My good morning happens with the shocking news of Qandeel Baloch‘s murder! I am not a frequent visitor nor am I her fan but I have seen her earliest videos on her Facebook page and came to understand that she was one of those human species who chose to post silly nonsense videos to get a swift popularity. Her popularity brought the same arguments about downfall in society’s moral collapse with the repeated questions of “Where is Pakistan going?” and now is reigniting debate about honor killings in the country.
Yes indeed it is a morale collapse among the individuals doing naughty and silly stuff nowadays. Eyes of us men are no innocent to the videos we are fond of. Nope not talking about the videos of the adult industry but generally speaking, female individuals of different ages in South Asian societies have done way more than what the deceased used to do on social media. We have seen them making and forwarding amateur home videos like stripping behind the close doors, naked selfies, courtships in front of continuously adjusting camera and God knows what else for the sake of the demands coming from their seasonal boyfriends despite knowing the fact that there is every chance of the books from her storehouse to be transferred towards the library. But that morality can be corrected, vanishing her from earth is not the solution. Was QB a bigger threat than ISIS’?
Let me justify definition of ‘Moral Collapse’ prevailing in this country by four understood phases of this tragic life cycle.
- QB posted silly videos for popularity, many of those alarmed if she had mental issues.
- The viewers have/had different opinions and every opinion doesn’t make sense like her. Some turn out to be perverts and some become bonerfide seasonal mullahs who watch the whole video and then declare her ‘gandi’. Some females in the comments recruit her in adult industry or curse with a rolling-pin in hand.
- Instead of correcting or ignoring her (because her’s is/was none of our folking business); people all of a sudden become responsible for their khandaan or become patriotic and mullah and begin delivering threats to her. And one day someone kill her and the killer is none other than her brother whose so-called gherat was sleeping all these years.
- Most of the people who come to know the news of her death are actually glad, happy and excited as if they have passed some exam.
All four phases explain the collapse in morality. We have no business to what an individual does. I can fully understand from what ‘shame’ her brother has gone through, how his friends, neighbors, kins and society has been treating, teasing and scolding her. But but but committing crime and taking her soul is the most dumbest and disgusting idea. Whatever she was, taking the human soul is not in our hand and Islam teaches us that killing a human is killing humanity.
It is irrelevant, very very irrelevant and nowhere in any condition or space of judgment to kill her just because of your hatred or her business. Just because you don’t like her or she expose her skin too much, does it make you think that she brought shame to your family and your country? And does this reasoning power give you license to kill her?
The regular boners of the deceased’s videos who are now happy for her being killed by her brother under the name of honor killing should from now on mind their own business and should not speak shite about Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. The lady won us not one but 2 Academy awards for her documentaries on acid attacks and honor killings in Pakistan and many people from her country criticized her for presenting ‘bad’ image of Pakistan.
Those who are laughing and enjoying her death from now on should also not criticize and emphasize on extreme feminism either people encouraged towards extreme feminism are right or wrong. Because if you can laugh on the death of a girl who was expressing her good or bad freedom in her videos, it makes no sense to speak how much your country cares about women’s rights because I don’t see that happening in this country. Just a month ago, one lady was abused live on TV speaking of women’s rights by a JUI guy while a lady was called a name in the assembly.
We Pakistani nation are just like pleasure-house visitors who enjoy every inch of solicitor’s skin in the courtship and lovemaking and help her strip her clothes. But once we are done, we leave her just over there and even talk dirty about her the other day. Even accuse her for being a public property or root of all evil. World has gone so cruel and planet Earth is no more a safer and peaceful place to live.
Sometimes I wonder why honor killings happen more in Asia specifically in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Jordan. Even when such crime happens in America and Europe, most of the cases associate with the immigrants, or Muslim families mostly coming from Pakistan and Iran. Remember Belgium’s first ever honor-killing trial few years ago? She was 20-year-old Sadia Shaikh, a Pakistani girl who was fatally shot three times by her brother for not accepting an arranged marriage with her cousin to whom she had never met in Pakistan.
Back in 2005, there was an honor-killing case in Denmark that involved 7 members of Pakistani family and friends. 18-year-old Ghazala Khan escaped from her home and married the guy to whom she loved after her declaration of wish towards her family was exchanged with their harsh beating. Two days after the wedding, Ghazala’s brother shot the couples on the order of her father to save the family ‘honor’.
In Brescia, Italy, a Pakistani father slit throat of his daughter 28 times! The reason of murder? His father state that his daughter Hina Saleem had turned from Asian girl into a Western woman who refused an arranged marriage and lived with her Italian boyfriend! Hina’s family buried her body in their house garden.
Honor killing event in Switzerland was more horrifying when a father killed his 16-year-old daughter Sawera by striking axe on her head a dozen times. Reason? A Christian boyfriend!
Britain has many cases of honor killings among the immigrants and Asian Muslim families. Bradford-born British-Pakistani Shafilea Ahmad‘s murder was a much talk in Britain a decade ago when she all of a sudden disappeared from home but months later, her dead body was found. Her parents were found innocent until Shafilea’s sister broke years later. She admitted that the parents killed her due to the reason of not accepting arranged marriage by force resulting in bringing ‘shame’ to the family.
Samaira Nazir’s case was her wish to marry an Afghan immigrant which was rejected by her family due to different caste. After argument, her brother and cousin stabbed her more than a dozen times using 4 knives in front of her family.
I highlighted only Pakistani cases because that is my concern in the blog as there have been many tragic events from Arab and Iranian families in West as well as Indians. So many tragic events of honor killings I mentioned above have one thing in common i.e., the parents feeling embarrassed that the daughter may/will bring ‘shame’ to her family and entire khandaan. Despite the fact many of the cases which happened in the West, the parents with such pathetic ideology and preferring their pride and shame over their daughter’s life and her choice is beyond my understanding. Living in the west or any country where multinationals live together bring a lot of cultural and religious understandings but such parents in that same atmosphere confuse me with their ideologies. Why on earth the parents do not see what her daughter wants, what she desire and with whom she find her happiness? Why bother judging her instead of giving your blessings? Girls would never run away to make you think of family’s pride and shame only if you accept her what she want. How come killing your own daughter becomes an ultimate solution? Are these type of parents psychopaths or what?
QB’s case is not that different. Just few days ago, she admitted she was married ‘by force’ back in 2008 and also had a son. After the beatings, she divorced and never contacted the man Ashiq Hussain of Kot Addu who first appeared on TV to claim that he is QB’s husband. And today she is killed by her own brother with some sources saying that she had received threats from Mufti Abdul Qavi with home she made some popular selfies a month ago. If the whole chapter of her forced marriage is true then she fell in same category as above-mentioned cases. We have watched girls with such mad cases who met tragedies in the past. Further investigations will clear and let us know further.
Last of all, I condemn the honor killings of QB and victims of all the above-mentioned and not-mentioned cases. I condemn all the crimes and abuses happening in Pakistan and other countries which little children and females of different ages are paying a heavy price for that. It is also terrible to see tortures and killings of Black Americans in recent days. I feel hurt for all the terror attacks happening in the world and extreme pain for the massacre and holocaust suffered by Palestinians and Syrians, and people in Kashmir, Myanmar and many places. The remaining lives you and me are breathing is polluted now and it has become a terrible terrible world. May God answer our just calls, appeals, requests and prays and give patience to the friends and families of those who lost their lives for good Amen.
Sami Naik | Film Critic 