There can be perhaps nothing worse than the misery of ignorance. To be attached to a body that does as it does, to be just a puppet in the forces of nature. Yet this is the fate of millions. People
can live in incredible fear of their bodies, instincts and desires. In a male preferred culture this fear is mixed with exultation at the power that society accords to the male gender, genitalia and identity. The male psyche becomes a pyramid of negativity, first the fear and near disgust at bodily functions, then the sense of power and on top of it all the maddening guilt. The guilt is often sublimated through a suffocating pseudo spirituality and multiple taboos about sexual practices. Since factual information is absent and hard to obtain, it cannot act as the conflict reducer. Information about sex in these societies is largely through porn or phobic beliefs, further increasing taboos and suspicion.
In a society that accords a supernormal place to sex, sex also becomes a weapon. Withholding or giving sex is a weapon. Rape or forcing sex on an unwilling participant becomes a weapon of revenge. Sex and power are forever linked in an ignorant society. For the longest time, repressing female sexuality has been a solution to balance the power struggle between the sexes and gain power for women. Clothing that covers and controls the female body has always been used in societies that are scientifically ignorant and do not provide access to contraceptive methods. This repression of female sexuality helps tip the balance of power towards women. They become the coveted, the desired, and the pure. Men are seen as the abnormally sexual, the unclean who are to be protected from or negotiated with for lifelong protection and fealty. The female takes the role of the victim and the male the aggressor. The rules of engagement are then simple. The female to be always controlled and kept separated from mingling with men till a lifelong mate is found. After that the female is under his control and protection from other men.
Change and Transition
In this familiar backdrop of social morality certain events trigger a media reaction to any news of rape or use of sex as a weapon. Firstly, women who do not accept the status quo/ the balance of power. Those who rebel against a system that represses their sexuality often see it as a lack of freedom. Women don’t want to give up their public freedoms just to be assured of lifelong support and protection from a mate. They want to renegotiate since the price is way too high for many. Secondly, the increasing number of catalysts to change—media, both printed and audio-visual acts as a catalyst. Ultimately women start believing that there is a better alternative out there namely, true love, social respect and sexual freedom.
The third reason for heightened media awareness of rape cases is the increasingly available factual information about human biology, this information reduces the fear of taboos in the larger society and the taboos lose meaning and power. For example, for men not having children is not seen as a sign of lower than average virility and for women desire for sex is not thought of as taboo.
This change directly threatens the previously accepted male oriented balance of power in society. The male feels that he is losing social status and power. Over time he has become almost proud of being the bad guy in this social set-up but there is little direct benefit to the male in this transition phase. Here he is still the ‘bad’ guy who has been raised to believe in the morality that he can literally buy a ‘good’ woman with a regular job but fewer and fewer women are ‘good.’ Especially, the more desirable women are becoming ‘bad’. His alternatives for finding ‘good’ women are fewer and he also feels cheated because the social status of being male has lost its perks—in the emerging moral code he could have had some fun before being saddled with a ‘good’ woman and several children. For the man trapped in the older moral code, suddenly the world is becoming an all-together immoral place, where the women have betrayed him and have also stopped supporting his identity as the powerful male.
The Morality of Rape
Rape has never been recognized as a crime in ignorant and primitive societies. It has always been accorded as the privilege of a man to assert his status and sense of manhood or power. Raping your enemy’s women—or raping the women of a land after conquest is a sort of ritual. At the heart of this ritual is the belief that doing so will annihilate your enemy. The reasoning is fairly simple. Rape quite often leads to children. These children are no longer the enemy tribe—in a nutshell your enemy will not survive since the new generation are now of your blood. Historically, the sub-continent has had a continuous history of invasions and conquests. Rape is almost a historic custom.
