Right to vote isn’t enough

THERE’S good news and bad news for advocates of women’s rights in the Arab world. Saudi Arabia has announced that women in the country would for the first time be able to vote and stand in municipal elections in 2015. The bad news is that they would probably have to walk to the polling stations.

Only hours after a motley crew of Saudi princesses and western governments applauded King Abdullah’s “revolutionary and historic” decision, a Saudi court sentenced a woman to 10 lashes for challenging a ban on women driving in the kingdom.

Who speaks for women?

by Ahmad Ali Khalid on August 6th, 2011

Be not content with stories of those who went before you. Go forth and create your own story. —Rumi

It’s difficult to have a sensible discussion about gender in Pakistan. We become too apologetic and run to the latest tapes by preachers and televangelists seeking cheap assurances. Let us be blunt, Islam or no Islam – Pakistan has a problem when it comes to women – this is the reality on the ground, and so questions have to be asked.

ISLAMIC FEMINISM

Asghar Ali Engineer

 

Often people object to the term ‘feminism’ as being a western terminology. One Maulana, when invited to speak in a workshop of this title refused to come as feminism is un-Islamic. Is the use of this terminology objectionable from Islamic viewpoint? Not at all. In fact Islam is the first religion which systematically empowered women when women was considered as totally subservient to man. There was no concept of her being an independent entity and enjoying equal right with dignity.

The Perils of Freedom

By Vision21

We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way. The third is freedom from want…. The fourth is freedom from fear.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

We still have a long way to go…

Freedom, despite all the liberties for human experience in modern era, continues to evade us. It’s tricky and perhaps even a utopian idea that is not only difficult to comprehend but much harder to practice. Yet, it is one of the most persistent characteristic of our human age.

In the current times of market economy where everything comes with a price tag, freedom too has its cost.

And a high one at that…READ MORE

The Global Glass Ceiling

Governments and international organizations recognize that empowering women in the developing world is a catalyst for achieving a range of policy and development goals. It is time for multinational corporations to come to the same realization — funding education and training female business leaders is good for business.

ISOBEL COLEMAN is Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy and Director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the author of Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women Are Transforming the Middle East.

Wominnovation

Some innovations help women more than others

From The Economist online

TWO recent innovations have garnered a lot of attention for the way they empower women. One is microcredit, a system of lending to very poor people, the majority of whom are female microentrepreneurs who are thus helped to climb out of poverty. The other is the mobile phone, which among other things has led to the emergence of an army of “telephone ladies” in countries such as Bangladesh, who earn a decent living by buying a phone and renting it out to other villagers.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: British Muslims are running out of friends

The establishment has surpassed its previous disgraceful record in its attitudes to Islam

I am but Muslim lite, a non-conformist believer who will not be told what and how by sanctimonious religious sentinels for whom religion is a long list of rules to be obeyed by bovine followers. Readers know I am often critical of Muslim people and nations. Bad things that happen to us cannot all be attributed to “Islamophobia”, a nebulous and imprecise concept that, like anti-Semitism, can be used to besmirch and sully and silence criticism.

FOR THE LOVE OF THE PROPHET … REALLY ?

By Awaam

Today is the day of prophet’s birth. In recent years celebrating Eid Milad un Nabi has become a tradition. This is obviously celebrated with ‘ RAWAYTI  JOSH O JAZBA AND MAZHABI IKIDAAT O EHTRAAM’.  Functions celebrating Prophet’s birth are held. Thank God it has not come to cutting the cakes as yet.

For Pakistani women, dupattas are more than a fashion statement

The long scarves that many wear with traditional shalwar kameez outfits are laden with religious and cultural significance. For some it’s a sign of Islamic modesty, for others a cumbersome relic.

February 23, 2010|By Mark Magnier

Reporting from Karachi, Pakistan — Seeking a competitive edge, fabric designer Vaneeza Ahmad spent hours on the phone to China but couldn’t find anyone to make her new line of dupattas, the omnipresent scarves that Pakistani women drape over their arms, head, chest.

China may be the world’s factory floor, but its scarf makers aren’t equipped for something that can be more than 8 feet long. Ahmad fretted, until, after much wrangling, she found a solution.

“I’ve located a curtain maker who could do it,” she said triumphantly. “They’ve got the only machines big enough to handle our dupattas.”

