Sustaining the Onslaught of ‘Footware’

Last week i shared an article on Twitter titled ‘Freedom of expression, a shape-shifting tool’ that listed some of the comments i had received in response to ‘This ‘free speech’? no thanks’ published earlier. This is the paragraph containing those comments:

‘After my response appeared on Straight.com, I was put in my place several times regarding my race, gender, skills and social status: ‘you, a person without any noteworthy accomplishments to her name… I wonder if your point has any validity to it whatsoever.’ ‘This writer has less than zero understanding of Western History, and how capitalist power and systemic racism work.’ ‘This is awful writing, I can’t believe this is considered a serious contribution to our public discourse around these issues’, ‘typical nauseating beyond far left viewpoints’. I also bagged various titles including dictator, ignorant, fascist, a Soviet-era speechwriter, but most agreed that I was someone who for sure was ungrateful for the rights I enjoy here in the ‘West’. And then: ‘What’s the daft woman’s alleged point?’ ‘the garbled word salad you wrote’, ‘What a load of tripe’.

As i was posting it, amid fresh comments and LIKES, i received the following message from Poet Jónína Kirton:

‘The things that people said to you @RafiqueFauzia made me want to cry, especially since I know you, love you & feel you are one of the most brilliant woman I know. They are WRONG… so wrong. I am not one to push guilt on others but they should really feel ashamed of themselves.’

First, my mind prompted me to chuckle, and i did, because it was as if i was caught red handed. I wasn’t feeling hurt, I was just dutifully responding to each comment the best i could while appreciating its literary merit or an interesting thought or to notice if the comment was based in elitism, racism, sexism, or whatism. Then the chuckle ended, and in one flash i was reminded of two instances that had happened a few months apart in Toronto in the 1990s. The first had occurred with my friend poet/publisher/activist Fahmida Riyaz (1946-2018) who was visiting from Karachi. I asked her how it was going over there, and she gave me a contemplative gaze, and in all seriousness said, Har qism ki jootiyan parri hain mujhe. Boot, fauji boot, pumpi, running shoes, hawai chappal, sandals, chotti airri, oonchi airri…: ‘I had all kinds of footware thrown at me. Boot, army boot, pumpi, running shoes, flip flops, sandals, short heel, high heel…’. The rest of the evening was spent on improving the list of footware that we had received on different occasions, and we experienced laughing fits going into tears and then back.

The second flashback was a visit from my friend author/educator/activist Rubya Mehdi, who was either on her way to Copenhagen from Lahore or had recently visited there. So, i asked her how did it go in Lahore, and without a moment’s hesitation, she said Uff, buhut jootay parray: ‘Uff, i took a lot of footware’, and that led to another evening of crazy laughter and tears.

After, i responded to Jónína:
‘You always touch something deeper with your words, @JoninaKirton. First, i had to inquire about my own feelings around them, and I was amazed to find that ‘hurt’ is not there, that in fact i enjoyed the ways of expression of most of them. Why? There’s another post in there.’

And, without giving it any more thought, i set out on the route that Jónína had pointed to. Why? Because i know her to be an instinctive healer of the self and others; check her tweet, it’s a tender message of strength encouraging me to proceed, if i needed to or wanted to. My tweet: ‘It has begun, i’m already telling you all about it. Thank you for creating this space for me to go over this- what can i say, sadness.’

As women in any part of the world, we take an incredible amount of verbal, emotional, psychological, sexual and physical abuse simply for being women. This abuse is doubled and tripled when some women disagree with certain familial, religious or social values and when they refuse to follow the dictates. Additional layers of abuse are added when women are anti-government or anti-state activists working for equality and fairness. The three women above, Fahmida, Rubya and myself were and are guilty on all three counts, and then some. Tangle it with class, caste, race, color, gender, ableism, ageism, and you may end up with a lot of abusive experiences. So much and so many and so fast that it would not be possible to process them all in real time. In fact, the way life happens and because it is painful and debilitating to process and confront abuse, a lot of it would remain unacknowledged, unmarked and unprocessed.

i’m not sure how Fahmida, Rubya, Jónína and other women i know, may have dealt with verbal abuse in the long term, but we all may have had to ‘thicken’ our skins enough to be able to throw the larger portion of it to the side. Throw it to the side instead of responding to it or to get drawn by it unless it was a tactic to do so. For my part, as a youth i had created a space just outside of myself to deposit all the indignities or the ‘footware’ thrown at me. I call it the Dome of Sadness, and it contains all the abuse i have suffered as a girl, a young woman, a woman; for being my kind of a writer, and, for being a certain kind of a person.

