Murder most foul

Published July 23, 2016
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

ONE lives in hope. The news that a consensus has finally emerged over proposed legislation prescribing tough punishment for so-called honour killing and rape and that parliament appears ready to approve these laws, therefore, must be a positive development.

The catalyst, as Dawn rightly pointed out in its leader on Friday, was the murder of social media sensation Qandeel Baloch. She was killed by her own brother (in the name of family honour) whom she reportedly supported financially along with her parents and other family members.

Much has been written about the young woman, her profiles done in her lifetime and even more over the past week since her murder by writers far more articulate than I. But let me tell you what she represented to me. A rebel and a totally free spirit in an utterly eccentric sort of way.


Qandeel was a woman of substance and ‘honour’. One need only read or watch interviews of her mother and disabled father to understand this.


Honestly speaking, a couple of times I may even have thought she was a bit crazy but then when she posted pictures of a meeting with Mufti Qavi, a religious scholar who sat on the Ruet-i-Hilal Committee, just a few weeks before life was squeezed out of her I realised there was method in her madness.

She was very effectively holding up a mirror to society and mocking its spurious piety. Here she was with as officially acknowledged a pious religious scholar as you can find in Pakistani society and a man twice her age. And what was he doing. Seemingly struggling hard not to drool all over her.

He later said he had gone to meet her as he wanted to save her soul, convince her to change her ways. All one could see in the photos was intimacy that was as far from an attempt at salvaging someone’s soul as one could get.

Qandeel Baloch often bared parts of her body in videos posted on social media and she had a fan base of 750,000 followers on Facebook. That she had such a huge number of fans did hint again at society’s hoax piety where as long as outwardly you don the cloak you can harbour any amount of sexual fantasies, even lust, inside you. I say this as many of those who saw her videos then condemned her, even justified her murder.

I really wish she had at least once bared her soul on social media too and chronicled what life is like for a girl born in a poor household in a Dera Ghazi Khan village; what it is like to be a given away in marriage at a young age and then produce a child in a grossly unhappy marriage marked by allegations of physical abuse. And then to have rebelled and left that life behind to seek fame, fortune and most of all freedom in the big city.

No I am not fantasising. Even in the big city, one can safely assume, lecherous men followed her around like the Pied Piper. Still she was able to carve a niche for herself and didn’t fall into any easily describable category.

She was, indeed, a woman of substance and ‘honour’. Before the pious among you jump the gun hear me out. You need only read or watch interviews of her mother and disabled father, who lost his foot in an accident and couldn’t work, to understand what is being said here.

Her grief-stricken parents have told the media they will never forgive their son for murdering Qandeel as she was the one who supported the whole family, paid for their move to a rented home in Multan and met their household expenses.

But to many people, and you can find an abundance of them on social media, she was responsible for her own death by posting videos of herself, in other words for exercising freedom to create content on social media, the viewing of which is purely voluntary.

My fear is that the laws which will allow for death/life sentences for ‘honour’ killings may serve as a deterrent but just. Beyond the laws it is very important for society now to acknowledge how it treats women after affording them the secondary status it does.

Qandeel Baloch may have been comfortable with her ‘damn you, I am at ease with my sexuality’ attitude. But it is not as if Pakistan does not have women who have been bashed by husbands for simply not getting the evening meal right or making a roti that got slightly burnt or for saying they have a headache.

Acid has been thrown at women for refusing a marriage proposal or amorous advances by a man. The woman seems to be the soft, easy target and I personally know of many instances where a denied promotion at work has also been blamed on the spouse.

Passing laws can only be lauded. It is a step in the right direction particularly if all the religious parties also support these. But how do we change the mindset, attitudes, in society. That is the real challenge.

I was reminded by former colleague and friend Sami Shah of a passage from Pakistan’s best journalist-author Mohammed Hanif’s novel Our Lady of Alice Bhatti. Nobody could have said it better in so few words, in a manner so poignant.

“There was not a single day — not a single day — when she didn’t see a woman shot or hacked, strangled or suffocated, poisoned or burnt, hanged or buried alive. Suspicious husband, brother protecting his honour, father protecting his honour, son protecting his honour, jilted lover avenging his honour, feuding farmers settling their water disputes, moneylenders collecting their interest: most of life’s arguments, it seemed, got settled by doing various things to a woman’s body.”

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, July 23rd, 2016

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