Cartoon superhero fights to educate girls
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN — Wonder Woman and Supergirl now have a Pakistani counterpart in the pantheon of female super heroes — one who shows a lot less skin.
Meet Burka Avenger: a mildmannered teacher with secret martial arts skills who uses a flowing black burka to hide her identity as she fights local thugs seeking to shut down the girls’ school where she works.
Sadly, it’s a battle Pakistanis are all too familiar with in the real world.
The Taliban have blown up hundreds of schools and attacked activists in Pakistan’s northwest because they oppose girls’ education.
The militants sparked worldwide condemnation last fall when they shot 15-year-old schoolgirl activist Malala Yousafzai in the head in an unsuccessful attempt to kill her.
Action in the Burka Avenger cartoon series, which is scheduled to start running on Geo TV in early August, is much more lighthearted. The bungling bad guys evoke more laughter than fear and are no match for the Burka Avenger, undoubtedly the first South Asian ninja who wields books and pens as weapons.
The Urdu language show is the brainchild of one of Pakistan’s biggest pop stars, Aaron Haroon Rashid — known to many as simply Haroon — who conceived of it as a way to emphasize the importance of girls’ education and teach children other lessons, such as protect- ing the environment and not discriminating against others. This last point is critical in a country where Islamist militants wage repeated attacks on religious minorities.
“Each one of our episodes is centred around a moral, which sends out strong social messages to kids,” Rashid told The Associated Press in his first interview about the show. “But it is cloaked in pure en- tertainment, laughter, action and adventure.”
The decision to clothe the superhero in a black burka — a full-length robe commonly worn by conservative Islamic women in Pakistan and Afghanistan — could raise eyebrows because some people view the outfit as a sign of oppression. The Taliban forced women to wear burkas when they took control of Afghani- stan in the 1990s.
The version worn by the Burka Avenger shows only her eyes and fingers — though it has a sleeker, more ninja-like look than the bulky robes of an actual burka.
Rashid, who is certainly no radical Islamist, said he used a burka to give a local feel to the show, which is billed as the first animated series ever produced in Pakistan.
“It’s not a sign of oppression. She is using the burka to hide her identity like other superheroes,” Rashid said.
The series is set in Halwapur, a fictional town nestled in the soaring mountains and verdant valleys of northern Pakistan. The Burka Avenger’s true identity is Jiya, whose adopted father, Kabbadi Jan, taught her the karate moves she uses to defeat her enemies. When not garbed as her alter ego, Jiya does not wear a burka, or even a less conservative head scarf over her hair.
The main bad guys are Vadero Pajero, a balding, corrupt politician who wears a dollar sign-shaped gold medallion around his neck, and Baba Bandook, an evil magician with a bushy black beard and moustache who is meant to resemble a Taliban commander.
Caught in the middle are the show’s main child characters: Ashu and her twin brother Immu and their best friend Mooli, who loves nothing more than munching on radishes in the company of his pet goat, Golu.
In the first episode, Pajero wants to shut down the girls’ school in Halwapur so he can pocket the money a charity gave him to run it. He finds a willing accomplice in Bandook, whose beliefs echo those of the Taliban and many other men in conservative, Islamic Pakistan.
“What business do women have with education?” says Bandook. “They should stay at home, washing, scrubbing and cleaning, toiling in the kitchen.”
Bandook padlocks the gate of the school and orders the crowd of girls outside to leave. Ashu steps forward to resist and delivers a defiant speech about the importance of girls’ education — perhaps marking her as a future activist.
“The girls of today are the mothers of tomorrow,” says Ashu. “If the mothers are not educated, then future generations will also remain illiterate.”