This Islamabad-based eatery is named ‘Table No. 5’, but perhaps they should call themselves ‘Mentally Unstable No. 5’. If you thought that joke was bad, then get a load of these.   If their sexist ‘humour’ wasn’t nauseating enough, their food is named after celebrities such as Sean Penn and Bill Cosby. You know, men who have a record of physically and emotionally abusing women. Take Sean Penn for example: Cracked:

“After he got good and drunk (again), Penn climbed into Madonna’s house, where she was alone. He then grabbed her, tied her to a chair, and assaulted her for hours, both physically and emotionally. He then went out for more booze, came back, and kept up the beating. Madonna only escaped after telling Penn that she had to go to the bathroom, which meant he had no problem battering, beating, bloodying, and bruising the supposed love of his life, but felt it would have been too degrading to make her pee in front of him.”

“Now, nearly 60 years since Bill Cosby’s first alleged sexual assault, a group of women who say ‘America’s favourite dad’ attacked them have come forward to reveal their harrowing experiences. The 35 women, ranging in age from their early 20s to 80, have bravely agreed to be pictured for an issue of New York Magazine, set to be published on Monday, while revealing the details of their encounter with the disgraced comedian.”

“Gaslighting or gas-lighting is a form of mental abuse in which information is twisted or spun, selectively omitted to favour the abuser, or false information is presented with the intent of making victims doubt their own memory, perception, and sanity.”

As I write this, there are over 150 dead across Paris in one of the most revolting terrorist attacks in the history of France. Scenes are described as pure carnage. Reportedly, the attackers indiscriminately chopped (gunned) down innocent civilians with gunfire and explosives to horrific effect. One witness inside the Bataclan simply said,

“It was a bloodbath.”

“They were shooting at us like we were birds.”

“Everyone got onto the ground. From that moment, instinct kicked in. With each volley you try to get as far away as possible from the gunmen – impossible to say how many, it all went by too quickly. I tried, with some other people, to get onto the stage where there was an emergency exit on the right. And there it was chaos, people were terrified, pleading to survive, and others pushed and pulled at us to get behind the stage. We hid in a room on the right, by the stage, thinking that it was an exit, but no. A member of staff in the room said that the emergency exit was on the other side of the room. We still heard shooting. After a few more seconds or minutes, nothing, and we saw people edging towards the emergency exit – when I think about it, the gunmen must have been reloading at that point. All of our group then decided to cross, passing behind the rear curtain. Then we found ourselves outside, and ran towards the boulevard.”

People of every country have their own slang, consisting of words they have either created or adopted. Here are some of ours:  1. ‘Denim ki jeans’: Well, what else would jeans be made of? Plastic? This would be as redundant as saying ‘gosht ka insaan’ or ‘lohay ki gari’. Yes, denim is the fabric used to make jeans. Thanks. 2. ‘Over smart’: Usually said on Facebook to someone perceived to be clever. Only in Pakistan is intelligence used as a slur. Imagine parents using this on their children,

“Don’t try to be over smart. Stay within your limitations. You aren’t very intelligent after all.”

“dis is deir right!”

 “Imma school teacher.”

“Imma cum over.”

“I would like to be fed some caviar. La’mow.”

“You are a fool… just sayin’.”

“Wait, I’ll need my nine iron for this.”

The ghastly terrorist attacks in Paris have once again put Islamic extremism under the microscope. Similarly to all religions, Islam is like a stream of water, available to anyone to drink from. Out of the two billion Muslims in the world, the vast majority draws from this stream uneventfully, living out peaceful lives. There is, however, a corrupt and hateful minority, drinking from an infected portion of the stream because it suits their world view. This infected stream has been allowed to flow for over half a century in the modern era, because confronting it would result in painful and costly soul searching for some of the most influential nations in the world. France’s response in the way of military action on ISIS is certainly just, but it is only a battle, not the war. Even if ISIS is defeated, considering how their ability to generate nearly $3 million USD a day remains unaffected (thanks Turkey!), another ISIS may rise years, if not months afterwards. This is because ISIS, similarly to al Qaeda and the Taliban, thrives on an ideology. And you cannot bomb an ideology. What drives Islamic extremism? Numerous contributing factors are openly discussed while the following root causes barely merit a mention. 1. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia:  Wahhabism or Salafism, a terrifyingly hardline interpretation of Islam, flows through Saudi Arabia like a single stream in a desert where accesses to other water supplies have been blocked by the government’s scimitar. Wahhabism is significant because of Saudi Arabia’s natural influence as the gatekeeper of Makkah. It is also significant, because Saudi Arabia has used its vast resources to spread this mutation of Islam. We can argue all day about which teachings of wahhabism are genuine to the religion. For example, many scholars believe the hijab is not an Islamic garment, but rather, a component of Arab culture. Others disagree. But what we can all agree with is that the structure of the Saudi Arabian monarchy is as un-Islamic as it gets; it is said that the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) commanded Muslims to choose their leader in a democratic process rather than a dynasty. In fact, the Prophet’s grandson, Imam Hussain (RA), died fighting against a ruler who had defied this teaching in one of the most pivotal moments in Islamic history. In essence, Mohammad’s (PBUH) last blood relative gave his life fighting a monarchy, and yet, Saudi Arabia is a monarchy. If a guardian of the religion refuses to follow one the most basic principles, so as to serve its own needs and remain in power, then how can it remain true to the rest of the scripture? How does Saudi Arabia factor into Islamic extremism? A similar footprint to Wahhabism can be found in the philosophy of ISIS, Al Qaeda, and even the Taliban. Saudi Arabia indoctrinates young Muslims by spreading their twisted version of Islam through suitcases of cash, going as far and wide as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and beyond. Experts say Saudi Arabia has spent billions, yes billions of dollars, on their propaganda. The Week,

“How do the Saudis promote their religious views? By investing heavily in building mosques, madrasas, schools, and Sunni cultural centers across the Muslim world. Indian intelligence says that in India alone, from 2011 to 2013, some 25,000 Saudi clerics arrived bearing more than $250 million to build mosques and universities and hold seminars. ‘We are talking about thousands and thousands of activist organisations and preachers who are in the Saudi sphere of influence,’ said Usama Hasan, a researcher in Islamic studies. These institutions and clerics preach the specifically Saudi version of Sunni Islam, the extreme fundamentalist strain known as Wahhabism or Salafism.”

“Exact numbers are not known, but it is thought that more than $100 billion have been spent on exporting fanatical Wahhabism to various much poorer Muslim nations worldwide over the past three decades. It might well be twice that number. By comparison, the Soviets spent about $7 billion spreading communism worldwide in the 70 years from 1921 and 1991.”

“General Jonathan Shaw, who retired as Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff in 2012, told The Telegraph that Qatar and Saudi Arabia were primarily responsible for the rise of the extremist Islam that inspires Isil terrorists. The two Gulf states have spent billions of dollars on promoting a militant and proselytising interpretation of their faith derived from Abdul Wahhab, an eighteenth century scholar, and based on the Salaf, or the original followers of the Prophet. But the rulers of both countries are now more threatened by their creation than Britain or America, argued Gen Shaw. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) has vowed to topple the Qatari and Saudi regimes, viewing both as corrupt outposts of decadence and sin.”

“The Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) has said that the United States is the largest trading partner of Saudi Arabia and the Kingdom is the largest market for US exports in the Middle East.”

“Saudi’s richest investors are threatening to pull billions of dollars out of America in anger at suggestions they helped fund Osama bin Laden. A lawsuit filed by relatives of 900 people who were killed in the September 11 attacks is provoking fury among wealthy Saudis. The suit filed in a Washington court last week seeking damages of $100,000 billion names three members of the Saudi royal family, including defence minister Prince Sultan bin abd al-Aziz al Saud. The lawsuit alleges that Saudi money has ‘for years been funnelled to encourage radical anti-Americanism as well as to fund the al Qaeda terrorists’. Banks and charities named in the suit are calling on Saudi Arabia to review its financial and political ties to the US.”

“Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest source of funds for Islamist militant groups such as the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba – but the Saudi government is reluctant to stem the flow of money, according to Hillary Clinton. ‘More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaeda, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups,’ says a secret December 2009 paper signed by the US secretary of state. Her memo urged US diplomats to redouble their efforts to stop Gulf money reaching extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. ‘Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide,’ she said.”

“Saudi officials had complained to the former president that the university was not being run according to the principles for which it was established during General Ziaul Haq’s regime.”

“They may not be teaching it in front of you, but they are most definitely preaching it behind your back!”

“This is why I constantly tell the Pakistani government as well as Pakistani citizens that unless this religious narrative is countered with the true narrative of Islam, such people (ISIS) will continue to emerge.”

“Gallup asked Americans whether they thought Israel’s recent actions were justified. While older Americans clearly sided with Israel, 18 to 29-year-olds said by a two-to-one margin (51-25) that its actions were unjustified. No other group was as strongly opposed to Israel’s actions.”

“Large demonstrations against Israel’s assault on Palestinians in Gaza were staged across the US on Saturday. The public outpouring of support for Palestinians in US streets suggests that Washington’s pro-Israel policies are becoming increasingly unpopular, a trend supported by a recent poll on Israel’s latest aggression, which finds that young Americans are twice as likely to support Palestinian rights than Israeli occupation. Tens of thousands of Americans held a demonstration in front of the White House in Washington, DC. Protestors travelled in buses from around the country to join the national rally, waving Palestinian flags and chanting ‘free Palestine’ in the US capital. On the other side of the country, thousands of Americans staged a protest in Austin, Texas while a plane flew in the skies with the message ‘save Gaza free Palestine.’”

“More than 300 academics from dozens of British universities have pledged to boycott Israeli academic institutions in protest at what they call intolerable human rights violations against the Palestinian people. The declaration, by 343 professors and lecturers, is printed in a full-page advertisement carried in Tuesday’s Guardian, with the title: ‘A commitment by UK scholars to the rights of Palestinians’. The pledge says the signatories, from a variety of universities in England and Wales, will not accept invitations to visit Israeli academic institutions, act as referees for them, or take part in events organised or funded by them. They will, however, still work with individual Israeli academics, it adds. The advert says the signatories are ‘deeply disturbed by Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land, the intolerable human rights violations that it inflicts on all sections of the Palestinian people, and its apparent determination to resist any feasible settlement.’”

“Don’t believe us? Just look at Palestine.”

A popular Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim hadith quotes Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) as saying that once prayer has started, Muslims are not supposed to rush to join in quickly. Instead, they must proceed to the mosque at a calm and normal pace. If they miss any part of the prayer, they should simply complete whatever they missed, rather than making a mad dash to join the rakkah. The intention of this command, clearly, is to avoid creating hassle for yourself or anyone else. If you live anywhere near a mosque in Karachi, or have travelled to work, school, or even the hospital during prayer time, then you may know how seriously Pakistanis take this teaching. In a teeming city of over 25 million people, some inconvenience is to be expected, but it seems all courtesy is forgotten during prayer time. Prayer goers, who for whatever reason did not leave for the mosque on time, will consider it perfectly acceptable to rush to their place of worship in their vehicles, breaking signals and perhaps a few bones along the way. Upon arrival, they shall double park and obstruct an entire road, or shall simply block someone’s gate for 15 to 30 minutes, so that they can go inside the mosque while numerous people suffer. There are several issues with this. The first is that it goes against the teachings of the very religion they are trying to collect sawab (reward) from. While the Prophet (PBUH) didn’t mention cars specifically in the hadith – obviously because they didn’t exist at the time – the principle behind the command to slow down on the way to the mosque is self-explanatory. Also, the self-righteous folks who behave like this obviously believe that their single contribution to the prayer is worth inconveniencing others, even if the consequences are dire. Months back, I saw an ambulance with sirens wailing stuck during such a situation, and I myself was unable to attend an emergency on one occasion. But it is worse for people who live close to mosques. By some coincidence, I have twice lived in a home opposite a mosque; once in the Middle East and once in Pakistan. In Saudi Arabia, not once did someone obstruct our gate during 12 years of living in front of a mosque. On the other hand, in Pakistan, it was customary to find a car cutting off our entrance at least two or three times a day. To make matters worse, the offenders were never apologetic. If anything, they were arrogant in their supposed virtuosity. Recently, a Karachi resident shared her story on the Facebook page ‘We’ve had enough!!!!’ when someone barricaded her gate with his car in order to go and attend prayer. Sadly, because she was a woman, she only suffered more at the hands of other drivers who impatiently honked at her to move her car from the road while she waited, and chastised her for being a ‘lady driver’. In response, most were sympathetic: Not surprisingly, some were absurdly judgmental: Others explained how upon complaining after facing a similar predicament, they were labelled as ‘yahoodis’ (Jews) by the imam: Almost every other person suggested violence: To avoid unpleasantness, a simple solution for worshippers is to park only where there is a legal place to leave a car. By saving yourself a 15-minute walk, you aren’t doing the rest of us any favours. Please don’t inconvenience the rest of us for your convenience.

Mumtaz Qadri is a convicted killer – a man who shot his own boss in cold blood, then Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, for taking a stand in favour of minorities being unfairly prosecuted under a draconian and archaic law. Since his heinous crime, Qadri has become a beacon for the insane in this country; a symbol to which extremists flock like birds flying south for the winter, or like suicidal moths burning themselves on tube lights. Never mind the fact that Qadri threatened to take his own life (which honestly, is like threatening to gift someone a Ferrari); a clear violation of Islam’s anti-suicide rule. This man now graces banners of both Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and their partners Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), in order to satisfy extremists in the voter base. The only way this image would have been acceptable is if the PTI bat was striking Qadri on the face. The reaction from activist Jibran Nasir was understandably swift: https://twitter.com/MJibranNasir/status/671400225865662464 On the other hand, the response from PTI’s chief of staff was… confusing: https://twitter.com/naeemul_haque/status/670473179693993984 Wait, what does that even mean? You can dissociate yourself from the posters, but what about your candidates? This would be like me crashing my car in a horrible accident, running away, and then saying,

“I would like to dissociate completely from a certain vehicle registered under my name, involved in a crash, where casualties may have occurred.”

“If his execution is stopped, it will be in the larger interest not only of our region, but for the establishment of world peace and justice.”

“[JI] urges the President to announce amnesty for Qadri like many other cases especially under the NRO,” said a resolution adopted by JI Shura. “Government should withdraw the case against him for murdering Taseer in the public interest.”

“The poster, put up by the Jamaat-e-Islami candidates for UC-34 of Baldia in District West, bears the slogan ‘Aao Badlen Karachi’. It has the names and pictures of JI and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf candidates contesting in UC-34 of Turk Colony. What has made this particular poster controversial, however, are the four pictures on the top right corner. They are mug shots of Mumtaz Qadri, Ghazi Ilm Din and Umar Cheema. The man in the fourth picture could not be identified, even by the JI’s own leaders. “All these people are conquerors (Ghazi) of good over bad and have given their lives for the love of religion,” reasoned the JI spokesperson. “There is nothing wrong with these pictures and they have only been printed to motivate our voters,” he added.

“I was aware of Aafia’s violent personality and extremist views and suspected her involvement in Jihadi activities.”

