The Rebel Road…

Gender discrimination has come to be regarded as one of the defining features of all conservative societies of the world. Pakistan is no different in this regard. Pakistan, since its inception, has upheld an orthodox view of Islamic Shariah and traditions. It is in these traditions and the manner in which the Hadith and the Quranic verses are distorted, in order to appeal to the patriarchal sentimentalities of right-wing conservative elements, that the problems of the Pakistani women are magnified many times over.

Society at large finds social coherence and self-identity as a group by following native, unique traditions. Therefore, the scope of these problems is magnified by the insistence of the general population on the rigidity of these customs. This creates a denial within the people, which distances them from the realisation that they are in fact practicing a prejudiced and exclusionary ideology.

The role that has been assigned to women in Pakistan is one of excessive exploitation. It is for this reason that the male population finds it easy, as well as socially viable, to suppress the female population. An expression of this division can be seen in the way that the monogamous-marriage function of society, another universal institution of conservative societies, is affected and twisted to conform to the male perspective and its needs. There are a number of different ways that this exploitation is carried out and as a consequence, a number of issues have arisen in Pakistani society. This series aims to analyse the marriage function in our society and, in doing so, identify the root causes of the exploitation of women. It is my assertion that such exploitation has to do with economic or power-maintenance reasons rather than the ‘professed’ traditional or religious ones. The exploitation and subjugation of women is one of the most heinous crimes imaginable – a crime we are all guilty of regardless of whether we are rich or poor, the haves or have-nots. The series will also attempt to explain these mismatches in the light of sociological perspectives and try to present solutions based on feminist perspectives.

Marriage to the Quran (Haq Baksh-Wai): perhaps the most barbaric abuse of women in Pakistan – this practice is designed to invalidate the basic human rights of an individual for purely economic reasons. Though one finds it interesting that in a country brimming with religious ‘preachers’, there is an absolute lack of any significant movement against this phenomenon. It is also very important to mention that the idea of marriage to the Quran is completely self-concocted and has no basis in Islam.

It was invented by perverted and manipulative minds in order to exert a hold on women and, consequently, the property-share of women. According to the Islamic Shariah, the female offspring is entitled to a share of her father’s properties. This share, though half that of a male offspring, is just as binding according to Islam. The problem with this is that usually the male offspring, or the executors of the Shariah (in this case the male elders of the family), in accordance with their own agenda, want the property to remain in the family. If the female is married off to a different family, as happens usually, then the property inherited by that female would eventually wind up in the pool of assets of the husband’s family – an anathema to most feudal-minded families. Control over the estate (Jageer) must not be weakened. The feudal and tribal leaders especially do not want their power base to be weakened by this since their political power stems from their estate. This need is so strong that sometimes their daughters are married to the Holy Quran in the ceremony of Haq-Baksh-wai (literally meaning ‘Marriage to the Quran’).

“This is more common in Sindh. In Punjab, the daughters are kept unmarried till the age of menopause when they take up the Quran and Tasbeeh [prayer beads] voluntarily” (Amnesty International 1999:4).

In essence, this means that that particular female will spend the rest of her life in near seclusion, devoting herself to the recitation of the Holy Quran. By doing this, it is ensured that she will never have to marry a man, and hence never leave the house she was born in. In this way the threat of her taking away her piece of the inheritance, thus weakening the power-base, is averted. Another consequence of this is that since there will be no children from her, there will be no more inheritors of her property, and her share will be added to her next of kin upon her death, in this case usually the brother.

Marriage within family: another practice as seen in wealthy families is the inter-cousin marriage, almost a tradition now within interior Pakistan. This is done for many reasons, mainly though to keep land holdings within the family. Other reasons may include maintaining the purity of the hereditary line, or a xenophobic belief that if a girl leaves the immediate fold of the family, she will lose all the values held dear by that family, etc.

Pakistani society has always been a very complicated one, with many different values that may or may not find their roots in Islamic culture. As such, the Muslims of the Subcontinent in particular have evolved a very distinct Muslim culture compared to most other Islamic societies. This does not come without its own problems. Being primarily an agrarian society, land has always been one of the most significant forms of wealth. In trying to keep as much of it under their control as possible, many families go to ridiculous lengths to ensure the maintenance of this power base. Therefore, cousin marriages give a viable alternative to all these families. Usually the paternal uncle’s son is wed to the daughter. This, of course, is carried out without any regard for the true wishes or preference of the girl in question.

