April 24, 2009

Some Interesting Aspects of Taliban’s Antics

 

The Taliban may be a bunch antediluvian, semi-literate nuts with guns in their hands and religious obscurantism in their heads; but, their total commitment to and practice of their fanatic beliefs, particularly in the greedy and corrupt oligarchies that masquerade as democracies, have witnessed the expansion of their areas of influence in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Malakand Division, which includes the idyllic Swat valley, has been accepted as their virtual domain through the ‘Swat deal’ signed into law by the President of Pakistan on the recommendation of the parliament.

They have been expanding and consolidating their domain through acts of terror often perpetrated by their suicide bombers. Pak officials present the Swat deal as a tactical move to secure the surrender of the weapons of the Taliban of the area. A gun is an essential part of the attire of a tribal man –a symbol of his manliness and pride. He would lay down his life rather than his weapon.

In the areas that are now conceded as their playgrounds, almost all measures taken by them appear calculated to suppress women and throw them back to the pre-Islamic period when female babies were considered a bane and were even buried alive. Also, in some other bygone cultures, women were treated at par with slaves; they were made to burn to death (Satti) on the funeral pyres of their husbands; and their feet were tied, in early childhood, in wooden shoes, that handicapped them permanently rendering them inferior to their men-folk.

The Taliban, obsessed similarly with subjugating women, have burned down some two hundred girls schools, destroyed video shops, banned the shaving of beards (regarded by them as a distinctive feature of males), and prohibited women from appearing in public without their head-to-toe cover called ‘burqa’. They were also disallowed to step out of their homes in the company of any male other than their husbands or close relations called ‘mahram’.

Their cruel antics in dealing with women have some times given rise to interesting situations. The video showing the flogging of a Swat girl, Chand Bibi of Matta village, on charge of suspected infidelity has been seen widely on TV screens throughout the world.

Taking suo motto notice of the cruel act, the Chief Justice of Pakistan had asked the Interior Secretary, Attorney General and the chief of police of the Frontier province to present the girl on April 6 before a bench of the Supreme Court and apprise it of the facts of the case. To a request of the Attorney General that the flogging of the girl was a sensitive issue and the case should be heard in camera, the court observed that the flogging was made known through the media and as such the hearing should be before the public. For the same reason the court refused to accept a confidential report of the Frontier chief secretary and maintained that all facts should come before the public. (Evidently, gone are the days of officials hiding the facts behind the veil of secrecy.) A member of the Bench, Hon. Ramday, expressed his displeasure over the failure of the Interior Ministry to abide by the orders of the court by asking the Interior Secretary: “Except arresting judges, do you do any other work?” (Yes, they do. To block the lawyers’ march to the Parliament, they requisitioned huge freight containers, at a rental of Rs. 7000 a day, from different parts of the country and had them placed across roads leading to the Parliament. This turned out to be counter-productive, as the Presidency appeared to be under the siege of the containers. The President did concede the lawyers’ demand.)

While the girl’s statement presented to the court by the officials denies that any such incident had ever taken place, the Taliban spokesman, Muslim Khan, has publicly claimed responsibility for the flogging. The Taliban, he said, had the right to thrash women who came out of their houses with men other than their husbands or ‘mahram’ blood relations.

If the video was a fake and no such incident had ever taken place, as the girl’s statement is made to portray, the multitude witnessing the flogging was also hired for the filming? Couldn’t the authorities contact any one of them to appear before the Supreme Court to support the girl’s supposed denial? Has the government totally abdicated authority in the area?

That, unfortunately, appears to be the case. In another incident, reported by Dawn of April 18, a Taliban firing squad shot down a man and a woman in Hingu, a town in the Frontier, for committing adultery. The video filming the event shows the woman shouting, “Have mercy on me. Please have mercy, no one has ever touched me”.

The Swat peace deal has been a total failure. Only a day after it was passed by the Parliament and signed by the President, a suicide bomb attack in Charsadda killed 16 persons. Another car bomb near Hingu has since taken the lives of 27 persons for which the deputy of Baitullah Mahsood, the Taliban leader, has accepted responsibility.

Like Alexander Pope, one is tempted to exclaim: “How long, but how long, O, Lord”.

Surprisingly enough, Baitullah has been reached by some of our TV men for interviews. Why then, is our security czar and his vast empire unable to contact him? Is his reach confined to forex dealers, Kalia and Khanani, or the operators of freight containers?

On the other hand, the Taliban who under the agreement were expected to surrender their arms, have instead occupied parts of Buner, a town hardly 100 miles from Islamabad. Taliban spokesman, Muslim Khan, has made it clear that his militants would keep establishing themselves into new areas till the US stops its drone attacks.

So, the Swat deal has had virtually a stillbirth.

On the other side of the border, the Afghan government has recently promulgated a new family law in line with the misogynist perceptions of the Taliban. It restricts women’s freedom of movement out of their homes, without the company of their husbands, only for employment, medical treatment or education.

Among the law’s provisions is a clause laying down that “a wife is obliged to fulfill the sexual desires of her husband” at least once in four days. Critics say that this provision could be used by a husband to justify raping his wife, without the fear of any court case.

Some years back, a case in the United States had attracted much media attention. A young and attractive married beautician returned home one evening fully exhausted at work and in mood for fun or frolic. Her husband on the other hand must have had an easier day at work and was looking forward to love in action. He tried to bring her in the required mood and, having failed in that, imposed himself upon her, indifferent to her protests. While he, exhausted, immediately went to sleep, she got hold of the kitchen knife and cut off the source of her trouble. Surgeons took five hours to sew back the critical part to the body. He complained to the police, and the case was tried by a grand jury. The verdict: not guilty. Reason: the man, despite being her husband, had no business to do what he did. It violated her freedom of choice, her freedom to say ‘no’. What would have been the verdict if the incident had occurred today in Kabul?

arifhussaini@hotmail.com