Here in Pakistan, we often feel affronted by the mistreatment of the minorities overseas, we identify with racially, religiously, or culturally. Any occurrence of a mosque defiled, or a Muslim man or woman being abused in the West, is quickly shared across social media captioned with angry messages. This, of course, is fair enough. As someone who considers himself to be a member of this planet rather than defined by race or religion, I feel humanity should know no boundaries. That being said, it is difficult to fathom how the volume of our outrage is directly proportional to the distance of the tragedy from us. A Muslim man attacked because of his religion in the US shall result in Muslims in Pakistan calling a meeting of humans, elves, hobbits, and wizards to discuss the incident while waving their sabres and staffs. On the other hand, a destruction of an Ahmadi place of worship next door will barely merit a whisper. The #IStandWithAhmadis is a social media campaign set to last 10 days and is generating considerable buzz on Twitter. Through #IStandWithAhmadis, plenty of people on social media have shown their support for the Pakistanis who have been facing systemic persecution and human rights abuses for the last 50 years. For those interested, the ‘IStandWithAhmadis’ website is an excellent resource to support, mobilise, educate, and spread loving awareness. There are five million Ahmadis in Pakistan, and the only frustrations they should face are bijli problems, paani issues and supporting a cricket team that loses habitually – you know, like the rest of us. Instead, they have to learn to walk across broken glass in their own nation because they never know when some lunatic will make their life a living hell. Recently, a mob in Jhelum, Punjab, burned a factory, while another mob in a nearby town destroyed Ahmadi homes and their place of worship. Later, the monsters who committed these crimes were seen cheering as they danced around the wreckage. A gut-wrenching report from Tanqeed.org shares more about these events, including how the police had to pretend to arrest Ahmadi boys in order to save them:

“When the enraged mob reached the said worship place, the police had to intervene and in a rare incident of fairness rescued three Ahmadi youth from inside the worship place.”

“Police came with their minds made up that Qamar Tahir had burnt pages of the Holy Quran and thrown them in one (of) the factory boilers. God forbid, why would he commit such a heinous act? We are practicing people, but the police pointed at Qamar Sahib saying that he had committed that act. On Tahir’s arrest, his sons questioned the police, so police arrested them also. One of the boys is still a young teenager, less than 18-years-old. I saw that they were manhandling the boys, slapping them and pulling their hair, says Imran. After the arrests, police personnel arrived again at the factory twice, within a span of 30 to 45 minutes. On the last trip, the District Police Officer (DPO) arrived and went to the boiler where the religious scripture was allegedly thrown. The factory staffer who is allegedly behind the blasphemy charges was the one with the police, Imran says. I did not see the DPO consulting any senior managers of our office. Instead, he went straight to the boiler with the complainant and then left. Qamar’s boys were later released.”

“That is when factory staffers saw men gathering outside the factory on motorbikes, and began to be alarmed. Imran and his Ahmadi colleagues quickly gathered and decided to leave the area. Within 45 minutes, Imran and a few families from the colony nearby which holds about eight homes of Ahmadi residents, had begun to organise an escape. Because Imran and some of the others did not have families, it was easy for them to leave the residential area. However, the youth were told by their elders to return to the area near the factory. The mob was at the brink of breaking down the factory gate, and loudspeakers had begun calls of protest and violent actions against Ahmadis. The young Ahmadi youth were needed to assist those hiding out and get them to safety.”

Of the three cricketers convicted and punished in the infamous spot-fixing scandal, I felt sympathy only for Mohammad Amir, since the left-arm fasted bowler was the youngest of the trio, and quickly put himself (as probably advised by his lawyer) at the mercy of the courts. On the other hand, both senior bowler Mohammad Asif and skipper Salman Butt fought legal battles to the very end. In fact, Salman Butt shamelessly exploited the nation’s hearts on Pakistani news shows by claiming that there were conspiracies against him. Finally, after exhausting all good will and legal recourse, Butt came clean. This is why the disgraced ringleader should ever be allowed anywhere near a cricket field. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600"] PHOTO: AP[/caption] Recently, Pakistani opener Mohammad Hafeez and World-Cup-winner-turned-pundit Ramiz Raja expressed disgust at the return of Mohammad Amir. Hafeez says he simply doesn’t want to play in the same squad as the tainted cricketer, while Raja claims Amir isn’t nearly as innocent as he has been portraying. Penning an article for ESPN Cricinfo, Raja wrote,

“The argument put across in Amir’s favour is that his talent was compromised at a young age due to poor judgement and his naiveté, and because he comes from a poor family. If that is the case, there are millions of other Pakistani youth who have had a tough start in life, and less than ideal upbringings. Does that give them a licence to use underhanded means and cheat to make a living? “In fact, to quote an incident, I was approached to find out why Amir had turned down a more-than-decent offer made to him by an English county just a day before he was caught. During my conversation with him regarding the offer, I realised that because the offer was a few thousand pounds short of what he expected, he was willing to let go of an opportunity to play and establish himself at a renowned and historic county. I came to the conclusion that he was not, after all, so gullible and naive about money matters.”

“The way things were talked about wasn’t the way it happened. It wasn’t the way it was shown to the nation. Regarding the media… I feel sorry (for the way they behaved). One should take care of a country’s respect themselves, and the media should have saved our nation’s respect.”

“If you look at England, (there) they killed a black guy. So, they let set all of London on fire. I think within one week, everything was clear and no one could tell that anything (bad) had happened. I was there and the media didn’t highlight the issue the way it was happening. They showed very small small events… minor events… In the same way if you want to create and save your country’s respect you have to do it through media. Such a small thing (was the spot fixing event), and you showed it through media.”

 “OK, but this was a big deal...”

“But the way they showed it was if it was something huge (raising his hands), but in reality, it was tiny.” (Bringing his thumb and index finger together)

“What do you want me to say? A small thing is made so big here. It was spot-fixing but we were tried in a match-fixing court. What do you think this points to? Any intelligent person can figure it out. We were punished for a crime we did not commit.”

“I would like to say to the media to show the event but stay in your limits.”

“Again, we will have to go back to the same thing. Did I do it, or was I forced to do it?”

Is everyone ready? Okay… all together now… let’s say the following words: Period… Menstruation... Tampons… Sanitary napkins… Sanitary towels… Menstrual pad… Maxi pad… Whew. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Every month, before reaching a certain age, a woman ovulates for a span of a day or so. Following this time, an unfertilised egg is let go in a menstrual period that lasts up to a week or more of bleeding. It can be a very uncomfortable time for most, but is more severe for some; the pain certain women suffer is crippling. Yet across the world, especially in certain cultures, women are discouraged from discussing the affects and requirements of this basic body function. In essence, around one half of the world’s population restraints itself for fear of making the other half feel uncomfortable. Well, as Eric Cartman from South Park would say to the world: “What’s the big deal ****?" As a son, brother, and husband, I realise that period shaming has to end. An example of this is when I sometimes purchase sanitary napkins for my significant other, especially from a smaller store. Immediately, the cashier tucks away the product inside a large brown paper bag, and sometimes inside a black plastic bag as well. Given the opportunity, he would probably place it in a locked safe if he could. Uhh… it’s just a female hygiene product. The sanitary napkin is a comfort so vital, that women seek to use the best they can afford. This is understandable. If I bled once a month in a painful process, I’d purchase an expensive cashmere sweater for a chance at relief. Considering this, it is difficult to understand why the Pakistani government has decided to tax the imported sanitary towel, like it is a luxury good. From what I am told, local products are inferior in quality, and don’t provide nearly the same class of ease. According to Dawn, the sanitary towel now falls in the same bracket as watches, imitation jewellery, curtains, tents, and more. Imagine that… a sanitary napkin is now considered to be as essential as a tent by the Pakistani government. Yes… a tent. But before you pick up your pitchforks, our nation’s government isn’t alone. States worldwide tax tampons and sanitary napkins as ‘non-essential’ and ‘luxury’ items. Let’s call it what it is…. a vagina tax. I bet you, if men went through a similar issue (my legs are cringing at the thought) our basic hygiene products would be cheap and readily available. How do I know this? Well, many of the same world governments taxing female sanitary products as luxury items are taxing men’s razors as essential items. In fact, men’s hygiene products are missing from the list available on Dawn. Instead of adding to the expense of these fundamental items, we need to make them more affordable. In a wonderful blog, Farahnaz Zahidi argues against the taboos,

“Research points out that almost 50 per cent of Pakistani girls in rural areas and underprivileged circumstances miss school during their menstrual period, and absenteeism in school can improve drastically if they have access to protective material and proper toilet facilities at school. Yet, sanitary cloth and napkins remain not a basic need but a luxury for Pakistan’s daughters who cannot afford them, or are simply unaware. The problem becomes even gorier when faced by displaced women living in slums, camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) or in nomadic setups.”

