SO THIS IS NIGER

 

Sometimes the most exciting destination is not an exotic country in the back of beyond, it is simply going home.

Tomorrow morning I’ll break my homebound journey in Kuala Lumpur to spend three days with a friend I have known for donkey’s years.  ‘What do you want to do in KL?” she asks me every time I stop over in Malaysia. "Hitting the footstalls, of course” is my inevitable reply.

 And then we are off to eat a roadside bowl of stir-fried noodles with a glass of ice tea on the side, and later perhaps Ba Ku The at a midnight stall. And there is swimming dog soup, and pork cooked with salted fish, and many more exotic delicacies that you will only find in Kuala Lumpur.

But on Sunday I will finally be home in Australia. Mind you, there is a jolly swagman sitting beside the billabong, waiting for me.

 

Posted by: Lewana at January 24, 2006 17:52 | link | comments (11)
australia, malaysia

Of Birds and Bondage

Mukhtaran Mai is one of the rare survivors in misogynist Pakistan. Wearing a camel-brown salwar kameez and snowy-white dupatta covering her hair she looks haggard and exhausted on the day of her book launch in France three days ago. On the book cover of her French-language memoirs titled 'Des-honouree' (Dishonoured) that  will be simultaneously on sale in France and Germany, she looks like a fragile Eastern Madonna.

Once again it speaks volumes that Mukhtaran could only reach Paris two days later as planned. In May last year the Pakistani government forbid her to leave the country in a clumsy attempt to cover up Pakistan’s continuous Human Right's violations and its negative image; especially the fact that violence against women is worsening in this country. Last year, only after world-wide protests was Mukhtaran allowed to go to America to receive her “Woman of the Year” award by the 'Glamour' Magazine. 

In her book “Des-honouree” Mukhtaran Mai, assisted by journalist Bronwyn Curran relates her horrendous life story in her own words. Mukhtaran, a Punjabi peasant girl, barely literate, divorced and childless, lived with her parents in the remote village Meerwala, in the south of the province of Punjab. Her family belongs to a poor caste of farmers, the Gujjars. They share the vicinity with the socially superior clan of the Mastoi tribe.

On the 22 of June 2002 she was gang raped as a punishment for her twelve year old brother’s assumed flirting with a girl from the Mastoi tribe. As a punishment for the “crime”, the local jirga consisting of uneducated and vile tribal elders of the village, punished Mukhtaran to be collectively gang raped by several man of the Mastoi tribe. Everyone in the village watched the spectacle. Needless to say, no one including the local mullah moved as much as a little finger and interfered on Mukhtaran’s behalf.

Mukhtaran, even though totally ignorant of her legal rights, she may have even thought, that she had none whatsoever, nonetheless was brave enough to report the gang rape to the police. Eventually her story – it was lucky that the New York Times published her story – made its tour around the world. Despite her engagement for the rights of her sisters in her country she is continuously being tomahawked not only by the misogynist men in Pakistan; the women are not better in their dim reactions.

Honour killings, karo kari, acid burning and daily abuse that woman have to endure in all social levels are nothing exceptional in a country that is still ruled by a feudalistic mindset. According to the figures of the Human Right’s Organization of Pakistan two thousand eight hundred woman (and perhaps more) women have been killed between 2001 and 2004. There have also been fifteen thousand acid attacks on woman for the last ten years. 

In recent times Irfan Hussein, a remarkable Pakistani journalist wrote: “A recent debate in the Senate was particularly revealing of our attitude towards rape. Senator Kulsoom Parveen is reported in this newspaper as stating that ‘cases like those of Dr Shazia [the lady doctor raped in Sui a few months ago] and Mukhtaran Mai should not be highlighted’. She went on to advise that “Mukhtaran Mai should seek justice from Allah.” And if this was not enough wisdom from the lady for one day, she pronounced: “Mukhtaran Mai, being an eastern woman, should not go abroad.”

This shy woman with amber eyes and blonde hair who lives in the village of Salar Goth in the Habeja District, barely seventy kilometers from Karachi, may not even dream of ever travelling to Karachi, much less of  going abroad. She is still living the restricted life of a rural woman that has not changed for hundreds of years. She may never even have heard of Mukhtaran's story.

Last Sunday four of us drove up to the interior of Sindh. We stopped at Salar Goth to pick up local guides for a bird-watching tour into the desert of Sindh. Salar Goth is but a mere hovel and home to about 5000 people. The villagers live mainly in brick and mud huts at or below subsistence levels. They have no water supply to speak of, no toilets, no gas, and of course no school or any health facilities in or near their village.

Nazeer, the village headman, has definitely never been educated about contraceptive methods. He has so far fathered eight girls and will continue to breed; I am sure until a son will be born. 

