I am getting a sick feeling watching
all these ABC whitening cream, XYZ whitening soap, …and now so many international
brands claiming to bring out fairness with their improved formulae of fairness
face wash, in this region if not anywhere else in the world. Oh please enough
is enough. This is twenty first century and the world has gone much beyond skin
color. Why on earth are we sticking to it? In one of the advertisements it
implies if you use this fairness cream only then you will find a prince charming. In another it narrates
as if all women want is fairness. Do all girls only dream to get
married as soon as possible? and after using the whitening cream, soap or
facewash the next thing that happens is “Baraat”.
By the way even in the advertisements of household electronics or anything else all
married women are always fair skinned. Thanks! But no thanks!
We live in Pakistan and we are
always after the slogans of nationalism, patriotism, etc. We love to say we
don’t want to be influenced by foreign culture. We claim our own culture is
rich enough. We never hesitate saying we
got independence from British Colonialism and this has proved to the world that
we do not accept any kind of slavery. But I am sorry to acknowledge this white
skin craze is a result of colonized mindset. Looking down to our own skin color
to me is something like looking down to my own identity. This skin color
phenomena particularly among women has created a ridiculous hierarchy of
beauty- a hierarchy that places the white skin at the top and dark at the
bottom. A hierarchy that makes girls feel superior/inferior on the bases of
something that is not even achieved or earned, something that is totally
granted to them by nature and is not even permanent. I am sorry but please stop
objectifying me in one way or the other.
On the other day a brother of two
sisters was sitting in my office talking to me about how tough it is becoming
now days for families of tradition to find suitable boys for their girls. He
has tears in his eyes when he said my sisters are highly qualified, they are
working and they are pious. Then at once he said “madam why didn’t you get
married”… I could not think of another answer and I wanted to make him feel
little better so I simply said “I didn’t get to know about the fairness creams
and soaps in time”. Later on I thought this is not merely a joke rather there
lies a truth somewhere in this statement. I agree this is not always the reason
of girls being rejected for a marriage proposal, but believe me this is the top
most reason in many cases around us.
We all keep telling our kids on the
bases of religious, moral, ethical and all values that color does not matter.
All the people around the world are equal and the only thing that makes one
superior than other is good deeds and piousness (that also is subjectively
defined by many of us but that’s beside the point). Coming back to the concept
of equality, why can’t we simply let people live with at least this confidence
that no matter how they look, they will get what they deserve? It is one of the
basic ideas of human rights. No cast, religion, gender, race, ethnicity or
color can redefine our right to live. If we keep strengthening such narratives
as “…cream laganey se pehley mein thi yahan aur
ab hoon yahan”; “…whitening soap
lagao aur chha jao” through our electronic and other media resources, and if
we do not campaign to stop it believe me it will strengthen the warfare of
“fairness”. I wish we had some formula in market to bring fairness to our life
and to our behaviors instead of our skin.