“When Muruganantham looked into it further, he discovered that hardly any women in the surrounding villages used sanitary pads - fewer than one in 10. His findings were echoed by a 2011 survey by AC Nielsen, commissioned by the Indian government, which found that only 12 per cent of women across India use sanitary pads. Muruganantham says that in rural areas, the take-up is far less than that. He was shocked to learn that women don’t just use old rags, but other unhygienic substances such as sand, sawdust, leaves and even ash. Women who do use cloths are often too embarrassed to dry them in the sun, which means they don’t get disinfected. Approximately 70 per cent of all reproductive diseases in India are caused by poor menstrual hygiene – it can also affect maternal mortality.”

At first glance, it looks like an overenthusiastic Black Friday sale by Q-Mobile and Huawei, but a closer look at the unmistakably grim faces next to the long banners reveal that this group was involved in Pakistan’s favourite pastime – a protest. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600"] Photo: Kashif N Chaudhry[/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600"] Photo: Kashif N Chaudhry[/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600"] Photo: Mohammad Jibran Nasir – Official[/caption] Yes, we love a good protest, don’t we? We gleefully demonstrate against the sentencing of murderer Mumtaz Qadri, who incidentally threatened to commit the anti-Islamic act of suicide after being hailed as the ideal Muslim and says he isn’t afraid of death but exhausts every legal avenue to avoid meeting his maker. We violently burn down cinemas, eateries, and other businesses completely unrelated to a video or cartoon made about the Prophet (PBUH) in another geographical location. And what was this particular protest about? The right to abuse Ahmadis, of course. Pakistan hasn’t been very kind to this community since their rise in the late 1800s; they were declared non-Muslims and barred from practicing several acts synonymous with Islam. Over the years, many Ahmadis have been jailed under these laws. Some, like Pakistani Nobel Prize winner Abdus Salam, had their graves, which declared them as Muslim, desecrated. Every few years, Ahmadis are tortured and even murdered. Their properties are destroyed; their businesses, places of worship, and gravesites are desecrated. Not even women and little children are spared. Recently, the Punjab government commendably sent police to the Hafeez Centre mobile phone market in Lahore to take down pamphlets from stores boasting foul language against Ahmadis. These pamphlets had come under focus on social media, thanks to journalist Raza Rumi, after which the authorities admirably took swift action against the hate speech. https://twitter.com/MehrTarar/status/674994315836395521?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Later, the police arrested one of the store owners responsible. Of course, this didn’t sit well in Lahore, and here began another ferocious show of strength against the Ahamdis as well as the authorities for siding with them. Activists Mohammad Jibran Nasir and Kashif N Chaudhry summed up the dire situation well: The detained man has since been released on bail, immediately finding love from our masses. Having examined what earns an angry protest in this country, let’s take a look at the incidents left ignored by our demonstrators. 1. Mass child molestation ring uncovered in Kasur? No protest. 2. Churches attacked, scores killed? No protest. 3. Christian TV station burned to the ground? No protest. 4. Incidents of young girls and women brutally raped? No protest. 5. Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) approves child marriage? No protest. 6. Thousands of Christian and Hindu girls forced to convert to Islam every year? No protest. 7. Minorities falsely implicated under a draconian law? No protest. On the international front, when people produce cartoons or videos mocking the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) we burn our own country down, yet when a couple of Pakistani origin declares solidarity with ISIS and murders scores of people in the United States, or when Boko Haram kill with a greater frequency than ISIS, when they kidnap and rape hundreds of school girls, or when ISIS itself commits atrocities in the name of Islam, we can’t be bothered to stage a display of defiance. The pattern here is clear. The Muslims in Pakistan only spring into action where they feel there is a threat to their scripture. The Ahmadis interpret Islam differently, so we hate them. The cartoons offend Islamic sensibilities, so Pakistani Muslims will tear at each other because they can’t reach anyone else. The Christians and Hindus aren’t Muslim, so therefore they are considered to be inferior. Ironically, most Pakistanis don’t understand Arabic and hence have a little grasp of the very scripture they are defending. Instead, they rely on those with megaphones. Perhaps this is why there is such indifference to the cruelties committed by those misusing Islam. Of course, we hope it is merely disinterest. We hope there is deafening silence because our angry protestors are too lazy to stand up otherwise. But what if they aren’t? What if they quietly approve of ISIS, al Qaeda, Taliban, and others? What if our people believe that anyone loosely interpreted as an apostate must be butchered? As Pakistani/Canadian writer Ali A Rizvi pointed out, in a recent PEW survey, nine per cent of Pakistanis approve of ISIS, while 62 per cent said they ‘don’t know’. I spoke to PEW directly, and was told that such a large percentage of ‘don’t knows’ indicate a lack of familiarity with the issue. So let’s concentrate on the nine per cent. Essentially, nearly one out of every ten Pakistanis approves of ISIS. If we believe our population to be 192 million, the nine per cent translates to over 17 million Pakistanis supporting ISIS. Meanwhile, a 2014 report says ‘only’ eight per cent of Pakistanis approve of Taliban and 12 per cent approve of al Qaeda. In other words, over 15 million people supported the Taliban in 2014, and over 23 million had a favourable view of al Qaeda. Alarming? Yes, but it explains how Mumtaz Qadri has more groupies than Justin Bieber. Let’s have a detailed look at some points standing out from a 2013 link. 1. 88 per cent of Pakistanis believe corporal Shariah punishment should be handed down to thieves. 2. 76 per cent of Pakistanis say any person who converts from Islam to another religion, must be killed. Only Afghans, Egyptians, and Jordanians hold this belief more. 3. 89 per cent of Pakistanis believed any person caught committing adultery must be stoned to death. No other country holds this belief more. 4. Lastly, four out of 10 Pakistanis claim the honor killings of women are ‘sometimes justified’. In context of these findings, the nation’s headlines make for even more grim reading. One begins to appreciate why there is such apathy towards the plight of minorities. Why religious assassins are hailed as heroes. Why reports of honour killings smear our culture in dirty shades of red with such frequency. The government of Pakistan should be commended for the swift response to the hate speech. It is part of the National Action Plan initiative by the administration to nip these plants in the bud before they grow into poisonous bushes. It may seem like a tiny step, but in context of this nation’s history, it is a giant one. But this should only be the beginning. We need to take charge of what we teach in our schools, for one. We need to counter the extremist narrative in a meaningful way. As I said before, you can’t bomb an ideology. Our belief system begs for reformation at its core, before it is too late.