The extreme poverty and the filthy conditions of the villagers and their surrounds appear to me in stark contrast to an almost obscenely opulent mosque situated next to Nazeer’s compound. The money, I was told, was donated by Arab sheiks that come every year to hunt the almost extinct Houbara Bustard (Chlamidotis undulata). Believing that the bird has aphrodisiac qualities, the Arab sheiks from Saudia Arabia and UAE (where they have already killed every single Houbara) descend on the area (and Balochistan) with all the luxury that loads of money can provide. Although the rare bird, a regular visitor in winter to Pakistan's semi-deserts, has been protected by Pakistani law since 1972 the sheiks circumvent the law by "donating" huge amounts of money to the relevant authorities. Almost everyone here argues in favour of the sheiks and maintain that these donations improve the dismal situation of the poor in their hunting blocks.

While the incompetent and corrupt leadership in Pakistan prefers to turn a blind eye to the origin of such needless presents, we  should neither allow Pakistan's  tyranny of of one sex over the other nor should we turn a blind eye at the callous extinction of a rare bird.

Poor villagers in Pakistan are everywhere in dire need of schools and at least basic health care facilities. When I asked Nazeer whether he wanted or needed  such a splendid mosque, he vehemently shook his head.  It is obvious that the lavish "presents" of the Arab sheiks do not help one iota to minimise the oppression of women nor do they make poverty history in the vast stretches of rural Pakistan.

*Graphic Art by spartanjen

Posted by: Lewana at January 18, 2006 17:27 | link | comments (10)
karachi, of birds and bondage

Feast of Sacrifice?

Today every Muslim in Pakistan celebrated Eid al-Adha or the Feast of Sacrifice. My neighbours here in Karachi are no exception in celebrating the day with their usual religious enthusiasm.

You may remember the story when Abraham was told in a dream by God to sacrifice his son Ismail? I was ten years old when I was told this story by our pastor. I thought it unfair of God to test Abraham’s obedience in such a cruel manner; and was relieved that eventually Abraham was left off the hook and allowed the sacrifice of a ram instead.

Today, however, I am finding it gross that since this morning the garden and pool area has been transformed into a slaughterhouse. One by one and all day long cows and goats have their throats slit by their executioners’ knifes amid heaps of the usual plastic bag rubbish and animal dung.

The side paths beyond the boundary wall and the lawns are splattered with pools of blood and the smell of meat and offal is rising right up to our apartment on the fourteenth floor.

My neighbours obviously haven’t shirked their religious duty in earning God’s pleasure by forking out between 6, 000 to 25, 000 PKR (that’s a lot of money in Pakistan) for a sacrificial animal. Apparently the prices have almost doubled since last year but that clearly hasn’t stopped the well to do to show off to their neighbours that they are still able to afford such pricey animals.

Women and children dressed in their finest salwar kameez’ are parading their animals up and down the garden, allowing them to have a last nibble until it is their turn to have their goats slaughtered by their hired butchers. Their men are sitting on plastic chairs in the sun, gossiping and watching the butchers chopping up the meat and making sure that their meat is ending in their very own plastic buckets.

The Madrassa next door seems to be not too short of money, too. Their usually unkempt backyard is filled with a lot of bloody animal carcasses and entrails since the morning prayers. In the early afternoon I am still counting eight fat cows waiting for the butcher’s knife. In view of the fact that the these religious scholars must know about the religious duty for cleanliness they have started to burn their rubbish next to their boundary wall. The acrid smoke is mingling with the stink of the fresh blood.

For days now the children in our neighbourhood have been playing with the animals as if they are their beloved pets. These two little beauties dressed in their best festival finest played a little while ago with their two little goats but they did not show any emotion nor did they shed a single tear when their snowy-white pets had their throats slid on the side path.

Mushir Anwar, a journalist wrote today in an article that “the ritual of sacrificing animals has become quite devoid of its social purpose as with the availability of freezers and deep freezers in every meat eating household the custom of distributing sacrificial portions has almost become extinct. Now whole carcasses are laid to rest in huge cooling storages to ensure guaranteed supply for months. So even ritually speaking, the element of sacrifice in slaughtering a goat is gone. Now what is happening in reality is that we are purchasing meat for our own personal consumption in the name of performing a religious duty.”

As far as I can see there is no meat given to the needy in our compound, but mercifully the poor are carting away the offal and entrails to a collection point from where it will be hopefully taken away soon.

In civilized Islamic countries, i.e. Malaysia and UAE the ritual slaughter is confined to designated areas where the ritual slaughter can be executed in a hygienic manner and hopefully out of sight of thin-skinned children but here in Karachi our flee ridden stray cats and mangy dogs, the omnipresent crows and kites will have a real feast on the rotting left- overs dumped in the streets in the days to come. To me at least, that is some sort of consolation for an archaic festival.

