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Posted by Fiona in Light Shines Taboo Topics:Sexual Abuse on May 13th, 2017
Imagine being 13 years old and being sexually assaulted by a (trusted) member of your family in his 30s, a married man with children.
Imagine not being able to say anything because you’re kind of numb about what just happened, and because you think that perhaps you misunderstood the situation; you think maybe it was just a bad dream because you were sleeping and woke up to this.
Now you are doubting yourself because after all, this person is your much older cousin and you have been friends with him since he came to the country a couple of years ago. Not just that, but his widowed mother has lived with you and your family for the last five years. So after a while, you have convinced yourself that this incident was just a bad dream and couldn’t possible happen in reality.
So you go back to normal – until it happens again and this time in daylight. You then realise the first time wasn’t just a nightmare, it was a reality just like this.
You don’t know what to do, you don’t know if you can tell someone; after all this is family. It would completely destroy his mother and your parents’ relationship with her and his entire family. So you decide to tell no one, but engage yourself in other activities and go on with life.
You are now in high school and the memories of those assaults have been successfully repressed until one day they aren’t. Your grades go down, college is next year and thankfully you have already been accepted to your choice of school. You continue to go on with life, not wanting or having to do anything with that cousin. You managed to successfully cut yourself out of many family events due to ‘school work and other activities,’ but still, there are times you can’t and must face him and pretend nothing happened even though all you want to do is throw up when you see him.
All of a sudden, in your second semester of college, you collapse – you can’t move and are rushed to the hospital due to a paralysis attack. No one has a clue as to what just happened and why. After many tests, the doctors say it is stress and sometimes the body shuts itself down. You know better.
Finally you confide in one of your female cousins, not really knowing what she will say or think. She encourages you to tell your parents and finally you do. That particular family has not lived with you for years now so it is easier. Your father immediately wants to go after him with a gun and everyone makes sure you realise this was not your fault. You feel a certain liberation; your mind feels light as if a huge burden has just been relieved; it has and now you just want to live your life, finally. You realise this is all you needed; to know that your family believed you and is willing to do whatever you need.
Why am I telling you this story?
I’m telling you this story because it’s high time we acknowledge that the drama serials that are made in Pakistan and deal with sexual assault, rape, rapists and child molestation… are more often than not a load of rubbish.
From marital rape in Gul-e-Rana to Chup Raho and Sangat, and to the currently on-air Muqaabil, I am horrified at how sexual assault and rape is being sensationalised.
Also read: Romanticising rape is not okay. So why do Pakistani dramas do it anyway?
In Gul-e-Rana, the hero kidnaps the girl and marries her forcefully because she had said ‘no’ to his rishta. What follows is marital rape, but by the end of serial, the character is still presented as a hero despite being a rapist and wife beater.
In Muqaabil the victim marries the son of her rapist just to get back at him! Are you kidding me? Forget me and my story, but every rape/child molestation survivor I have spoken to would never even want to be in the same room as her attacker, never mind marrying his son and living in the same house.
Yes, they do want to confront their attacker and make sure they are a survivor and not a victim – that is very important, but they would never willingly live in the same house as them, forget marrying their son. The writer just made a mockery out of the ordeal of every child sexual abuse survivor.
Also read: In Sangat, the rapist is both hero and villain — and that’s a problem
Let’s talk about Sangat now. For every victim of rape and sexual assault, Sangat was a slap in their face. You can NOT make a rapist the hero and that too by the victim’s own mother’s hand! Knowing how it feels to keep quiet about this for years, had my parents tried to even hint that perhaps my cousin just ‘made a mistake,’ I’m not sure what I would have done.
I forgave my attacker only when he died in a horrific accident; and that too I did for myself, for my sanity and peace of mind. It was a decision I made.
I fail to understand what our writers, producers, directors and actors are trying to tell survivors of sexual assault. Are your ratings really worth pretending that sexual assault doesn’t exist or worse, that its scars are superficial?
The only shows that I’ve watched that are actually anything close to reality were Roag and Udaari. But even in Udaari, as brilliant as it was written and directed, and as brilliant a job Ahsan Khan did as ‘Pa Imtiaz’ even he made light of it by sharing memes regarding his roles as funny. He (rightly) won Best Actor for his role in Udaari at the LSAs this year and has highlighted this issue a lot more than any other actor, but that doesn’t excuse him from what he did. I do commend him however, for at least trying to highlight this issue even after Udaari ended.
Speaking of Udaari and awards, I felt another blow when Yasir Hussain made a joke about child molestation at the Hum Awards. After that, Ahmad Ali Butt took it further by saying “*mein tou toffiyan bhi kha leyta.” This, ladies and gentlemen, is what passes for humour in our country.