It is difficult to imagine what it is like to be one of the parents of the 122 school kids brutally murdered during the Army Public School (APS) massacre in Peshawar. On the morning of December 16, 2014, these families said goodbye to their children as they left for school, and a few hours later, were shattered by the news that their loved one(s) had been mercilessly gunned down by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorists. I know of parents broken after losing their child to a terminal disease, and eventually found solace. The slow torture of witnessing a brave beloved helplessly battle such an illness is crippling, but some closure can be found during the time granted by the lengthy nature of the ordeal. The fathers and mothers of the APS children, on the other hand, never got to say goodbye. One instant, their little ones were with them, the other, they were gone, only leaving behind painful questions destined to haunt their imagination in a cycle of ruinous grief. It is unfortunate that the massacre has been hijacked into a circus. We all want a piece of the suffering and we all want to consume it in our own way. I wouldn’t blame the parents for locking themselves away from computers, smartphones, television sets, and the media, rather than relive the ordeal just to satisfy our need to consume their pain. Should we honour the victims? Of course, we should. The death of these heroes finally gave this nation the will to retaliate against the militant group. When we say #NeverForget #APS, we mean never let it happen again. It’s just a pity that we can’t honour victims quietly without pushing our own agendas. Instead of empathising with the families, we use their tears to sell news stories or political propaganda. To start with, someone at Geo News, likely brain-dead, had the bright idea of having the anchors wear APS school uniform to ‘honour’ the victims: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600"] Photo: Screengrab[/caption] To see grown men and women wearing childrens’ school uniforms on a day when 122 of them were gunned down was both disturbing and comical. It was also incredibly offensive. Soon, president of Geo Entertainment, Aamir Liaquat announced his resignation on Twitter after claiming that this was a disrespectful attention seeking tactic from the media powerhouse that he could not stand behind. https://twitter.com/AamirLiaquat/status/676831745090695168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/AamirLiaquat/status/676833052132265984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Yes, you read correctly – Aamir Liaquat took a moral stand. Imagine that. Even Aamir Liaquat, a man who has built his career on disrespectful attention seeking tactics, could not stomach the publicity stunt. https://twitter.com/AamirLiaquat/status/676829572621590529?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Later, as if to say, “Don’t worry guys, I am still cray-cray”, he tweeted about how India was responsible for the APS attacks. https://twitter.com/AamirLiaquat/status/676830980397776898?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Of course, other channels were determined not to be left behind with the emotion porn. Business Plus featured an interview with a group of APS survivors, who were nudged into singing songs. 92 News found it perfectly acceptable to have a kitschy poem read from the point of view of a dead APS schoolboy. Abb Tak happily displayed confidential security documents. Then, there was Neo TV, snatching the lowest hanging fruit hungrily with both teeth. An interview of a mother who lost her child in the terrorist act was overproduced to a nauseating degree. Every time the woman would share heartbreak, the video would pause for a few seconds, allowing the camera to zoom in to her nose, followed by a ridiculous song sung in a shrill voice by a boy crying for his ‘mamma’ and ‘baba’. This continued throughout the interview. It was almost as if Neo TV was telling us that a childlike ghost was crying as his mother spoke and it was nothing short of disgusting. I am sure the family that had granted Neo TV the interview must have been horrified watching what the producers had done to capitalise on their loss. [fbvideo link="https://www.facebook.com/neotvnetwork/videos/938956656198317/"][/fbvideo] Here is a hint to Neo TV, Geo and the other Pakistani channels that ran ridiculous programming. As any good documentarian will tell you, on camera, a painful tragedy is powerful enough on its own, and doesn’t need to be manipulated. Did Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy present the survivors of acid attacks in Saving Face with depressing music from Titanic or special effects out of saas bahu dramas? Of course she did not. So why can’t you move beyond cheap exploitation?

Having already confirmed with Pakistan International Airline (PIA) my return flight to Karachi a few days earlier, I was feeling relaxed on the penultimate day of my lovely vacation in Nepal, but when I called the Pakistani national airline’s office in Kathmandu to re-confirm my flight, I received a surprise. According to the PIA representative, my flight had been cancelled days ago, and I was to wait another four days to fly to Karachi. As much as I was fascinated by Nepal, I didn’t wish to spend more time in the country. For one, I was running low on cash as none of the ATMs in the nation were accepting my Master debit cards. For the other, I couldn’t afford to miss the extra working days. Feeling restless, I decided to speak with them face-to-face. Upon entering the PIA office in Kathmandu I was met with the distinct flavour of home. It was a taste of arrogance that contrasted sharply with the humbleness of the people of Nepal. The Pakistanis inside the PIA office were both rude and self-righteous, as if the airliner that employed them was their private enterprise, and as if they were doing their customers a favour by serving them. When I asked why I hadn’t been informed about the change in schedule, I was told my cell-phone hadn’t been responding.

“Well, it’s off because I am here. I also provided my email address and a relative’s phone number in Karachi. You also had my spouse’s number. Why didn’t anyone try the alternate forms of communication?” I protested.

“I can’t believe you can smell it on my breath after such a long time.”

“When the pilot requested sandwiches the catering staff told him that they were not part of the approved menu, and that the only way to obtain sandwiches would be to place an order with a five-star city hotel - which would take over two hours. The captain insisted that he needed sandwiches and the catering department contacted the Pakistan International Airlines head office in Karachi to seek further advice on the matter. Amazingly, management directed the catering team to order the sandwiches as requested. Once the sandwiches arrived the pilot was allegedly happy and the flight resumed ... over two hours late.”

“‘Although it appears a courtesy on the part of the pilot, the PIA cannot ignore the rules’, Gilani said, adding that under the law unauthorised persons were not allowed to enter the cockpit. ‘The responsibility lies with the pilot not to allow anyone to sit in the cockpit’, he said. ‘This is against the law and a safety hazard’.”

“PIA Workers CBA Union chief, Shamim Akmal, said the management had been too apologetic towards the pilots and had been giving in to most of their demands. Pointing out that the workers who were paid paltry sums as compared to the pilots would not allow anyone to hold the airline hostage.”

“PIA’s aircraft-employee ratio stands at over 500. This needs to be reduced to near the international standard of 130-150.”

Mohammad Faisal Baloch said to reporters that according to the doctors, had his daughter Bisma received medical attention only 10 minutes earlier, her life could have been saved. Instead, she died because of the delay caused by the security measures taken to protect the visiting Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, at Karachi’s Civil Hospital. The tragedy has resulted in plenty of backlashes towards Bilawal and VIP culture in general. But curiously enough, there has been some backlash towards the backlash… a backlash’ception if you will. This has come not only courtesy of Bilawal’s own camp, but from PPP sympathisers and neutral members of the public as well. I think it would be sensible to address some of these comments, but before we get started, let’s acknowledge that both Bilawal and his father, former president of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari, have not only been empathetic, but have had the good grace to avoid insensitive excuses. https://twitter.com/BBhuttoZardari/status/679638559779893248 Sadly, the same can’t be said for others.

1. “Nothing is more precious than party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari”

2. “While we are all talking about Bisma, other children across Pakistan dying in tragedies have not been making the news”

3. “Mohammad Faisal Baloch may have been delayed at the hospital, but he is to blame for arriving so late”

4. “Why didn’t Mohammad Faisal Baloch go to another gate?”

“Dr Qureshi clarified that the security officers deployed at the gates were not theirs. The hospital management does not close doors on patients at any time, he said.”  5. “Bilawal’s visit did not cause any traffic jams… his visit merely lasted 20 minutes,” Bilawal House,

6. “VIP movements are necessary and everyone uses them.”

It is the first day of January of 2016. Yes, the New Year has begun. We are all a bit older, wiser, and sadly, a little closer to death. Naturally, this is the perfect time to look back at some of the news stories that made headlines in Pakistan and across the world. Girls at Dhabas: For Pakistanis worn down by the taxing life of the big city, nothing quite reignites the brain cells like a good cup of doodh pati (tea). Sold at dhabas (roadside restaurants), these delicious cups of hot tea brewed in milk are consumed by the masses at every corner of the country with great regularity. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="600"] Photo: Indiegogo[/caption] While women aren’t barred from dhabas, they aren’t as regular a fixture at these small tea shops as men due to various social norms. When regular tea consuming friends Sadia Khatri, Natasha Ansari, Rabeea Arif and Najia Khan, decided to confront the gender disparity, they started the hashtag #girlsatdhaba. Little did they know that their movement would take on a life of its own. Today, the initiative has thousands of fans on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr. #girlsatdhaba has been covered by news websites such as The Express Tribune and Buzzfeed, and has even caught on in the neighbouring India. This, of course, is fantastic. The patriarchal mindset of Pakistani society will start changing when women reclaim their social spaces. Our men need to become accustomed to seeing single or groups of women in public settings without male escorts. I, for one look, forward to #girlsonscooters #girlsinjeans and #girlsdrivingtaxis as the next Pakistani social movements. Pakistan demands return of Koh-i-Noor diamond from Britain: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="640"] Photo: Reuters[/caption] After some Indians sued England’s Queen Elizabeth for the return of the Koh-i- Noor diamond, many Pakistanis scoffed,

“You’re kidding right? Ranjit Singh’s capital was Lahore. His empire was in Pakistan. He was born in a Pakistani city. His granddaughter died a Pakistani. OK so it was India at the time… but still!”