Posted by: Lewana at January 11, 2006 18:39 | link | comments (14)
feast of sacrifice

KARACHI SIGHTSEEING 101

Frere Hall

Many days of the year, thanks to an often unbearable heat, Karachi is best enjoyed indoors. Fortunately, during the short cold weather months from December to February there are a few remaining architectural destinations in Karachi where an overseas visitor could sense a little of the drama of English Colonial history while reveling in the few remnants of English architecture of days gone by.

Unfortunately Karachi has failed entirely to preserve or restore its historical heritage buildings – even one of its most photographed landmarks, the Frere Hall.

The Gothic–style building and the adjoining gardens, which we enter from Abdullah Haroon Road, are heavily guarded by a bunch of ill-mannered Kalashnikov-toting security guards. They gaze at Henning and me with suspicion as we enter the gate next to a sandstone memorial to the fallen soldiers of the Baloch Infantry and Queen Mary’s Own Baloch Light Infantry. />
A horde of loafers sits on a low wall around the memorial. They gape at us as if we have just descended from the moon.

Frere Hall was build in memory of Sir Bartle Frere, who was Commissioner of Sindh for nine years during Colonial times and completed in 1865. In previous years the hall served as town hall, and its upper gallery was a venue for theatrical and musical performances.

Today the gardens are almost empty, except for a bunch of security guards. One of the guards has taken off his boots and is sleeping happily on a park bench, his right hand gripping a walkie-talkie resting on his chest. A gardener is watering the lawns. The statues of Queen Victoria and King Edward that I have seen on historical photographs no longer decorate the grounds.

In 2002 a huge bomb meant for the Residence of the American Consul General blew a large hole out of the wall of his home (the residence is opposite Frere Hall) and shattered the windows of Frere Hall. An eyewitness wrote that  the lawns of the Hall were littered with dead bodies, body parts and torn metal pieces from the suicide bomber's car.

Today, however, the area is eerily quiet. We have come to look at the murals of Pakistan’s famous painter, Sadequain (1930 – 1983): but before we have made it half way to the entry of Frere Hall, a bearded guard carrying a Kalashnikov comes running after us.

“Aapko Urdu bolte sakte hain?” (Do you speak Urdu?) He asks us in a gruff voice. “Nahin, main kewal Angrezi sakta hain” (No, I speak only English) I reply. "Aapko Americi hain? (Are you American?)" He continues his interrogation. “Nahin, main Germani hain”. He ponders my answer for a while and then pointing at our cameras he sternly warn us that taking photographs is strictly forbidden.

He must have felt that I have no intention to obey his orders, so to make sure that we don’t pictures he sends a fat man in a brown Shalwar Kameez to watch us. Our guard never gives us a moment of peace while we slowly wander around the building.

The Hall is in need of repairs. The red painted roof is damaged in several places, pigeons are flying in and out through the empty window frames and the ubiquitous Pariah kites have found neat nesting places. Near the site wall we find a young kite sitting on the ground. Despite our hovering guard I take a picture of the bird and he tolerates it, but not without upsetting the young bird by stepping too close to it. I give him a dirty look but he doesn’t even realise that we resent his hovering presence.

We give Liaquat Municipal Library a miss since the door is padlocked and to shake off the annoying man we hurry on to reach the steps towards the gallery upstairs.

The wooden staircase looks grubby, the windows are covered with dusty Hessian curtains, and in some parts the windows are altogether uncovered. Pigeons fly in and out, leaving their mess everywhere. A marble plaque at the entry to the staircase commemorating Sir Bartle Frere for his able and successful administration of the affairs of the Province of Sindh is almost unreadable, covered in grime and the script is almost unreadable.

Fortunately our guard has stayed behind outside.  The guys in the upper gallery leave us in peace, they even give us a smile and switch on the lights to illuminate the paintings hung around the walls. There is nowhere any information about the creators of the oil paintings, but our aim was anyway to see Sadequain’s mural.

The guards don’t protest when we take photos of Sadequain’s mural. Unfortunately the light conditions are bad. It is almost impossible to get a sharp picture without a tripod.

Sadequain, who is called the “Picasso of Pakistan” spend the last years of his life painting this mural on the ceiling of the gallery but sadly, did not live to complete it.

Today, his badly presented work is a sad reminder of Karachi’s disinterest in, or even incapacity to preserve its history that played a role in bringing her laurels on which she now rests.

Our visit is once again a frustrating experience.

“What a shame that this city is so careless in preserving its cultural treasures”: I say to Henning. Let’s go and visit the Mohatta Palace now.

to be continued….

Posted by: Lewana at January 02, 2006 18:56 | link | comments (13)
karachi sightseeing