A Nice Warm Feeling

'And the World Changed: Contemporary Stories by Pakistani Women' was reviewed in Newsline.
About my story 'Runaway Truck Ramp' Talib Qizilbash writes:

Many of the selections are much more effective in showing how truly contemporary these women writers are, as the pieces are daring both in content and style. Soniah Kamal’s ‘Runaway Truck Ramp’ is a standout story for openly tackling the quintessential Pakistani taboo subject: sex. Her approach is both clever and candid. It’s candid for the relaxed manner in which she delivers the details of a fling that quickly turns ugly for a young woman because of her partner’s double standards and his view that she is just “practice.” The cleverness lies in how Kamal explores inbred and distasteful attitudes towards sex, for her heroine is not a young Pakistani woman, but a white American who hooks up with a charming Pakistani man.
read rest of the review here

'Visa Blues'-- When You Know Who You Are But Your Country Does Not

No matter where an immigrant makes their home they have a country of origin, a country they believe 'their's' whether they return or not. Hafiza Nilofar Khan believed the same of Bangladesh. Only did Bangladesh believe it too? Add yet another twist in the story of 'where am I, who am I, why am I.'

Nilofar writes:
When I had a civil marriage in St. Helens, Oregon in the year 1998 with a Caucasian American, my father was alarmed since he believed that a Muslim woman cannot marry a Christian man without first converting him into Islam. In my gender ignorance about Islamic rules, I tried to pacify my distressed father by arguing that people who are “ehlekitab”, meaning, believers in the book (Torah, Bible or Koran) may marry each other without having to convert. When my father retorted that only Muslim men are allowed to marry a non-Muslim woman, and not vice versa, I did not grasp the full significance of the convention, and took it for my own religiously inclined father's desire to have a Muslim son-in-law. This August, when I was allowed to leave Dhaka only after paying eighty thousand taka to the Passport and Immigration office in fees and fine, and going through endless stress on account of having a foreigner for a husband, and a daughter, did I realise the actual import of my father's premonitions. If my father were alive today, he might have said, “I forewarned you"
read the rest here

So This Means if I'm Raped in Pakistan I Won't Be Stoned to Death? Or what one General Did another General UnDoes.

A woman is raped every two hours and gang raped every eight hours in Pakistan.

Pakistan Independent Human Rights Commission
2006

1979. General Zia-ul-Haq's takes over running of Pakistan in a military coup. He decides Pakistan will be governed under Islamic law and so the Shariat Laws and the Hudood Ordinance come into effect

The Hudood Ordinance deals with women's issues and the Zina Laws in particular with
a) abduction of women
b) prostitution
c) adultery
d) rape

New rule: to prove she's been raped in Pakistan a women must produce four males who've witnessed the rape. If she can't, the rape is prosecuted as adultery.
Punishment for adultery: includes imprisonment, lashing and stoning to death.

Behind the Scences of this particular Islamic law:
The indiction to providing four male witness applies in Islamic law to a case where someone accuses a woman of adultery. Four male witnesses must corroborate that this particular married woman cheated on her husband. If four male witnesses cannot be found the accuser is in big big trouble. However General Zia and his band of bearded (and some unbearded) brothers twisted this Islamic law and applied it to women who were raped.
(A lawyer friend of mine once told me that bascially women can get away with having sex in Islam because who the hell can find four male witnesses who can prove without a doubt that they are not lying).

2006 Summer
The government of Pakistan proposes a Woman's Protection Bill that states women who are raped will no longer need to produce four male witnesses.
Many bearded members of parliament protest.
The bill is put aside.

2006 November.
Government returns to the bill.
It is passed.
Women and Men who have been waiting to exhale for the past 27 years, exhale. And again breathe deeply to see what will become of this in the real world of lawyers, courts and appeals.


ps. Muktar Mai maintains an Urdu blog about her day to day life in her new found role

pps. The fundo dudes are very upset. Says Maulana Fazlur Rahman of the Islamic Alliance: "the bill will turn Pakistan into a free sex zone." Darling- it will be what it will be only now rapists won't go scott free just because they didn't invite four dudes to watch them perform or, rather, the four dudes who watched joined in instead of holding back in order to do the right thing and testify later.

pps. check out the excellent Pakistaniat blog's excellent write up

ppps. the day Pakistan separates religion from law will be the finest moment of its life

pppps. A pat on the back for President Musharraf and his government for passing the WPB.
His previously egregious statement that women cried rape for fame and money had my heart sinking to new found depths. It's beginning a bit of an upwards float. Although the Pakistani part of my mind will soon begin to wonder what's in it for Musharraf, what's it in for anyone who voted yeah, what's in it, what's in it....because being altruistic is usually not the Pakistani politican's way if any politician's.