“By preference, marriages are arranged within the kin group; cross-cousin and parallel-cousin marriages are both common. People say that to marry one’s daughter to a stranger is to expose the shortcomings of the family” (Eglar 1960:94).

At the extreme though, most girls are married to cousins without regard for how unnatural such a wedding may be. There are reported cases in which girls are married off to cousins 10-20 years younger than them, so in effect the girl ends up raising her own husband.

(to be continued)

“When the views entertained in this volume…are generally admitted, we can dimly foresee that there will be a considerable revolution in natural history” — Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (1859).

Evolution has, ever since its conception, proven to be the cornerstone of contemporary biological studies. It unites all the fields of biology on one platform. The theory of explaining what form we have acquired over the millennia and thus predicting, using intelligent resources, what could happen if certain conditions were allowed to prevail is extremely valuable. The layman is quite confused about the actual definitions of biological evolution. This is primarily attributed in large part to the inability of the scientists to communicate effectively to the general public and also to confusion among the scientists themselves about how to define such an important term.

When discussing evolution it is important to distinguish between the existence of evolution and various theories about the mechanism of evolution. And when referring to the existence of evolution, it is important to have a clear definition in mind. What exactly do biologists mean when they say that they have observed evolution or that humans and chimpanzees have evolved from a common ancestor?

In this regard, evolution has been defined by Mr Douglas J. Futuyma in his book Evolutionary Biology. He says:

“In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change, and so is all-pervasive; galaxies, languages, and political systems all evolve. Biological evolution…is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution; individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportion of different alleles within a population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive alterations that led from the earliest proto-organism to snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions.”

Having defined evolution it must also be made clear how it functions in the lifecycles of living things. Plants and animals are the most basic categories in which we can classify any living organism, though of course more specific categories do exist.

The first organisms ever to appear in the oceans were single celled organisms that would probably fall under the classification of bacteria. As these bacteria evolved, perhaps some of them felt the need for more nutrition, or rather self-sufficiency in the nutritional department. It is thought that chloroplasts themselves were separate organisms that developed a symbiotic relationship with these bacteria. Gradually these bacteria transformed into algae by the acts of mutation or variation that might have occurred over the generations. Algae soon clumped together. As more and more ozone was formed in the upper atmosphere and the earth itself achieved its stable form of today, it cooled down, and due to the new ozone layer it was not bombarded by as much radiation and heat as it was before. This meant that the algae could come closer to the surface and flourish in the now cooler climate. The plant lineages have deep roots dating to the original dispersion of organisms onto land some 400 to 450 million years ago. These original plants were still tied somewhat to water, particularly for replication, just as amphibians were and are today. However, just as the reptilian lineage arose from the amphibians, terrestrial plants also developed from these early, water-tied terrestrial plants. And just as with the reptilian lineage, the truly great innovation was the development of methods by which sex and development were accomplished in the absence of standing water. Once the methods of asexual and sexual reproduction were established, the remaining part was to optimise the organism for maximum benefit from the environment. It is thought that fauna and flora have gradually become smaller or at least more dense and compact in comparison with more modern organisms. Perhaps this is because of the fact that the smaller size requires lesser energy to maintain and hence, increases the chances of survival.

In conjunction with plants developing from primitive bacteria, so did animals. As certain bacteria were made, according to their niches, to integrate a system of self-sufficiency, others were forced due to natural conditions to equip themselves with ingestion systems that could eat and derive energy from other organisms. Over time the complexity of the organisms increased. Multi-cellular organisms came into being. As time passed, this increasing complexity led to the development of primitive fish. Soon the population in the water grew to such an extent that the pressure for survival pushed the fish to find sources of nutrition outside the water. For this purpose, specialised systems had to be developed whereby the fish could breathe outside the water too. The first fish to develop lungs were the lobe-finned fish called ‘Crossopterygians’ and the lungfish called ‘Dipnoans’. At first these fish came out of the water for small periods of time to get food and rush back. But soon these time periods increased. This led to the creation of amphibians, who could live both on land and in water. These animals had almost fully developed lungs and the capability like modern frogs to breathe underwater through their skin. Their stronger skins also allowed them to withstand more heat and the perils of land life effectively. Limbs were perhaps perfected in this period of evolution. The tail was basically used for balance. As time went on, the nostrils of the amphibians became more pronounced and increasingly functional for breathing. They developed hands and feet with three or five digits and their backbones become stronger, allowing them to grow even bigger. Soon they developed eardrums and the ability to hear sound. Around 325,000,000 years ago the amphibians started to change into reptiles. These reptiles were faster, stronger and bigger than amphibians and more land-based. They developed stronger exoskeletons. Early reptiles were plant and insect eaters, but as their size grew, so did their ferocity. Another trait developed by reptiles was the ability to lay shelled eggs on land.