Urdu term ‘jootay parrna’ means ‘footware lashing’ and it is used for verbal abuse, ‘mild’ assaults, and ‘light’ physical battery- the three things most South Asian children become aware of early on as these are the three most used methods of disciplining them. The English terms, ‘shoeing’ or ‘shoe throwing’ do not quite express the ‘cultural’ significance of ‘footware lashing’ where it means one or all of the following:
Mild swear words: declaring humans in question as belonging to and/or originating from nonhuman species, especially dogs/bitches, donkeys, and owls.
Medium swear words: a vast canon pointing to and highlighting individual physical attributes such as ‘four eyes’, ‘one-legged’, ‘one-armed’, ‘stick’, ‘fatso’, ‘trans’, ‘no-eyes’, ‘boy-nor-girl’.
Hot swear words: declare women, young women, even girl children, to be whores, sluts and prostitutes while men, young men, even boy children, are accused of fucking their mothers, sisters, daughters, etc.
Name calling and Character assassination: constitutes Hate Speech that levels serious allegations of religious, sexual, social or political wrongdoing leading to violence.
Non-life-threatening battery, physical abuse and assaults with or without  make-shift weapon; slaps, kicks, punches, hair-pulling, baton charges, lashes, burns, acid throwing…

Please note, the abuses listed above are not the products of any of the South Asian cultures but of patriarchy. Similar themes run through all languages and cultures of the world. And this reminds me of a space where for some time, it was possible to view South Asian Muslim culture-specific verbal abuse in one place- Author Salman Rushdie’s page on Facebook where everyone could express themselves freely about the alleged blasphemous content of one of his novels. ‘The unreason, intolerance, violence, bigotry, threats, and the filthiest verbal abuse- it was all there.’ But we can’t view it anymore, it was discontinued in the 2010s.

Most of the Footware lashing i have received is hidden, and that’s what Jónína Kirton encourages me to address, to take the time to see the part where years of abuse is stored- the part that i think is situated outside of myself. In her tweet, she tosses a warm, soft and colorful shawl at me to get me on my way. There can’t be a better time for it.

The Dome of Sadness had no door, i had to dig one to get in. So much clutter! There was about 34 years of Canadian racism, over two years of British racism in Britain, decades of British racism in Pakistan. Racism mixed with Islamophobia and misogyny, the extent of which came out to me when i was filling out a form last year for a research project on Islamophobia. Extreme prejudice experienced from some white editors and publishers over the years. Barriers to employment. Unpleasant family situations, abusive men, in-laws, gossip-lovers. Character assassination in Pakistan, abuse received on the streets of Lahore. The dome was full of all kinds of insulting words and cruel thoughts, spoken, written, published. Violent actions, gestures, body language. Photos, videos, audios, detailed flashbacks. Images, paintings, drawings. Poems, prose. High piles of mixed media. Some marked, some unmarked. But looking at each, i knew what it was about. It was about something that i had already endured and i had already survived. It can teach me somethings and it can increase my understanding but it can not harm me anymore.

Well, this is a belief i have though it may not be entirely true. What i find here cannot harm me in the ways that were intended perhaps by the abuser, but it can still harm me in other ways. In case of unmarked abusive incidents, for example, it can harm me to suddenly find or accept that it was abuse(!), and in certain cases, it can exact a cost from me in the present.

As well, in many ways human mind is its own free bird, it can reach branches and tress that one may not want to get to, for example, to instances of my own abusive attitudes, behaviors and actions toward others. A tough reckoning, tougher than taking abuse itself, it is to acknowledge that i am guilty of abusing others too.

So, the somewhat perilous adventure has begun and i have been wandering around here for the past few days. On my way out right now, i am going to rename it as ‘Abuse Registration Office – Shipping’, and in the coming days, i’ll work at it.

I know, its a boring title and the place looks like a huge warehouse but inside… don’t bet on it.

Fauzia Rafique
July 27, 2020
..

This ‘Free Speech’? No Thanks!

Photo via @SinEmbargoMX

An open letter signed by 150 intellectuals and activists that was published July 7, served as a jolt to this morning’s peaceful tea ritual. It is a short container of many huge triggers that left me wondering as to where do these people live- the people who drafted, signed and published this letter- because by the end of it, it sounded even more ridiculous than ‘make america great again’ (maga) as it laments the loss of things/situations that did not even exist.