After this, barely any actors or actresses or the channel itself said anything against any of them. Even Hamza Ali Abbasi, who always has something to say about women’s clothes and item numbers, stayed quiet. Later, Noman Ejaz came on stage and compared women to female horses – yes, let that sink in. How these people are allowed in a public setting and given a platform to speak at is beyond my comprehension.
As a survivor and as a woman, I find these people and these industry standards demeaning and insulting.
The issue is that it’s not just writers or actors who are the problem. The directors, producers, and TV channels who chose to be part of these project are equally at fault. They are insulting victims for ratings and money. Rape and child abuse is now just a ratings gimmick and it sells like Shahrukh Khan sells in India.
It is the hottest thing on TV right now and everyone wants to get in for the money. Who actually cares about the issue and how to solve it? Again, aside from Udaari and Roag (thank you Farhat Ishtiaq and Faiza Iftekhar), I haven’t yet seen a serial trying to address the issue with the sensitivity it deserves and actually faulting the attacker and not the victim. My question is why? Why do you not think that the victims deserve respect? Why do the attackers get your benefit of the doubt and victims are made to suffer and at times be humiliated for what they went through? In a society where even talking about this was a taboo, now it is literally being sensationalised like the newest designer handbag or sunglasses.
Please stop selling rape for money and ratings.
You have set a precedent that is hard to reverse. Every single person involved in the making of Gul-e-Rana, Sangat, Muqaabil, and other serials like that and every single person who said nothing to Yasir Hussain and in fact defended him because “he didn’t mean it” should be ashamed of themselves.
If you can’t deal with the subject properly, go back to your saas and bahu scripts; just stop making fun of victims… I beg of you.
Sana Khan is a pen name to protect the author’s identity.
Posted by Brave_Heart in Asif Haroon Raja (Retd):Pakistan Army on May 13th, 2017
On May 5, 2017, Afghan border security forces carried out unprovoked firing across the Chaman border in Baluchistan on two Pakistani villages namely Kili Luqman and Kili Jahangir, martyring 11 Pakistani civilians including one Frontier Corps (FC) soldier and injuring 50 people. The merciless act was undertaken when national census teams accompanied by FC troops were busy carrying out national population census in the two Pakistani villages in Chaman area, about which Kabul was informed one week in advance. Kabul government had given full assurance of cooperation. The clearly demarcated border runs between the Pakistani villages and Afghan villages. The firers made use of houses of Afghan villages to fire at census teams and villagers and use Afghan villagers as human shields. The shelling continued for 10 hours.
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As if this provocative act was not enough, Afghan forces repeated the offensive act across Torkham border in Khyber Agency by firing for one hour on two Pakistani posts. Pakistan has closed the Bab-e-Dosti Chaman border gate as well as Torkham gate and the situation is still tense.
This is the second time that Afghanistan has resorted to aggression in less than one year time. Last was on Torkham crossing point on June 13, 2016 in which one Major succumbed to injuries and 16 were injured in the whole night duel. Reason for unprovoked aggression was construction of border gate well inside Pak territory to check flow of terrorists. Pakistan had retaliated strongly by not only launching a tough counter military action but also closed the two major crossing points for a month.
Pakistan’s Counteraction. After the unprovoked firing, the aggression was fully responded by Pakistan forces causing huge loss on the Afghan side. To start with, civilians from affected villages and adjacent areas were evacuated. Troops were dispatched and Air Force was put on high alert. Pakistan responded effectively. About 7 posts of Afghan Border Police were destroyed and around 30 Afghan soldiers were killed and over 50 injured in counter fire by Pakistan Forces. Pakistan used heavy artillery to pound the Afghan posts. Baab-e-Dosti gate was closed. The counter fire was so devastating that Afghan forces had to wave frantically white flags and pleaded for cease fire. Before cease firing, one suspicious village on the Afghan side was taken under the control by the forward moving troops of Pakistan Armed Forces.
There are total of 288 crossing points along the 2640 km long Durand Line. Among them, Torkham and Chaman border crossings take major flow of road traffic. Other two important points are Spin Boldak in Balochistan and Angoor Adda in South Waziristan. All crossing points are in use of pedestrians and animal transport since villages are located on both sides of the border at each crossing site. In many cases the villages are divided, half this side and half across the border. These divided villages’ house majority of agents of NDS and RAW working as saboteurs, handlers and informers.
Registration of all residents of border villages would certainly help in identifying the intelligence and drug smuggling network operating on both sides of Chaman and Spin Boldak areas. It was therefore natural for the NDS and drug mafias to get upset over the planned population census and hence decided to disrupt it.