Pakistan is in a transition phase, where sexual taboos are slowly making way for more female sexual freedoms. Information is replacing fear and suspicion and men are losing the higher social status that they have enjoyed. However, Pakistan to this day has a very primitive moral code that works in a fairly primitive society that every now and then looks at itself in a different moral mirror—especially the parts of society that are ashamed of their primitive moral code and want change. These parts of society are often the ‘haves’ who travel, read and think that the grass is greener on the West side of the world. Why ‘think?’ Isn’t it so?. Perhaps this is a cruel choice of words—isn’t there a universal human rights code, a rulebook that defines what is humane? Isn’t Pakistan abrogating that rule book? Isn’t there Amnesty International? The modern Avatars of what is good and righteous, the institutions that are trying to replace indigenous cultures and religions with a universal truth? These Avatars every so often talk about human rights abuses in places like Pakistan, compile reports and write to governments. Shouldn’t the world’s poor and ignorant listen to these new Avatars, suddenly emancipate and abolish the moral codes they were reared on? All of it now, this second.
Rape is recognized and punished as a criminal offense in a society where:
1. Women’s reproductive functions are not considered unclean. Whereas, in a primitive society, women are banned from prayer and public areas during menstruation.
2. Women mingle in public places without escort, whereas in a primitive society women are valuable property at best.
3. Women choose their own mate, whereas in a more primitive society they accept their mates.
4. Women’s clothing is more a matter of personal choice rather than high social pressure. Clothing is a complex issue, however in such a society women generally do not face intense public or family pressure in making choices.
5. A wife can choose whether or not to have sex with her husband or what kind of sex.
6. Female children are celebrated.
Rape cannot be considered a crime in Pakistan or punished or acknowledged because neither of the above conditions is true in the larger fabric of society. When that will be so, is a question to ask the activists. Whenever that happens it will be because of the efforts of the local people.
The International Media’s Reactions
The West has greatly humane laws but it has its contradictions.
The question is:
Where is Amnesty International when serial killers pick up prostitutes and slowly dismember them from the slums of the developed world? Why is not the terrible moral code of the US or Canada or UK ever discussed in newspapers, a moral code that makes medical care, old parents and children appear to be a waste of time and money?. Why are the developed world’s leaders never asked about teenage pregnancies, child sex, drugs and female prostitution by the less developed world’s news hacks? How about asking, Mr Bush, what is your comment on divorce rates, steadily increasing cancer, the ozone hole, the Kyota treaty and ad nauseum?
Where is the world’s conscience when the crime happens in the West? Why do large corporations fund large NGO’s to protect the miserable women of the East? There are lots of desperately poor women out here who battle without family or social support to raise children. Why is every rape in Pakistan front-page international news? And why are the West’s heinous crimes only local news?
Why?
Perhaps, it is so because Pakistan treads a very difficult political fault-line that will affect global politics for decades. Perhaps because Pakistan is considered to be in the hub of the action between the new world and the old. Perhaps because it exists in a time warp in the middle of the Islamic moral code, the Christian moral code and the indigenous culture of Hinduism. Because the powers that be don’t know what real Pakistani ideology is and they would like to tip it more favourably towards its own side through legislation that conforms to the majority of the world. In a nutshell, the world public is unsure about what Pakistan is all about. Editors’ like decisive news e.g., rape and bombing that show Pakistan’s true colours more often. Rape, bombs and terror in Pakistan will be the stuff that newspapers talk about because no editor in the world has decided that Pakistan is OK. The safe image of ‘us poor but creative Indians making a living’ is not Pakistan’s. The safe image of ‘us hardworking Chinese—open a factory?’ is also not Pakistan’s lot. The fact that Pakistan is about meat curries and sleepy afternoons just hasn’t made it to the world’s conscience.
Somehow the overall good of the Western system has convinced us all. The world has passed a judgement and it favour’s the West’s choices and moral reasoning regardless of the inevitable contradictions and flaws.
Instead Pakistan’s contradictions do not tip positively towards creating a safe image. Somehow the fantastic contradictions between the fashion designers, the novelists and Mukhtaran Mai all come out with an overarching negative image. There is a magnetic pull in the story of the suave President and the crazy legislation amid the backdrop of the Taliban and Al-Quaida. Pakistan to the world means drama, violence and thugs. It has shock factor and oomph. It has story power. That is why it is the best of times to be heard and yet the worst of times to shout.
Is the Government of Pakistan listening to the drum rolls? It has a cue and an audience, but does it have a story that relegates rape to a backseat? On a less serious note, perhaps Pakistan needs a newsworthy female foreign diplomat. Are there any takers? But, please. No white dupatta.
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