“See… see?”

“What? Have they even been to Karachi?”

“In this case, the online dating portal Miss Travel did conduct a survey to collect opinions on ‘the Sexiest Nationalities’, but they were based on one sample male from different countries as an example. And the only contribution from Pakistan to that list was Zayn Malik, a 22-year-old born and bred in Bradford, United Kingdom, and whose remotest relation to Pakistan is that his father hails from this country.

But did the article-churning, social media sharing machines care? Nope. Every single post that has been circulated ever since this story went viral has pictures of Pakistani celebrities like Hamza Ali Abbasi, Fawad Khan, Ali Zafar, and Imran Khan plastered all over the place. Were they even a part of this survey? Did any of the participating 66,309 American females ever see even so much as a photograph of these celebrities before they hit Zayn Malik’s name on that opinion poll questionnaire? Highly unlikely.”

They feared him. They hated him. They wanted him dead. His name was Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, and his reformist voice threatened the very foundation of a family business disguised as an Islamic Kingdom. In 2008, The Guardian described him “as the most popular Saudi Shia cleric among local youth”. Following his arrests, thousands flooded the streets in Saudi Arabia, in what was an unprecedented event for the country. On the surface, his means were reportedly peaceful. In 2011, he told the BBC he preferred “the roar of the word against authorities rather than weapons... the weapon of the word is stronger than bullets, because authorities will profit from a battle of weapons”. In 2012, the cleric was arrested yet again for taking part in demonstrations against the Saudi Kingdom. Here, as before, he is said to have suffered from torture. In 2014, he was sentenced to death, resulting in national and international outrage. Al-Nimr stood with Shias who faced persecution at the hands of the Saudi regime. He also openly criticised the Kingdom’s allegedly violent meddling in the predominantly Shia neighbouring nation of Bahrain. But perhaps the kicker for the Saudis was his stance in favour of democracy, and his call for elections. Elections are, of course, Saudi Arabia’s kryptonite: The Guardian,

“Nimr had long been regarded as the most vocal Shia leader in the eastern Saudi province of Qatif, willing to publicly criticise the ruling al-Saud family and call for elections.”

“Arguing that he is portrayed publicly as much more radical than the true content of his words and beliefs, the Sheikh also espoused other conciliatory ideas such as fair political decision-making over identity-based politics, the positive impact of elections, and strong ‘American ideals’ such as liberty and justice. Despite this more moderate tone, al-Nimr reasserted his ardent opposition to what he described as the authoritarianism of the reactionary al-Saud regime, stating he would always support ‘the people’ in any conflict with the government.”

“The death sentence against Sheikh Nimr Baqir al-Nimr is part of a campaign by the authorities in Saudi Arabia to crush all dissent, including those defending the rights of the Kingdom’s Shi’a Muslim community.”

“Sheikh al-Nimr’s trial has been seriously flawed. Eyewitnesses, whose testimonies were the only evidence used against him, were not brought to court to testify. This violates the country’s own laws. The Sheikh was denied the most basic means to prepare for his defence and was not represented by legal counsel for some of the proceedings because the authorities did not inform his lawyer of some dates of the hearings.”

“For the past 100 years, we have been subjected to oppression, injustice, fear, and intimidation. From the moment you are born, you are surrounded by fear, intimidation, persecution, and abuse. We were born into an atmosphere of intimidation. We feared even the walls. Who among us is not familiar with the intimidation and injustice to which we have been subjected in this country? I am 55-years-old, more than half a century. From the day I was born and to this day, I’ve never felt safe or secure in this country. You are always being accused of something. You are always under threat. The head of the State Security Service admitted this to me in person. He said to me when I was arrested, ‘All you Shiites should be killed’. That is their logic. The head of the State Security Service in the eastern province said so himself. They are still plotting to carry out a massacre. They are more than welcome. We are here. Our blood is a small price to pay in defence of our values. We do not fear death. We long for martyrdom. A few months ago, the flame of honour was sparked in the spirits of the youth. The torch of freedom was lit. The people took to the streets demanding reform, honour, and freedom. There are people who have been held in prison unjustly for more than 16 years. In addition, the Peninsula Shield Force and the Saudi army invaded Bahrain. Then, there were more and more arrests. So who was it who instigated strife and unrest? The strife and unrest in Awwamiya were instigated by the regime, not the people. We will continue to defend the veteran and the new prisoners. We will stand by them. We don’t mind being arrested and joining them. We don’t even mind shedding our blood for their sake. We will continue to express even stronger solidarity with Bahrain. It is our own kin in Bahrain. Even if the Saudi army and the Peninsula Shield Force had not intervened, it still would have been our duty to stand by the people of Bahrain, our kin. Let alone, when the Saudi army takes part in the oppression, the killing, the violation of women’s honour, the plundering of money. (The Saudi regime says) that we are acting at the ‘behest of a foreign country’. They use that as a false pretext. By ‘foreign country’ they mean Iran, of course. You can’t really tell if it’s Iran, Turkey, a European nation, or the US… but they usually mean Iran. In December 1978, there was an Intifada to defend the honour of the Awwamiya, when the riot police attacked the town. This was on December 10, 1978, before the Shah was deposed, before the Islamic Republic of Iran was even established. It was in 1978 – four months before the fall of the Shah. A group of people convened to perform the religious rite of taziyeh for Imam Hussain (AS). It had nothing to do with political or security matters, but the security forces arrived and attacked them, and a confrontation ensued. People were defending themselves as well as their faith and honour. That night, they arrested a hundred people. This was prior to the fall of the Iranian Shah. So how can they talk about foreign interference? You should be ashamed of yourselves. Iran has been developing its military capabilities. If you are worth your salt, develop capabilities of your own, instead of talking. Iran is doing actual work. It has a military industry and is making progress. Instead of talking about ‘a behest of a foreign nation’, go ahead and sever your relations with Iran. You keep talking about a ‘foreign nation’. I dare you to name that nation. Do you not dare to even mention its name? At the end (the Saudi statement) read: ‘We will use an iron fist’. Go ahead and use your ‘iron fist’ against that ‘foreign nation’. Why are you using it against us, against 40 or 50 wretched people? If such a ‘foreign nation’ exists, attack the head of the serpent. If you mean Iran, go ahead and attack Iran, or any other country. Let’s see your ‘iron fist’. It will turn out to be a cardboard fist in the face of that ‘foreign nation’. We have no ties with Iran or any other nation. We are connected to our values and we shall defend them, even if your media continues with its distortions. The Peninsula Shield Force and Saudi army are mired in the quagmire of Bahrain. They are finding it difficult to leave. They are entangled there. They haven’t accomplished their goals and they cannot leave. They are stuck in a quagmire, and they will find themselves stuck in a worse quagmire. If they come here they will find themselves in a worse quagmire, because we are in Saudi Arabia. Not by violence, but by our determination, by our belief and by our steadfastness, shall your power be defeated. We have the determination to resist your injustice, and we will not surrender. The most you can do is kill us and we welcome martyrdom for the sake of Allah. Life does not end when a man dies. Real life begins when he dies. Either we live on this land as free men, or die and be buried as pious men. We have no other choice. We submit to the authority of Allah, his messenger (PBUH), and his family, and that’s it. We do not submit to the authority of a ruler. Never. No ruler, whoever he may be, has authority over us. (Political) power does not grant a ruler legitimate authority. The legitimacy of authority emanates from Allah. Authority is bestowed by Allah, and he does not bestow it upon the unjust. We are not loyal to other countries or authorities, nor are we loyal to this country. What is this country? The regime that oppresses me? The regime that steals my money, sheds my blood, and violates my honour? What does a country mean? The regime? The ruling clan? The soil? I don’t know what a country means. Loyalty is only to Allah! We have declared, and we reiterate, our loyalty is to Allah, not to the Saud clan. Our loyalty is to Allah, not this country. Our loyalty is to Allah and to those whom Allah grants authority. That’s it.”