The two colluding partners NDS-RAW tasked notorious drug baron Gen Abdul Razaq Achakzai to undertake the disruption plan. He was more worried about the two villages in Chaman since his handlers were residing there and his smuggling route passed through these villages. He gladly accepted the responsibility. As per rough estimates, his drug smuggling network based in border villages and Afghan refugee camps earn a profit of $ 6 million annually.
It has now been gathered that NDS and RAW had prepared this plan four days prior to the attack. RAW joined the show since it had failed to prevent population census process in the Azad Kashmir villages situated along the LoC on account of heightened uprising in Indian occupied Kashmir (IOK) and Indian forces breaking all records of barbarism against Kashmiris and the world focus on IOK. It decided to place its gun on the shoulders of Afghanistan and fire the gun to kill two birds in one go – avenge Indian Army’s helplessness and to further up the ante on western border.
For the planned attack, light weapons, artillery guns, ammunition and explosives were stored in the houses of the villages opposite the two target villages well before hand. Those houses were used as bunkers from where firing was done and residents were used as human shields to prevent the other side to retaliate with full force. However, Pak forces struck back at Afghan check posts in which the Militia men of Razaq were resting in peace.
Background of Lt Gen Razaq
It will be worthwhile to shed light on so-called Gen Abdul Razaq Achakzai. He was made police chief of Kandahar 6 years ago when Hamid Karzai was in power. Later on, he was given this post on permanent basis as well as the rank of Brig Gen by Karzai as a reward for the exploits of his private Militia against the Taliban. Like many others, this illiterate man who had spent his time in refugee camps before and during the Taliban rule, and he also worked in a shop, is now a Lt Gen. His fortunes soared after 9/11, when he offered his Militia to the Americans to fight the Taliban. His Militia took active part in 2010 operation in Kandahar. Most of his Militia men are trained from American private companies such as DynCorp and Black water. They received training from the American funded Black Water Centre established in Kandahar. He is infamous for mercilessly torturing Taliban captives and for carrying out extra judicial killings.
He is also a blue eyed boy of the US military and like Rashid Dostum maintains a private Militia. Like late Wali Muhammad Karzai, foster brother of Hamid Karzai, who was supervising drug trade of Afghanistan from Kandahar, Razaq has taken over the drug business. From Spin Boldak route alone, 40 maunds of opium is smuggled under his supervision every month. Once inside Baluchistan, his handlers transport the opium in jeeps and major part of it is handed over to Iranian Baloch.
Despite being a landlocked country and mainly dependent upon Pakistan for its imports and exports, Afghanistan has all along remained an unfriendly country. Pakistan came closer to Afghanistan when it decided to support the Afghan Mujahideen against the occupying Soviet forces in 1980 and hosted well over 3 million Afghan refugees. Gen Ziaul Haq pursued an upright and correct Afghan policy and was instrumental in winning the hearts and minds of the Afghans. His sudden death under mysterious circumstances in August 1988 and the US deciding to abandon Afghanistan and Pakistan in 1989 led to power tussle between the seven Mujahedeen groups. Civil war erupted between the groups under Gulbadin Hikmatyar and Northern Alliance (NA) under Ahmad Shah Masood, which raged till the eruption of Taliban movement from Kandahar in 1994. They captured power in October 1996 and pushed NA to Panjsher Valley comprising about 9% of Afghan territory. NA patronized by Iran, India, US and the West became hostile towards Pakistan since it considered Pakistan responsible for its woes.
Pakistan and Afghanistan enjoyed best of relations during the five years rule of Taliban from 1996 till their ouster in November 2001 by the US led western forces and NA. During the Taliban rule, Pakistan’s western border had become safe in true sense. Poppy growing, arms trade and war lordism had ceased in Afghanistan. Both had pledged to provide strategic depth to each other in times of crisis. However, Pakistan was gifted the cancers of drugs and Kalashnikovs as well as sectarianism during and after the Afghan Jihad. The successive civilian governments in the 1990s did nothing to cure the perforating cancers which had militarized the society or to return the Afghan refugees.
Pakistan’s decision to ditch Taliban regime at the behest of Washington in September 2001 and to provide air bases from where the US bombers destroyed Afghanistan, and then providing logistics supply routes to NATO forces from Karachi seaport to Afghanistan via Chaman and Torkham shocked the Taliban. Having experienced the golden era of Gen Zia, they could never imagine that another Pakistani General would treacherously stab them in the back to win the affections of a super power. Pakistan also helped in netting runaway Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders and handing them over to CIA for onwards transfer to Guantanamo Bay Prison. Since then Pakistan’s Afghan policy has remained in confusion and in doldrums thereby accumulating distrust and widening the distance between the two countries.
