The hatreds of a patriarchal society

Dawn (Karachi)

How extraordinary that a Pakistani woman feted abroad for her bravery should be so detested in her own land, says Asad Hashim. Malala Yousafzai has lived in Britain since being shot by the Taliban in 2012 for daring to campaign for education for girls. You’d think Pakistanis would be proud to see her lauded on the world stage and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But no. Many see her as a “Western stooge” who won fame by “maligning Pakistan and its values”. Death threats discouraged her from returning, and when she did finally make a brief visit last month, it was to a chorus of angry voices proclaiming, “I am not Malala”. What an appalling instance of our country’s rampant misogyny. Another women’s rights campaigner celebrated in the West is Mukhtar Mai, who survived a horrific gang rape ordered by a tribal council, then sought justice instead of taking her own life, as custom demands. She was widely vilified; the then president Pervez Musharraf even suggested that Mai and her ilk “voluntarily had themselves raped” in order to gain foreign citizenship. These brave people are something that the patriarchy abhors: women who refuse to be silenced.