The idea for Netflix came to its co-founder, former math teacher turned businessperson, Reed Hastings, when he ended up paying late fines for a movie rental totalling twice the cost of the actual DVD. Here, Netflix began life some 18 years ago as an online DVD rental mail-order service that offered its users some unheard of conveniences. Netflix soon skyrocketed in popularity, leaving its brick and mortar competitor, Blockbuster, looking like a ghost town, and eventually filing for bankruptcy. Today, Netflix is the go-to internet TV service, especially when it comes to streaming TV shows and movies. Netflix also produces original content, including shows such as House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Marvel’s Daredevil and Marvel’s Jessica Jones. Understandably, the announcement from the entertainment juggernaut that it would be entering 130 new markets, including Pakistan, has been met with excitement. Yes, now we too can Netflix and chill… though when our parents catch us (because let’s face it… how many single Pakistanis live alone?), it will be more like Netflix and chal… possibly with a few jootay (shoes) flying at us. Of course, there has been considerable backlash to the excitement on social media, because like it or not, cynicism is something of an ingrained Pakistani trait. (On a side note, why do we backlash on everything? It seems that the best way to hit a nerve on Twitter or Facebook in Pakistan is to say something bitter and pessimistic, even if it has little foundation in reality.) Here are some of the concerns making waves: 1. ROFLMAO! No one likes to pay for anything in Pakistan, so why would they pay for Netflix? For between $7.99 and $12 a month, you have unlimited access to all the TV shows and movies Netflix has on offer in Pakistan, free to watch on any device you see fit. To put things in perspective, a movie ticket costs $6 to $10 locally. As the packed theatres and giant box office grosses reveal, people are willing to pay. Yes, if we can shell out enough for Jawani Phir Nahi Ani to gross nearly 40 crores, then we will pay for anything to pass the time. On a similar note, after taxes, most starting packages on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) cost around $10. Meanwhile, your TV bill is between $3 and $5. So it isn’t extraordinary for Pakistanis to pay for entertainment. 2. Netflix is only for the rich. Our people can’t afford it. Look, Mr Self-righteous, the poor suffer from many issues in the country, but Netflix is the least of their problems. Those who can go to the cinema, pay for their internet connections, afford a TV cable bill, and own smart devices, aren’t going to be horrified by a Netflix bill. 3. Why won’t Pakistanis just use torrents? They are just pretending to be excited by Netflix. For the same reason Pakistanis flocked to theatres for The Force Awakens rather than resort to piracy. Of course, torrenting will still continue, as it has across the world, but using Netflix has some advantages. For one, to watch the full season of a TV show on full HD through Netflix, you don’t have to set aside 50GB of hard disk space as you download for days – you can just stream when necessary. The delivery of satisfaction is immediate. On the other hand, unlike torrents, pirated streaming sources are unreliable and infected with some nasty malware. What’s more is that Netflix is not only available on your smartphone and tablet, but is integrated into home theatres such as Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Using other means to stream a movie on to your next-gen console can be frustrating. For the other, not everything on the Netflix catalogue can be found in the internet’s dark underbelly. Ultimately, it is all about ease of use for a fee that doesn’t break the bank. No, not all of Netflix’s content will be available in Pakistan, but Jack Sparrow isn’t going anywhere either. What I am most excited about is Netflix working with producers in Pakistan to host some amazing local content. The sort of partnership hopefully free from the saas bahu nonsense we see on our TV sets. 4. LOL! How will Netflix work when Pakistani ISPs are so terrible!? While ISPs in Pakistan are still quite substandard, connectivity in Pakistan has improved by leaps and bounds over the years. Look, if you can watch a YouTube video or play your Xbox or PlayStation games online, then you can use Netflix. I do expect the service to face some teething issues, especially during its first few months, but I’d be surprised if it isn’t smooth sailing from then on. You can also expect ISPs and 3G/4G networks to provide special Netflix packages as they have with other services. 5. LOL! How will Netflix work when Pakistani credit cards are so terrible!? Again, perhaps true a decade ago, but the system has improved by leaps and bounds. While I still run into problems from time to time, I usually have no issues using the debit card versions of Visa or MasterCard to pay eBay, Steam, Amazon, or even Google. If you have a card with a major credit card logo, you should be okay. 6. The government of Pakistan will ban Netflix just like it has YouTube *snicker* You do realise that YouTube is a video sharing platform that features user created content, and Netflix is a digital TV service, right? The only similarity is that they share a medium of delivery. I don’t think Netflix will be hosting terrorist propaganda videos, or clips from amateur anti-Muslim filmmakers anytime soon. You can expect Netflix to work very closely with the government of Pakistan, just like other TV channels. The only real potential issue of conflict is over the issue of censorship. So far, the online streaming service has said its content won’t be censored. 7. Our youth should focus on being productive instead of wasting their time with Netflix! This comes courtesy of the uncle productively using his time with mind-numbing political talk shows from 5- 11pm every day of the week. Our people need more, not less entertainment.

It was a despairing day for humanity on Sunday when yet another report of a horrendous rape broke out of South Asia. A 14-year-old Indian girl bravely took to television to share her story. She had been gang raped by three men for two weeks in a dark room before being pitilessly shot after she had been told she was being let go. Speaking of her ordeal to the NDTV news network, the teenager said that the three attackers took turns to rape her over a two-week period.

“After a fortnight of repeated abuse, one night they said they will let me go. They put me in the car and drove to a store to buy alcohol and then parked the car near a well.”

“I want the rapists to be hanged. No one should go through what I did.”

“They hit her and dragged her to the back. Then they went in turns. First the juvenile and Ram Singh. After that, Akshay and the rest went. Someone put his hand inside her and pulled out something long. It was her intestines.”

“A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy. Boy and girl are not equal. Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes. About 20 per cent of girls are good. When being raped, she shouldn’t fight back. She should just be silent and allow the rape.”

“It was your sister’s fault. Why did she make herself a target?” “Your sister must have a bad character.” “I could tell from your sister’s eyes that she was this type.”

“No one is blameless. I noticed your sister sometimes forgot to wear a dupatta. She was asking for it. Maybe deep inside this is what she wanted.”

“Baaji (sister), you, your daughter, and your bahu (daughter-in-law) never leave the house wearing a dupatta. You wear western attire. Does that mean you are also asking for it?”

Author’s note: Islam has nothing to do with taharrush gamea; the act contradicts the teachings of the religion. At the same time, there is no denying where the incidents are taking place, and who the perpetrators are. Denying this out of some misplaced sense of political correctness has only exacerbated the issue. Not surprisingly, the attacks are more sophisticated than a coordinated assault from a pack of hyenas. These are predators after all. The incidents usually take place in the cold black of the night at locations where women are more vulnerable; at the end of an alley, near a tunnel, in the middle of a large crowd at a concert, protest, or festival. By the time the body signals the fight or flight response, it is usually too late, for you find yourself caught in the eye of a whirlwind of sexually depraved human bodies, all waiting for a chance to do you harm. It is like being sandwiched in several circles of hell. The first circle attacks you wildly, hungrily grabbing at your hair, face, mouth, breasts, hips, legs, or genitals. If your clothes are torn off somehow, the fingers of dozens of men will enter either cavity near the centre of your legs, raping you with their hands, if not with their own genitals. You scream, beg, and plead, but this only encourages them. Through tears you desperately scan the crowd for your allies, but they have either been beaten into submission or have gone to seek help. The second circle surrounds you, waiting their turn, expending unspent energy by kicking at your ribs, pulling at your hair, or clawing at your body when they can. To encourage others or perhaps to alleviate their own guilt, they loudly call you a whore, slut, or even a Jew or a Hindu; anything to justify their actions. The third circle acts as a shield. Distracting onlookers by trying to appear casual, these men form a barrier, almost hoping you will break free so that they can get in on the action. For anyone who believes this to be an exaggeration, these disturbing videos should prove to be educational: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjBwowo8Q1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pHnQ6W2KkM Authorities and journalists say the act is called taharrush gamea. Responding to the New Years’s Eve attacks in Cologne, The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) said,

“Such crimes are committed by groups of young men… mostly when there are large gatherings of people, such as demonstrations. They range from sexual harassment to rape.”