The next link in the evolutionary chain was that of the birds. When the survival-pressure grew too high for reptiles, they developed what resembled wings and took to the skies. They could reach higher parts of the trees and in doing so get the fruits that others could not. When the environmental pressures grew too much, the reptiles (cold-blooded as they are) needed a system with which they could regulate their internal environments effectively. This system was inherently present in mammals, which were warm-blooded.

Although it may seem that evolution always does the best for the organism, this might not be the case in all cases. The term overspecialisation refers to an organism becoming so evolved and suited to an environment that if it is removed from that environment it dies. And we can only hope that we as human beings have not become overspecialised or our dream of colonising other worlds will truly be a short-lived one.

Society, as we know it, exists in a fragile balance – one part serving the whole and vice versa – and in such a delicate situation it is easy for some individuals to slip between the cracks; it is easy for some to find themselves the victims of social indifference or even apathy. In order to avoid this predicament, almost all religions promote a culture of alms – a system whereby society gives back to the poor and destitute from its fruits and, in doing so, invests in collective welfare. In most Muslim countries, such a system exists as the practice of Zakat. The need for an institutionalised provision system for public ‘good’ is an accepted fact. However, the complex matrix of poverty, vulnerability and the poor quality of life, which has come to be the defining feature of the life of an ordinary citizen of Pakistan, cannot be adequately addressed through an individual-based, informal and largely undocumented approach like Zakat. Although it does not take away from the commendable nature of the act itself, such relief efforts are better handled through an institutionalised mechanism that promotes effectiveness, dependability, accountability and transparency, in contrast with how it operates currently, where a casual approach allows the state substantial leeway to abandon its responsibilities towards public uplift.

It is almost inevitable that an unregulated dispensation like Zakat will eventually veer towards already entrenched grooves of corruption. Our nation has been witness to the corruption of the clergy through Zakat Committees since the late 70s. A recent report in The Post on how private companies have turned Zakat into a function of corporate enterprise is a new chapter in an old story. The involvement of various reputable hospitals and NGOs in what can only be described as fraudulent activities has left little but disillusionment in its wake. It has been learnt that hospitals such as General Hospital, Jinnah Hospital, etc., and NGOs such as Child Care Foundation and Rising Sun Institute are involved in misrepresentation of intent to potential donors as well as paying a cut to the middlemen from all received Zakat. Moeenudin Chisty and Sahil Zahir, ex-employees of a private company and an NGO respectively, have formed a company called Together & Strategic Consultants, which solicits Zakat from donors on behalf of hospitals and NGOs and in doing so rakes in commissions ranging between 15 and 30 percent of the total collected. The unavoidable moral question attached to such activities is why money that is paid by multinational companies, local industrialists, philanthropists, etc., in good faith and on the implicit understanding that it will not be diverted from the purpose for which it is intended finds its way into corporate pockets? There is no mention of the fact that some (significant) part of the donations will be lost to middlemen or that there is no legal cover for this mode of collection. Second, what is to stop these concerned individuals from keeping more than their (un)just share? What form of auditing is involved? Is the common man aware of the details? The people who donate the money also have a right to know where it ends up.

As is evident, this practice doesn’t just go against the moral fibre of our society, it goes against the very purpose of Zakat, an amount that is supposed to help the disadvantaged in its entirety, rather than fill the coffers of the wealthy. However, in a country where funds from the Bait-ul-Maal are used to pay for VIP medical treatment of local dignitaries, what else can be expected?