Without naming the #BLM movement, and i believe, the #MeToo, it says that this ‘needed reckoning’ has also ‘intensified’ conditions that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences and constrict the free exchange of information and ideas. Then, the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters is self-righteously upheld. Forgive me if i repeat some of it- our norms of open debate and tolerance of difference? Where have they existed in this society? The sacred cow of free speech, justice and open debate that is supposed to be threatened by the current mass movements for equality rights never existed in this society, never for the majority of its people. While, it for sure has existed for the ruling elites, the people who hold power and sway in different areas of this social system. Or is it that the signatories believe that the phrase ‘I Can’t Breathe’ and the incident associated with it, was an example of ‘open debate’ and ‘tolerance of difference’ or if it was ‘justice’, because that’s what previously existed and that’s what still exists here.

This letter seems to be written, published and signed in a vacuum where no colonization of this land took place, there is no history or impact of slavery on this society, no usurpation or genocide of Indigenous people occurred; where the system is not based on racial profiling or gender and other prejudices; Komagatamaru did not happen, Chinese head tax wasn’t extracted, Japanese internment did not take place. People of color don’t face prejudice, and White Privilege does not exist. It was all good till #MeToo and #BLM movements began. Denial that a highly exploitative system governs the world that does not allow any democratic rights to a large majority of people. The refusal to acknowledge that they themselves may be fully invested in perpetuating this repressive system.

There’s so much ‘holier than thou’, it may beat even the writings of regular Mullahs in citing empty slogans and self-aggrandizing statements. ‘As we applaud the first development, we also raise our voices against the second.’ ‘We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom’. ‘The democratic inclusion we want can be achieved only if we speak out against the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.’ ‘The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation.’

And, you know who they are defending?
‘Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes.’ Most of them are traditional power holders in their fields who are now being threatened with reprisal for what they have been doing for years against vulnerable people in their respective areas of influence (‘just clumsy mistakes’) in order to protect this system. Now they are faced with this inconvenience to be responsible for their views and actions with the so-called ‘vogue for public shaming and ostracism’ and where it has now become ‘all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought.’

Amazing, that most of these people who are opinion leaders, celebs, and groundbreakers to the left of at least Donald Trump, choose to support the status quo. They are literally supporting White Privilege, male domination and impunity based on class/position. But what a spoilt-child syndrome. They want to continue to enjoy the privilege of exploiting others without being accountable for their ideas and actions that were historically used against those ‘others’ in this racist/sexist/intolerant system. ‘As writers we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes.’ and, ‘We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences.’

But listen to this: ‘If we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us.’

Yes. The ‘very thing’ on which their ‘work depends’ is this system of privileges guaranteed for a few at the expense of the rest, and this is what they must defend to keep their own personal positions.

I certainly cannot support any part of this open letter.

Fauzia Rafique
July 8, 2020

Published July 9th at Georgia Straight
Also view my article on the content of the Open Letter ‘Freedom of expression—a shape-shifting tool‘, published July 17th at Georgia Straight.
..

‘Something in that name…’ by Fauzia Rafique

.

In the Pakistani city of Sargodha in 2007, i was launching the Punjabi edition of my novel ‘Skeena’, and had just heard some wonderful things about it, and also the very best review called ‘Peerni’ from a poet/educationist. Questions followed, and the first person wanted to know who my favourite novelists were. Easy, i thought, and began my SalmanRushdie-MargaretAtwood-ToniMorrison-LindaHogan bit.
‘Salman Rushdie, Marga…’ I could not finish the first name of the second novelist because five six people (actually men) had risen from different locations of that small hall, and they were all speaking at the same time.
I stopped to listen.
‘What kind of Muslim are you that you are taking the name of that Murtid (apostate)?’ An outraged man asked.
My answer was as unbelievable as the question, ‘i am a human before being a Muslim’.
At this, the hall became more restless, and the local organizer and my publisher were there on both my sides.
‘The question period is over’, someone said.
I was led away, and out the side door. The event ended.

There’s some good news that may not be available later in this post. Out of the 55-60 (or 45-50) people present there, i was supported in private by two women and a man of Christian descent who were working with a local human rights organization.

Together, we were reminded of Ayub Masih, arrested for blasphemy in 1996, and tortured, for suggesting to his Muslim neighbour to read ‘The Satanic Verses’ before going against it, and for showing preference for Christianity over Islam. After years of international lobbying while he was being tortured in prison, in 2002 he was acquitted and taken away from Pakistan. The extent of torture suffered by Ayub Masih led John Joseph (1932–1998), the then Roman Catholic Bishop of Faisalabad, to commit suicide in protest against the cruel treatment of Pakistan’s minorities by it’s Muslim governments.

