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QANDEEL Baloch was just a name that popped up with irritating frequency on my Twitter feed. I had a vague idea that she was posting irreverent images of herself online, and that a cleric had been publicly embarrassed for appearing with her in a video that went viral.
Good for her, I thought to myself, not paying much attention to her or her online antics. But when news of her murder by her brother reached me, I went through some of her material on the Internet, and was gobsmacked by a sexy dance she performed on her bed.
And I was just one of over half a million people who had clicked on that particular link. Many of the comments that had been posted ranged from the sanctimonious to the bitchy. Some, mercifully, expressed their sorrow at the model’s death, and their anger at her brother.
Why can’t men be accused of tarnishing the family ‘honour’?
The alleged murderer, Waseem Azeem, said later that his family’s ‘honour’ had been so tarnished that he had to kill himself or his sister. So why didn’t he just kill himself? Obviously, the way to protect the family’s honour is to strangle a vulnerable woman, just as so many hundreds are murdered every year.
Pakistanis — and Muslims — don’t have a monopoly on this vile practice. But statistically, more Muslim women are killed by male family members for marrying of their own free will, or for other transgressions of a savage social code, than any others. In many cases, the killers are aided and abetted by close female relatives.
Perhaps the most sickening aspect of this warped desire to enforce obedience from women is that it is widely accepted and even condoned and defended. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s Oscar-winning documentary The Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness makes this chillingly clear. The father of the eponymous girl he almost managed to kill boasted that as a result of his attempted murder, his status in the community had gone up, and his other daughter had received several marriage proposals.
In the documentary, the victim, Saba, is pressured to ‘forgive’ her father in a court. She explains in an interview that she has to live in the community, and if her father were sent to jail, her family and neighbours would make things intolerable for her.
And so it goes. In Qandeel Baloch’s case, the state has become a party in the case of murder in the expectation that this would preclude the possibility of the killer being let off the hook by offering his parents blood money. However, legal experts are divided on the issue. But even if the self-confessed murderer is convicted for his crime, he will be an exception because, in most such cases, men are usually set free.
Clearly, family ‘honour’ provides men with a powerful motive to kill. But what is it exactly? Why can men behave in the most obnoxious way and not be accused of tarnishing this so-called family honour? They can rape, steal and kill without arousing family members to seek retribution.
So how come women are the sole custodians of this precious commodity? Why does this burden not fall equally on men? It would appear that the whole concept is a primitive tribal construct designed to control women. Virginity is highly prized in backward societies, and if there is any doubt about the matter, marriage becomes virtually impossible.
Property rights are another aspect of family honour: if a girl marries a man the family has not selected, he can later claim a share of his wife’s inheritance. Also, a father or a brother lose face in their community if it appears they cannot force a daughter or a sister to obey them.
Among Hindus, it is anathema for an upper-caste man or woman to marry somebody of a lower caste. Hundreds are killed for this ‘offence’, and killers are seldom punished. Other backward societies maintain similar taboos and enforce them with lethal force.
But why do democracies permit this murderous practice to continue, thereby allowing the subjugation of half their population? In many of our courts, reference to family ‘honour’ attracts the judge’s sympathy. The law of the land and the rights of the victim are set aside while the murderer, usually a man, is given every latitude.
As long as judges, police and the wider society continue slut-shaming victims, this vicious tradition will continue. And as we saw in the online and televised comments following Qandeel Baloch’s murder, a number of people take the view that her brother should not be blamed. For them, the model’s social media displays invited retribution.
It is this hypocritical attitude that creates an environment of sympathy and support for those who kill in the name of ‘honour’. For the sake of tradition and religion, we permit — even encourage — the oppression of women.
But in death Qandeel has achieved an iconic status, while her many critics will soon be forgotten.
Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2016
