Making them silent forever

I am out of the country now days and I wish I could hear more good news coming from my homeland than the bad ones. But news industry does not buy or sell many good news; or may be there are more bad news in my land than good ones any way. I read about the killing of another young boy named Bilal Khan. It hurts me deeper and makes me saddened as much as I always am on any such news.

I lived in Pakistan for the most of my life and have traveled around fifteen countries out of which I have spent longer time in UK and USA. Until 2003 I had not gone out of Pakistan and my patriotism was at its peak like most of the Pakistanis. I was always looking at all the news and analysis with the lens of conspiracy theories. The whole developed world seemed to have an agenda against us and we being the best of the best nations were victimized.

Now After 15 years of travelling around and learning multiple perspectives; I can clearly see how badly we have been deceived by no one else but our own country fellows. The religious extremism on the one hand and armed forces supremacy on the other hand plus financially and politically empowered elite being the third force; a common man cannot even think big or speak aloud.

Very few of our educational institutions allow the teachers and students to go beyond text books and very few of our classroom interactions help to inculcate and develop independent and critical thinking. Our society at large and all social institutions knit together a social fabric which does not allow any difference of opinion from that of the dominant narratives of the empowered groups.

Bilal Khan or other young minds like him are the rare ones who dare to challenge the status-quo and who not only think differently but also speak up. I salute the parents, families, teachers and all the affiliated individuals and groups who help them to breakthrough all barriers and become what they naturally wanna be.

But then comes one dominant power group; any one of them who can see the truthfulness as a threat to their power, and they decide to silence this true voice. They threaten them, they victimize them and then finally they kill them. Just because Bilal and others like him think and speak aloud, they are to be silenced by those who want to send out the lesson to others that no one must dare.

Still we call it a democracy...still we call it a civilization...still we call it an independent country?

HEC Policies to be revised

Yesterday I made a social media post on which some of my senior faculty members advised to create a blog for comments. Here is the post and kindly note your comments in the comment box below so that we may have notes to share with hi-ups. 

Policy makers need to rethink the terms and conditions on PhD  evaluation

1. HEC asks PhD thesis to be evaluated by foreign experts even in the fields where we have many many foreign graduates in Pakistani universities. Why did we invest so much in their qualifications if we r not going to trust their expertise.
2. Foreign evaluators are listed after their consent and when thesis is sent they either dont respond or regret, evaluation procedures r taking more than one calendar year
3. PhD students are required to publish in at least y category journals which is a huge challenge keeping in view the lobbying and money involved.
4. A faculty member cannot supervise more than 5 students and they r not checked out from a supervisors list even after submission until they graduate. Think of this scenario that a faculty will remain free until any of them gets evaluation publication n viva process done.
I am sending out this msg to all concerned and requesting them to please comment and suggest alternatives
AH

AURAT MARCH 2019

سوال: عورت کی آزادی سے مراد کیا ہے

اگر آپ مجھ سے پوچھیں تو آزادی سے مراد ہے کہ وہ اپنی سوچ فکر رائے اور فیصلے میں آزاد ہو. اسے پڑھنے یا کام کرنے کے لیے سوال: عورت کی آزادی سے مراد کیا ہے"اجازت" نہ دی جائے بلکہ کسی بھی مرد کی طرح وہ پڑھے لکھے کام کرے آگے بڑھے جب چاہے تب شادی کرے اور ایک خوش زندگی گزارے. اس کی سانسیں آزاد ہوں اسی فضا میں جس میں مرد سانس لیتا ہے. چادر اور چار دیواری کے نام پر اس کا استحصال نہ کیا جائے. نشے میں ڈھت کوئی باپ بھائی شوہر یا بیٹا اس کی کمائی نہ چھینے. مردانگی دکھانے کو اس پر زور زبردستی نہ ہو اور نسل در نسل عورت ہی عورت کا استحصال کرنا بھی بند کرے

مسئلہ یہ ہے کہ اگرعورت اپنے حقوق مانگے تو معاشرے کا بڑا پن ہے وہ اس کو مانگنے دیتا ہے, لیکن کچھ عرصہ سے عورت نے جو نہ مانگنے کی روش اختیار کی ہے اب بڑی بیزاری ہو رہی ہے...یہ اتنی بے باک کیوں ہو رہی ہے... منگتی رہتی تو تسکین رہتی اور اس کی بےچارگی پر وہ بھی ان کے ساتھ کھڑے ہو جاتے...لیکن ہوا یہ کہ وہ تن تنہا کھڑی ہو گئی اور آئینہ دکھانے لگی. معاشرے کو تو بے چارگی سننے اور دیکھنے کی عادت تھی...خدا را مجھے تعلیم دو, جائداد میں حقوق دو, کام کی اجرت دو وغیرہ وغیرہ 

اب اس معاشرے سے عرض ہے کہ میں نہیں مانگتی, میں اپنے زور بازو پر یقین رکھتے ہوئے کہتی ہوں میرے ساتھ چلو, محبت اور عزت دو اور لو لیکن مجھے بے چارگی کا بیانیہ نہیں دینا. مجھے مرد سے مال نہیں محبت اور عزت چاہئے.

The placards my young girls were holding in the women's independence march were nothing more than mirrors. As long they held the mirrors towards themselves, they could only see their own pretty faces, but when they turned the mirrors to society you all could see the ugliness of society... Don't panic clean the mess n you won't see this horrific expression of suppression...

If u had a healthy respectful n happy life, u r blessed. but the social fabric is seen by the trends...its never all bad or all good, yet it is seen in terms of how bad it is. In Pakistan gender discrimination is prevalent in the society. Overall in access to health, education, justice n any other element of quality of life male dominate the female n females support this by surrendering their own n their fellow females' rights, while the third gender is fighting for the basic life necessities. Let us not forget the facts n help our fellow beings to understand what equality freedom n collective happiness means.

The above three paragraphs are my social media responses to this year's March 08 International Women's Day celebrations and the reaction to it. Many people are saying that this year the kind of slogans and placards used in the march for women independence were not based on the real issues. I humbly submit that for any girl or woman a real issue is something that hinders and haunts her independent thinking and practice. As a nation we are going through a transition; on the one hand we have the radicalized mindset of a big part of population which only sees through the (mis)interpreted religious perspective while on the other hand there is an extreme of liberalism which only looks at each phenomenon with a liberal perspective. Yet a moderate mindset is either missing or not vocal enough. Therefore every social issue becomes a critical topic of hot debate on conventional and social media. I wish and hope that the two extremes calm down and sooner or later the moderate mindset becomes vocal enough to provide a common ground for resolving the real issue of gender discrimination in the society.