Back at the rest house i found an uncompromising silent stance from my companions that said it’s FINAL that Salman Rushdie has insulted the Prophet and he deserves to be punished; this isn’t up for discussion, Bibi, and it doesn’t matter if Iran has withdrawn the fatwa or not. My publisher gave the most elegant response. He said, ‘It’s not what he wrote, it’s what people associate with it. You know that it’s a sensitive issue to mention that name here’.

Sure, i knew, i had removed it from the Punjabi edition of ‘Skeena’. I knew it to be a sensitive issue in the general social environment but this was not a general ‘public’ gathering. Most people attending Skeena launches were left-leaning or progressive writers, artists, activists and journalists. I didn’t think it would be such a taboo with this set of people. The silencing, but more so, the sense of endangering other people felt oppressive but we were leaving in the morning.

Look what happened to me
We travelled back to Lahore, and i went to my family. When i was asked how did it go in Sargodha, i said, ‘look what happened to me…’ and began to tell my story, but before i could finish, the senior member of my family squirmed in his chair and then asked in a voice angrier than i had ever heard, ‘How could you take that name?’ For some reason, i was again not expecting it. Discussion became hot, and when it came to religion and religiosity, my respected elder told me to not ‘play smart’ with them, but to answer one simple question: do i believe in god or not. I said not. And that was the first time i was asked to leave a forever loving home. I did (but not for long). What puzzles me is that for those two family members, this was no ‘news’, they knew for many years that i don’t believe in god, i don’t practice religion, and that i think it’s influence suppresses the life force of people especially women, making them willing slaves to oppressive living conditions and/or to the interests of extreme religious groups. It is in my poems and stories; the character Skeena in the novel then being launched, denounces Islam at the end. So, why was i asked to leave after this discussion and not any time before? That name, perhaps.

While meeting a Punjabi poet and author at an event in Lahore, the ‘how could you?’ came up. I asked him ‘Can’t we even say what we think? We are not insisting that others be convinced’. The person just looked at me, no discussion.

Later, in an informal and warm home environment, i was asked by a group of friends to furnish them with the ‘why’ of mentioning ‘that name’. By that time, i had realized that it was not taking ‘that name’ that had appeared so unbelievable of me to all my progressive friends but it was it’s projection in a positive affirmative role that was causing the problem. From the sincere attention being paid to me over fine whiskey and golden garda, i felt that i needed to provide a reason, a justification, some rationale for what was being seen as my indiscretion, oversight, mistake. But while presenting my case to my enlightened writer, artist, activist friends in the room, i was not allowed to question the withdrawn guilty verdict given by a dead extreme religious leader. Challenging.
‘He is a very interesting storyteller’, I said, and that to me clearly expressed my involved experience of reading fiction by Salman Rushdie.
The faces stared at me in silence.
This was definitely not enough. Okay, ‘the master of magic realism, a world renowned author, he got the Booker of Bookers’, i said.
The faces remained unchanged.
So, i took a pause and began to roll a joint. For me, reading is to enjoy the story and the way someone told it, without analyzing or categorizing or rationalizing my likings and dislikings. But at that point, i was required to actually think why i like Salman Rushdie’s novels. It was difficult when their themes could not be mentioned so i couldn’t say ‘i like the fun way he integrates religion with the story’; and especially, when his being an interesting storyteller, the master user of magic realism, the Booker-winning world-renowned author, were all deemed insufficient. Am i expected to find something that the world has yet not found? To save my face that inexplicably was lost in the eyes of my friends, i had to come up with something. So i decided to share another factor that increases my level of comfort with it.
‘There’s no male nostalgia in his narrative’, i said.
‘Male nostalgia!’
This did draw some interest, and i was asked to elaborate on it.
‘Sometimes, i find strong male nostalgia in a story, plot, characters or underlying themes where for example, in a seemingly ‘equitable’ or ‘humanitarian’ theme environment suddenly you are confronted with the author’s desire to revert to a time with values that were, among other things, way more advantageous to men. The inconsistency is usually shocking enough to throw me out of it. But i am never confronted with that in Salman Rushdie’s novels; family, status, tradition, religion, nothing is held sacred’.
My friends appeared relieved. I had provided them with something unique to me, like a damaged leg or a crooked eye or some other disability, that had caused me to like the work of a Murtid. My offence was forgiveable because i had committed it under the understandable ‘influence’ of being a woman, an acknowledged aggrieved interest group. At that point, though Lal Masjid had happened the previous year, supporting women’s rights in Lahore was not that risky.

