The commodity that is Eve

Statistic, number, trade, honour, exchange, commodity – no, this is not a conversation about the financial markets, it is about half of Pakistan’s population, it is about women. That segment of the population that is best kept working in the fields when needed, veiled when required, used to resolve disputes when they arise, and generally to use and do with as you will. Is this really the lot of a woman in Pakistan today? Surely not! The Constitution of Pakistan provides all its citizens with certain inalienable and fundamental rights. These include the right to life, to education, to work, to vote; things that people reading this may take for granted.

So what is the problem, then? The Constitution is there, it promises that there shall be no institutionalised gender discrimination. It pledges that women shall have the same rights as men. It takes women by the hand to lead them into the Twenty-first Century, only to be stopped at the corner by a bunch of bigots who believe the only way for a society to be pure is to lock women away. Armed with religion and accretions of misogyny they go to work with a brutal zeal. Women are to be cloistered; forget the niceties of choice, there is no opening for necessity. Better to have them and their children starve to death than allow them go out to work.

Roughly translated, it means that a woman who leaves the confines of her home breeches some ancient unwritten code and forsakes the protection of a community and the law. But brutality does not need an excuse, a society and a system that fails to protect its citizens only makes them more vulnerable to abuse and violence. Where criminal law is ineffective, where murder and grievous bodily harm are not crimes against the state, and by extension all of us, it makes the commission of these crimes easier and all the more common. The papers and television are full of reports of horrific and violent crimes against women. All the while condemned by those who sit in our assemblies, who make nice-sounding speeches, who visit victims in hospitals and join demonstrations against all this violence.

It’s all very nice, but it does not get to the root of the problem. Is it okay to say, yes, women have rights, but religion, custom and tradition stand in the way of this or that particular right or is the real problem that we cannot say no, nothing can stand in the way of a woman’s right to be an equal citizen of the state. Is that what happened in the National Assembly on Monday? Why is it that our parliamentarians, both male and female, failed to stand up and protect the rights of the population?

Our women representatives, who have come in on reserved seats, failed their constituents. Farahnaz Ispahani, Fauzia Wahab, Bushra Gohar, Farzana Raja, Shahnaz Wazir Ali, Sherry Rehman, Nafisa Shah and the rest who have held forth on the rights of women in another incarnation were strangely mute when it came to a vote and did not either speak out like Ayaz Amir, or refuse to be part of the proceedings like the MQM legislators.

Whether it’s the enforcement of Sharia, or the death of hunger-striking landless peasants outside the Press Club in Karachi, or the brutal attacks on women in the name of honour, the real criminal is the state. The state, which has tolerated these crimes and has softened the blow for the perpetrator by making offences against the state offences against the individual. The state, which does not provide trained, competent and able law-enforcement officers or institutions. The state, which has not enforced its writ. The state, which has not nurtured its citizens. The state, which has not risen to the challenges it finds itself facing.

Confronted and challenged by extremism, the state has, under the barrel of the gun, agreed, hiding behind the guise of religion, to trade away the lives of its citizens. No schools for girls; no right to work for women; no rights of mobility, be they social, political or economic. What should it have done? Could it have done anything else? Was it left with no option? There are always options, but they require thought, strategy, ability, will, and other noble things that appear to be lacking in government today. Parliament may pass noble-sounding but impotent resolutions condemning the manner in which the war against terror is being fought in the north of Pakistan but it has not been able to come up with any kind of alternative strategy. It has no solution to the problem; therefore, the current strategy, being the only one on the table, will continue to be followed. And if we are to accept conventional wisdom that the this strategy merely fans the fire of extremism, then the contribution made by the state to it is huge, inasmuch as it has failed to work on an alternative strategy.

The argument put forward by our politicians that the reason for the enforcement of Sharia in Malakand Division and a part of Hazara is that this is the demand of the people. A demand articulated by them because there is no functional system of justice and they want the system they had prior to 1969. It is not that the system was just or better or fairer, it was that the system, for better or worse, worked. It dispensed justice and quickly, allowing people to carry on with the business of living. The real reason there is a demand today is that the state has failed to fulfil its role. Be it the case of a rape victim, a landless peasant, a hari whose family have been abducted by a powerful landlord or woman flogged for speaking to a man, the state has failed to protect them all.

The state’s failure is institutionalised, whether it be the failure of the law enforcement agencies, the judiciary, Parliament, the military or the bureaucracy, they have all failed the citizens and the country. The citizens, however, have failed neither the country nor themselves; they have participated in the political process, they have come out on the streets and struggled to change the system. Our real hope has to be that the citizens will continue to struggle. The odds are stacked against them but they have, to their credit, successfully carried on a peaceful struggle for the rule of law. We need to continue that struggle; it is not over. If anything, this is the time for everyone to come together and demand the enforcement of the 1973 Constitution, a document unanimously approved by Parliament, which spells out the relationship between the citizen and the state and details each ones rights and obligations to the other.

What we need today is honest leadership, with a vision and a plan as to how to work towards that vision. For if we fail to find that leadership, there is an alternative one, from all accounts representing a minority view, whose vision is clear and which is purposely marching towards us with plan in hand. They do not believe in the democratic process, they seek not our vote but our complete acquiescence.

It is time for all of us to say that in this country, whether women, landless peasants or minorities, we are all citizens. Citizens with equal rights, who can enjoy the protection of the law, who can make their own choices and determine their own future.

The writer is a corporate lawyer, host of a weekly talk show on satellite television and a freelance columnist. Email: ayeshatammy@ gmail.com