“And I am screaming, thinking if I scream, if they know, they’re gonna stop, you know. Someone’s gonna stop them. Or they’re gonna stop themselves. Because this is wrong. And it was the opposite. Because the more I screamed, it turned them into a frenzy. And I feel them tearing at my clothing. I think my shirt, my sweater was torn off completely. My shirt was around my neck. I felt the moment that my bra tore. They tore the metal clips of my bra. They tore those open. And I felt that because the air, I felt the air on my chest, on my skin. And I felt them tear out, they literally just tore my pants to shreds. And then I felt my underwear go. And I remember looking up, when my clothes gave way, I remember looking up and seeing them taking pictures with their cell phones, the flashes of their cell phone cameras.”

“I had to fight for them. And that’s when I said, ‘Okay, it’s about staying alive now. I have to just surrender to the sexual assault. What more can they do now? They are inside you everywhere.’ So the only thing to fight for, left to fight for, was my life.”

“My muscles were so unbelievably sore, because they were literally stretched from the mob trying to tear my limbs off my body. My joints, every joint in my body was distended. And then they, the more intimate injuries, the injuries, the tearing inside. And the mark of their hands, their fingers all over my body, cuts and everything you could imagine”

“A Dutch woman of 22 was attacked in Tahrir Square on Friday evening. The Netherlands embassy has assisted the victim, and after receiving emergency treatment in a Cairo hospital she was repatriated to the Netherlands in the company of family. The victim has cooperated with an investigation started by the Egyptian authorities. In the interest of the privacy of the victim, no further information will be given.”

“News of the violent sexual assault that followed was first reported by Dina Zakaria, a journalist for Egypt 25 news channel. Writing on her Facebook page, Zakaria said that the woman “was raped by men who dub themselves revolutionists” and that her “condition is severe and she is hospitalised.”

“When we went back for the second live shot the crowd was worse, it was really hard to control the crowd. If you see the video you can see me popping up on the fringe telling people let her work. By the time it was finished everybody was too close and no one was listening to us. I told Sonia to just go straight to (the shop) Hardee’s and wait for me because I didn’t want her to wait with this crowd of feral youths.”

“Egypt is full of sexual harassment and people have become desensitised to it – but this is a step up. We’re talking about mob sexual assaults, from stripping women naked and dragging them on the floor – to rape.”

“A new study by a human-rights group accuses Egyptian security forces of increasingly using sexual violence against men, women and children with impunity. Released on Tuesday, the report by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), titled Exposing state hypocrisy: Sexual violence by security forces in Egypt, indicates a surge in sexual violence perpetrated by Egyptian security forces since the military takeover in 2013.”

“I was dressed in the native shalwaar kameez – long baggy trousers and a tunic to cover my body. I wore a scarf around my head to show respect. All that was visible were my hands and face. With much persuasion, my director David allowed me to walk by myself near a crowd of men. I realised within five minutes what an idiot I had been – I was the only woman in this crowd. I was spotted and within minutes a group of men had circled me and hands were all over me while bodies pressed up against mine.”

“When he first arrived in Europe, Abdu Osman Kelifa, a Muslim asylum seeker from the Horn of Africa, was shocked to see women in skimpy clothes drinking alcohol and kissing in public. Back home, he said, only prostitutes do that, and in locally made movies couples “only hug but never kiss.”

“Men have weaknesses and when they see someone smiling it is difficult to control,”

“They can do any job from prime minister to truck driver and have the right to relax” in bars or on the street without being bothered, he added.

“These are so-called refugee youths, specifically from Afghanistan. Several of the gang were arrested for sexual molestation,” one police memo said.”

“It was a modus operandi that we had never seen before: large groups of young men who surround girls and molest them,” Roger Ticoalu said. “In the cases where we were able to apprehend suspects, they were with a foreign background, newly arrived refugees aged 17-20, who had come to Sweden without their families.”

“Here in the West, we need to stop burying our heads in the sand and accept that Asian, Arab and African men grow up in societies where misogyny is the cultural norm. We need to talk about it so we can change it. Ignoring it, like the BBC did, is just condoning it. If we are allowing people to come in, we must also make sure that we are not blinded by some truths which are hard to swallow. It is a betrayal of the truth, of the majority of decent migrants and – most of all – of women who must not see progress turned back for the sake of accommodating a medieval world view.”

Cowards. Cowards. All of them. Cowards.   On Friday, Pakistan’s National Assembly tore down a pitch that whichever way you look at it, seemed like a no-brainer. Introduced by the ruling government’s PML- N, the proposal sought to end child marriages through a bill called ‘Child Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Bill 2014’. That’s great, right? Who doesn’t want to place a ban on parents forcing their children to tie the knot, when they aren’t old enough to tie their shoe laces? Who doesn’t want to place a ban on fathers selling off their young daughters to lecherous old men for profit? Who doesn’t want to protect minorities from an act used to forcibly convert them to another religion? As journalist, Maryam Usman, of The Express Tribune reports,

“The proposed legislation had recommended harsher punishments for those entering conjugal contracts with minors.”

“In May 2014, amid severe criticism from various quarters, the council had endorsed its earlier ruling that girls as young as nine-years-old were eligible to be married “if the signs of puberty are visible”.”

“The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony rejected the Child Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Bill 2014 after the CII dubbed it ‘anti-Islamic’ and ‘blasphemous’. The committee meeting, which was presided over by its Chairman Hafiz Abdul Karim, unanimously rejected the bill on ‘purely religious grounds’. Afterwards, PML-N’s Marvi Memon also withdrew her proposal.”

As a resident of a country where militancy regularly makes headlines, I sometimes wonder how I would react if caught in the middle of a terrorist attack. Perhaps it is because I am a passionate video gamer, but I’d like to believe that I would fight back should no escape route be available. Would a gun or any other weapon be available to me in such a scenario, I am sure I’d shoot at any terrorist in my way. Of course, considering that my only training is playing first person shooters late into the night with Cheetos crumbs on my shirt, and that there are no health packs, ammo packs, and checkpoints in real life, I doubt I’d be hearing an announcer egging me on with the words ‘double-kill’ or ‘multi-kill’. No, against conditioned fighters I wouldn’t stand a chance, though with the right arms, I could do some damage before being taken to my final respawn point. Recently, only a day after 21 were killed at the Bacha Khan University attack, students were gripped with anxiety and dread at Punjab University, when hooded men in dark clothing tore into the premises waving AK-47s and Heckler and Koch assault rifles. As footage reveals, these individuals were met with screams and cries as students raced away from them. [embed width="620"]http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3nkx5v_rehearsal-at-punjab-university_news[/embed] These men weren’t militants. No, as can be observed from the tiny labels on their uniforms, they were members of the police. And this wasn’t actually a terrorist attack, but a mock exercise. As Dawn.com reports,

“PU students can be heard screaming when they spot the ‘attackers’ and seen fleeing the scene. Students rushed out of classrooms, clutching their belongings, cell phones glued to their ears, as security forces rehearse their drill at the university’s English department. Superintendent Police Muhammad Iqbal of the Iqbal Town Division Operation Wing said that while university administration was informed of the exercise beforehand, the students were not. The purpose of the drill, he said, was to check security forces’ responses and preparedness in the event of an emergency.”