God Revisited !!!

Slate's Deputy Editor David Plotz knew religion in 'bits and pieces' --he knew a bit of this, he remembered a piece of that, the rest he picked up along the way. Then, one day, in adulthood, he goes to a Bar Mitzvah and picks up the good book and opens it and reads and what he reads startles him enough to read more and record what he comes away reading. This record makes for a hysterical series. Here's a, what is known in modern parlance, sneak peek:

Moses leads the Israelites into the wilderness—Day 1 of their 40-year trek. They immediately complain that they're thirsty and the only available water is bitter. We're a grumbling people, aren't we? Freedom after 430 years of captivity, and nothing to do but grouse. The Israelites had crabbed to Moses when Pharaoh made them gather their own straw. When the Egyptian army pursued them to the Sea of Reeds, they had griped to Moses that they would rather have stayed in Egypt as slaves than die by the sea. Now they're fussing that they're thirsty. God gives Moses a piece of wood that cleans up the water—the world's first Brita filter.

The whole series is laced with laugh out loud Brita filter moments, yet never compromising on the serious subtext. Here's the series.
I wish the Quran and Prophet Mohammed were explored in this fashion. But that would mean fatwah and who in thier right mind would be up for that.
ps. left mind?-- okay, okay, juvenile humor :)

Pakistani PoWs from the Kargil War - Part 1


Look into these mens' eyes. Then close your eyes and hear their voices. Sad. Bewildered. Lost.
War is the oldest preoccupation in the world-- he said, he said, mine, no mine-- wars are here to stay despite all the 'we want peace' talk.
Talk is cheap- while these poor, forlorn soldiers from Pakistan tell their tales, the U-tube comments sections are full of invective from both Indians and Pakistanis: we're better than you, we won Kargil, no we did, fuck you, fuck you and fuck your mama too.
So, while the 'educated' battle it out online another poor, forlorn boy in a far flung region gets ready to receive his uniform and put it on.

ps. the reel news: Brittany files for divorce from K-Fed-- life goes on and on and on....

video link from blogger Silsila-e-Mah-o-Saal

Borat has Entered the Building: review

The Kazakhstan government is not happy, nor should it be. Sasha Baron Cohen's movie 'Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan' depicts Kazakhstan as a mysogynistic, anti-semitic, handicap bashing backwater of impoverished villages. Borat arrives in the US to learn civilization for his country and we follow his journey from New York to Los Angeles with stops at Richmond, Dallas, Atlanta etc. Borat is played even bigger and better than his character on HBO's Da Ali G Show. My husband can't stand Borat. I think his dead pan politically insane comments and attitudes are hilarious. Never-the-less, even as I laughed at Borat 's goofs and spoofs in this 80 minute film, it was a very uncomfortable 80 minutes--the comments about Muslims and gay people and the anti-semitic jokes turned my stomach. But in a searching way. There's a scene where an old Jewish couple are figaratively turned into cockroaches-- not funny. To me. Yet much of the audience in the cinema laughed. I kept having to remind myself that Sasha playing Borat is Jewish himself-- you know, I can call my mother what I want but you better respect her. Which is a troubling notion. If people do think this way, is it only a problem when they think this way out loud? Does political correctness curtail freedom of speech? Am I now advocating thought police?
Some scenes were downright frightening: a group of white frat boys bemoaning the end of slavery, a Christian revival where Borat is encouraged to talk in 'tongues', Borat at a gun store where he's happily shown a gun perfect for killing a Jew. And some scenes were just gross--just because hair and fat is added to nudity does not have me cracking up.
That the film's most touching and protective relationship occurs between Borat and a prostitute speaks volumes for the social satire this film is, and for the goodness that deep down Borat's heart is capable of. Or maybe I'm giving Borat too much credit. At the end of the film one wonders that, were this actually real, what 'learnings' Borat would have returned to Kazakhstan from the US with. One thing is for sure though: there are many Americans who have a bit, a lota bit, of Borat living within their souls.