Extreme religious mindset
From Sargodha on, almost everyone i met had a similar response. Firm refusal to discuss the fatwa, The Satanic Verses or Salman Rushdie; and, a ‘betrayed’ outrageous persona saying ‘how could you?’. The last aspect involving the element of endangering my communities was the hardest to take because the fear, of course, was real. This same stance with unimportant variations was taken by people across the board; people who did not know each other to have developed the same positions by exchanging views. Also, out of nine cities, Hyderabad was the only place where religion was mentioned (by a leading Sindhi nationalist) in the context of Skeena, a novel that explores the negative impact of Islam on women. Can’t forget the chill that also did descend on my ‘social’ life.

Back in Canada, in 2009-10, i found Salman Rushdie’s (old) wall on Facebbok, it presented the most blatant written expression of the ‘nature’ of religious extremism- what it creates out of people. The unreason, intolerance, violence, bigotry, threats, and the filthiest verbal abuse- it was all there. I am glad that the owners began to confront this abuse, ended it, and developed a new page (Sir Salman Rushdie Fans), but i hope that the old page is archived somewhere for record.

In 2011, with an escalation in blasphemy killings in Pakistan, i became more and more involved with the movement against religious extremism. During that time, i realized that the blasphemy case against Salman Rushdie is crucial in fighting the mindset that supports the concept of anti-blasphemy in Muslim contexts. Though there are, and were, other Muslim authors accused of blasphemy but none gained this kind of Pan-Islamic exposure or became so central to the fight for freedom of expression around the world. For reasons, The Satanic Verses is one of the very few things where all major sects of Muslims find agreement: a purposefully created rallying item that can bring together all shades of Muslims in a ready condition to follow the Extremists’ agenda. It reminded me of the ease with which a progressive gathering of aware people in Sargodha turned into the voice of divine-ordained conservative intolerance. Something in that name?

A Harem and a Whorehouse
Something in that name hits a nerve where others fail. That nerve connects to a Harem and a Whorehouse. The Prophet’s exalted Harem is projected by the blaspheming author as a lecherous Whorehouse via the abuse of the names(!) of Pak BibiyaN, the Pure Respected Women, the Mothers of the Believers. Names again, so what may be hidden in these 11 names, i wonder, if not the ‘honour’ of a family. A family that over 1.6 billion Muslims (or about 23% of the world population) look up to and strive to follow.

Salman Rushdie can not be pardoned because the Muslim family structure must provide complete control to men over women, ‘harem is the cradle of Islam’, and Muslim men are reared on the idea of having the power to have multiple wives. The Prophet had 11 at the same time (13 in all), but the followers are allowed only four at a time. The promise of whatever number of hooris in the afterlife, and at least a mini-harem in this life, is at the heart of Muslim male psyche. And why not, it gives them decisive and absolute advantage over women, and so on all systemic structures, sanctioned by the Divine and duly practised by His Messenger. This is the family value that keeps the ultimate control of Muslim men over the persons and properties of their women, wives, daughters, sisters, mothers.

Imagine, the audacity of a Muslim male who tries to destroy the sanctity of that multiple-wife dream with ridicule, shattering that multiple-hoori promise by making fun of it. Salman Rushdie has attacked the very basis of this main method of societal control, the sacredness and the validity of the harem that assures Muslim men and women that having many wives is morally correct and religiously desirable. And even if most Muslim men don’t have multiple wives, they always can; it’s about what you are worth in relation to each other. In that case, how can i, a woman, even argue with a man bringing a second, third or a fourth wife, especially if he can ‘afford’ it and can keep ‘justice’ between them! What a creepy mind that thought of marrying women to ‘help’ them out, and that introduced the idea of keeping ‘justice’ between them- thirteen marriages in one lifetime, 11 at the same time, includes a child-bride! O’ what a disgusting family and what perverted sex life for a sanctified role model of 1.2 billion people!

To be honest, when i read The Satanic Verses, i felt that the author had made a successful fictional attempt to improve the living conditions of some women characters by moving their worthy names from one oppressive institution to another, less, oppressive institution. Instead of always having a ratio of 11 to 1 in a Harem, the women may have it 1 to 1 in a Whorehouse, at least in the most often-occurring situations. In place of being dependent on one man for the scocio-economic and psycho-emotional well being of 11, they can make their own money and take their own decisions while enjoying all the benefits of self-respecting working women. Most of all, the possibility, the mere possibility, of having a choice where they may refuse a client while they can’t refuse a husband, especially the one heading the most sacred Muslim family unit: ‘M’s 11’.

To explore the connection between that Sacred Exalted Harem and the Whorehouse in The Satanic Verses is a compelling call to sanity for Muslims. And the question i like to pitch is this: What is the difference between a Harem and a Whorehouse?

This came up while reading ‘Joseph Anton: a Memoir by Salman Rushdie’.

..