Without paying any heed to the opposition's hue and cry, the Senate of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan on Thursday approved the so-called Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill 2006 to amend an Islamic law. The National Assembly had done the same on November 15. Now the bill will be sent to General Musharraf for his signatures.
He will certainly affix his approval stamp to it because he was the force behind this bill’s ramming through both houses of the parliament. In fact, he had been itching, for a long time, to push the circle of morality wide enough to accomodate a Playground of Passions where he and the people of the same hue, can play out their orgies unhindered. By passing and signing this bill into law they will try to convert Pakistan from an Islamic state to a "Free-Sex Zone" for lust-bitten, sex-crazy demons of debauchery who will be free to follow the dictates of their unfettered sensual pleasures.
The secularists and progressives liberals of Pakistan who want to be known as the champions of women rights are, in fact, haunted by the Islamic laws and practices, which they believe to be restrictive and thus harsh, subjugating and inhumane.
Their mental-cousins in Europe have the same Islamophobia. Every week new headlines announcing moves to crack down on Islamic norms such as veil pour from almost all European countries. The Europeans think, according to the Time magazine, veil to be the “most alienating symbol of Muslim faith” and “subjugation of women”, “a subordination of women”, which challenges or threatens "more progressive Muslim women who decline the veil”. They don’t want the Muslim women to wear their Hijab or Niqab or Burqa in French public schools, British government buildings or out in public in the Netherlands or in certain German states. Belgium is preparing a similar ban on veil.
The Time magazine exposes the “hypocrisy” and “subtle bigotry” of the European liberals who attack Islamic laws and practices, saying, that,
“Beneath all the reminders of secularist tradition and progressive discourse cited in Europe's headscarf debate lies … a broader sentiment wafting across: it's fine to be Muslim, just don't remind us about it by the way you dress.”
The real message to all Muslims is to start acting more like Europeans "and less Muslim".
The magazine writes:
“The promised Dutch ban is only the most recent and bizarre in a spate of assaults by European democracies that appear to be targeting the veil as a proxy for what they see as a dangerous spread of Islamic culture in Western Europe. In Britain, former Foreign Minister Jack Straw last month groused that the niqab created unnecessary barriers between people, and prevented communication because meaningful exchange ‘requires that both sides see each other's face’. Prime Minister Tony Blair later added that it created a divisive ‘mark of separation’.”
The problem with the secularists and liberals and progressives of Pakistan is that they look at Islamic laws and practices as they are “interpreted, characterized, and frequently skewed from non-Muslim perspectives” of Europeans.
Time magazine calls the reverse fundamentalism of secularists and liberals of Europe “progressive fundamentalism”. They in their fervor to free Muslim women from socio-cultural coercion of veil presume that “they can dismiss as misguided or deluded the conviction of women who say they wear hijab by choice and who argue that the only coercion they feel is coming from opponents of these symbols of their faith”.
Are Musharraf and his cronies Progressive Fundamentalists? I think they are.