Essence of femininity, grist for film and literature, political statement, cultural icon, albatross, these few ounces of cotton or silk fabric have woven their way across Pakistan’s shoulders, history and fashion runways, morphing from protest symbol to political must-have to sometimes-burdensome accessory demanded by Islamic fundamentalists.

The GlObal KaleidOscOpe…DunyaNama

The world is constantly changing at pace that often leaves us bewildered. There are astonishing breakthroughs in science, new discoveries in technology and innovative advancements in our ways of communication every day.

However, where does Pakistan stand amidst all these new discoveries and developments? Are we following the world as it advances or have we lagged behind?

The purpose of our new weekly section “Global kaleidoscope … DunyaNama” posted on our website is to know and analyse this. We want to bring our readers’ attention to the ways of our global world. Hence, by reflecting on the global discourses propagated in form of news, articles, blogs and researches we will attempt to create a holistic picture of worldly affairs in a given week and the possible implications for our own development.

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8th Feb 2010

In today’s modern times we have a large plethora of information available to us, thanks to the worldwide web. Still, there were some articles that stood out. Some that forced us to think about where we’re headed. We plan to discuss them in our section of “Global kaleidoscope… DunyaNama”

We start by an interesting article that caught our eye. It was John Pilger’s “From Orwell’s World to Obama’s Oceania” posted on the author’s website (www.johnpilger.com). John Pilger is an Australian journalist, author, and documentary filmmaker based in London. He also writes a bi-weekly column in New Statesman, and is well known for his outspoken criticism of foreign policy of western countries and world leaders including American President, Barak Obama.

In this article Pilger describes how the entire political structure of United States of America, rests solely on shaky foundations of self-constructed lies. The war on Terrorism, world peace, Al-Qaeda and global consensus in support of the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan are some of the many lies that US government has created in an attempt to create a history to justify its future.

But How does US manage to sustain and justify such big a lie?…Read More at our Website

The principle of modesty

Dr. Riffat Hassan is a Pakistani-American who is a Professor of the Religious Studies Programme at the University of Louisville, Kentucky. She is an Islamic feminist who is considered as one of the pioneers of feminist theology in the context of the Islamic tradition. She has written extensively on rights of women in Islam. Women’s morality has been a subject of debate and controversy in all human societies. ‘The project’ has been about shaping women’s attitudes to suit the interests of others, those who hold power at a given point in time.

Sadly though, among all these artificial constructs of morality, the real woman has remained missing.  Left out intentionally. The one who is not a mother, a wife, a daughter or a sister. Rather the one who is a person with her own hopes and ideals about life.  It is always refreshing to come across articles that talk about women from women’s perspective. That is they are written by women who have experienced, in one way or the other, the feeling of living under burdensome and despotic ideologies about their own moral identity.

Dr. Hassan, in this article has pointed out a crucial dilemma facing our society at large. Dressing norms have, for centuries, acted as a powerful method of controlling women; their body language, thinking patterns, level of freedom and standing in society. Generally religion, and Islam in our case, has been the most effective and widely used tool for justifying these controls. 

Hence, the need of the hour is an honest and progressive reinterpretation of our Islamic ideals that can help us reorient our lives in truly modern sense. Or may I say reorient in Quranic sense, as seen through the eyes of a woman, standing in front of her Creator, asking for no more but what is due to her

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By Dr. Riffat Hassan

IN the context of proper attire and conduct, the Quran lays down one basic principle, namely, modesty which is stated in Surah 24: 30-31: Tell the believing men to lower their gaze (avoiding its concentration on a person’s body, or a certain part of it) and to be mindful of their chastity; in this they will be more considerate for their own well-being and purity, and surely God is fully aware of all that they do.

Women’s bills revisited

By Zubeida Mustufa

Hats off to the women who lobbied for the two bills on sexual harassment, and managed last week to move them a step further towards becoming the law. At long last the ruling coalition partners mustered enough courage to take a stand on women’s rights in this matter.

At one stage the Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Bill and the Criminal Law Amendment Bill had appeared to be in the doldrums, given the resistance from the religious parties. Another bill, the Domestic Violence Bill, which was passed by the National Assembly, lapsed when it was not adopted by the Senate within the stipulated 90 days.