s debut ‘profound’ in a society not known for women’s rights
VICTORIA BURNETT
Monday, March 17, 2003
ISLAMABAD – From Manhattan to Mexico City, it has raised eyebrows and challenged perceptions of a part of the female anatomy that in most societies remains taboo. But The Vagina Monologues opened a new frontier over the weekend in its mission to spread its message of sexual liberation and women’s rights.
In a discreet hotel conference room in the Pakistani capital, an audience wept, gasped and screamed with laughter as a cast of eight women, clad in scarlet saris, salwar kameez (loose shirts and baggy pants) and red-painted toenails, performed Eve Ensler’s award-winning play.
“I cried like mad,” said Sheherbano Burki, a management consultant in Islamabad who was seeing the play for the first time. “It was very emotionally exhausting.”
The play, which explores the issues of sexuality, repression and rape through a series of explicit monologues that are touching, funny and sickening by turn, would be deemed risqué in almost any society. But in a country where a deep-rooted tribal culture and strict interpretation of Islam means limited liberties for most women, the play breaks every taboo in the book.
The majority of Pakistani women do not show the tops of their heads in public, let alone discuss what is underneath their loose-fitting clothes.
“In Pakistan, the flesh of your arm is a controversial place,” said Nadia Jamil, a well-known actress from the ancient Mogul city of Lahore, who volunteered to perform. “Vaginas are a place [that] you just don’t go there.”
Ms. Jamil and the other cast members, including Ms. Ensler, were brought together by Nighat Risvi, co-founder of AMAL, a local non-governmental organization that promotes human development. The audience of 150 was by invitation only – **it was considered too risky to open the performance to the general public **-- and mostly female, with the exception of a few male relatives. Hotel security guards hovered outside the door.
The performance formed part of a circuit of events sponsored by V-Day, an organization Ms. Ensler set up as an offshoot of the play. The non-profit group donates funds to organizations that work to stop violence against women and girls. Hibaaq Osman, a Somali Muslim who is the special representative for V-Day, said she had been keen to put on the play in an Islamic country.
“I know if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere,” said Ms. Osman, **who rechristened the Pakistani capital “Vaginabad.”
“Having these Pakistani women talking about vibrators – that’s what it’s all about.” ** (* Hasn’t it always been?*)
It wasn’t just the shock factor that lent the Pakistani performance of the famous play its intensity. The play’s darker monologues – that of an abused child, of a Serbian woman who is raped by a group of soldiers, or of an Afghan woman whose world is reduced to a living death under her burqa – have a keen resonance in a country where the concept of rape is tenuous and so-called honour killings claim hundreds of lives every year. Honour killings are intended to punish behaviour deemed to be immoral, such as extramarital sex.
Given women’s treatment in Pakistani society, the performance itself was an audacious one, Ms. Ensler said.
“The fact that women were prepared to get up this evening and do this was so brave and so profound. It’s about breaking down walls,” she said. “It was very difficult doing this in the U.S. at first. It wasn’t like ‘Yeah! The vaginas are here!’ There is no place in the world where there aren’t walls to be broken down.”
While the audience was enrapt, the performers recognized that the play was not to everybody’s taste. Bilquis Tahira, an activist and cast member, said one friend told her it was “vulgar.”
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