The hey days of brotherly and blood relations have now become history and today Afghan government as well as the people of Afghanistan have become averse to Pakistan. Indian psychological operators have penetrated in each and every government department and have succeeded in influencing the minds of Afghans. Their minds have been systematically brainwashed to hate Pakistan and to see India as their friend and benefactor. Afghan society had been Sovietized by the former USSR during its 10-year occupation and now India has Indianized Afghan society.
Afghans have been told repeatedly that Pakistan is a betrayer; it had first betrayed NA and then the Taliban; and that it’s an enemy of Afghanistan and wants to make it its colony. In actuality, Afghanistan for all practical purposes has become a colony of India. The two have become strategic partners, and RAW-NDS backed by USA are working against Pakistan in unison since 2002. In fact, RAAM and NDS were established by RAW. All what Pakistan had done for Afghanistan in its testing times has been washed down the drain.
While NA has not forgotten and forgiven Pakistan for its support to the Taliban, The Taliban have out of expediency overlooked Pakistan’s betrayal and has thus far not picked up arms against Pak security forces or indulged in acts of terrorism in Pakistan. They have confined their resistance war against the occupying forces and the collaborators inside Afghanistan and have let the TTP to bleed Pakistan. The US, NATO, Afghan government and India have been persistently trying to create a wedge between the Taliban and Pakistan security forces and pitch them against each other.
The US to some extent achieved this objective after it forced Pakistan to launch an operation in North Waziristan in June 2014 and flush out Pak-friendly so-called Haqqani network (HN), then playing up death of Mulla Omar in July 2015 to scuttle Afghan peace talks, then pressing it to force the Taliban to lay down arms and come to negotiating table, or else fight the HN and so-called Quetta Shura, and then droning Mulla Mansour on May 22, 2016 when he was about to join peace process, and then abruptly discarding Pakistan from Quadrilateral peace talks forum and adding India.
While Pakistan exerted pressure on the Taliban to agree to talks, it couldn’t win any concession for them from Washington and Kabul. Pakistan’s efforts to convince the Taliban to accept the US dictated peace agreement and the US tailored constitution has not been well received among the rank and file of Taliban. They view it as another betrayal to please USA and to earn its kudos. For them, it amounts to disregarding their huge sacrifices and abandoning liberation movement at a time when victory is in sight, merely to share power as a junior partner.
This is naturally unacceptable to the Taliban under Haibatullah, since they have sacrificed their three generations and have gained control over 60% of Afghan territory and restricted the writ of inept, corrupt and unpopular ruling regime of Ashraf Ghani to Kabul only, entirely dependent upon $8.1 billion annual foreign aid.
While Trump has acknowledged that terrorism “cannot be defeated with any sort of finality”, he has given his nod to induct of 3-5000 additional troops to beef up US 8400 troops in Afghanistan in coming June. It amounts to reinforcing the failure. As had happened after the two troop surges in 2009, casualty rate of occupiers and collaborators as well as of civilians will jump up. Overall security situation will worsen and may trigger another round of civil war as had happened in 1991.
The situation is getting ripe for such a gory scenario in the wake of enhanced economic stakes of China and its concerns about ETIM; Russia’s deepening interest in the affairs of Afghanistan in order to ward off the emerging threat of Daesh, and to gain access to warm waters; Iran wanting to retain and possibly expand its sphere of influence in Western and Central Afghanistan; Uzbekistan concerns about IMU; landlocked Central Asian States quest to join CPEC and have peaceful Afghanistan; Qatar desiring to retain its diplomatic clout over Taliban owing to their political office in Doha; and USA and India having no intention to abandon Afghanistan.
As can be seen, there are too many external players having their fingers in the pie of Afghanistan. Pakistan has suffered the most because of continuous instability in Afghanistan since 1978 and none can match its sacrifices. It shares 60% of border with Afghanistan. And yet Pakistan is the only country which is being repeatedly pressed to stay out of Afghanistan. On one hand it is coerced to make the Taliban agree to talk, and in the same breath it is told to sever ties with them.
Sadly, our leaders with feet of clay and devoid of clear cut Afghan policy, have been ceding to wrongful demands of USA and its puppet regime in Kabul, well knowing that Afghan soil has been and still is in use for cross border terrorism to destabilize Pakistan. They obsequiously sing the tutored song that Afghan peace process should be Afghan owned and Afghan led, and it will only assist the peace process. How can this formula work when the biggest stakeholders Taliban are kept out of the loop. Russia has now taken the initiative and demanded their inclusion in future peace talks. But why we are shy of taking them on board when all other stakeholders are secretly in contact with them?
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