Rape and its punishment in Pakhtunkhwa.

Rape is a crime seen to signify a different degree of harm in different cultures. In most cultures it is a crime against women, this is what I subscribe too. In pushtun culture it is mostly a crime against a family's honor and similarly in Islam it is mostly against GOD (consenting sex labelled as zina). Thus the restitution in different cultures and Islam is different and aimed to provide restitution to the perceived victim.

One more thing before rape can be punished it has to be reported.

In pushtun culture if a girl was raped or even assumed to have been raped she was killed for honor (as I said the victim was and is considered to be the family, mainly male family members and not the women). This still goes on. In this atmosphere nobody comes out. So forget about providing justice, the victim rarely reports a case.

The recent experiment of the Pakistani government with Islamic law by passing the hudood and zina ordinance has created a nightmare for the poor victims of zina. If a women is raped and gets pregnant she has to come out. At this point if she states that so and so raped her she is asked, by Islamic law, to produce four adult males who witnessed the sexual act. This has never been possible. As this condition is not fulfilled the women is considered to have had sexual relations out of wedlock. Pakistani jails are full of such women who are incarcerated.

Now close to thirty years of experience in Pakistan with the Islamic law of hudood and zina has shown us that it is quite inadequate. Actually there has been an increase in domestic violence (well documented) after inception of these laws. But as it is considered divine there is no way out of it.

A law is a restriction on behavior. Laws in a group should serve a purpose, mainly that of restricting a particular behavior. So a law in our example of rape should deal with women suffering and exploitation not GOD.

When a women is raped it should be easy for her to report it with honor and dignity without fear of persecution. This right to be part of a law. And violators punishable by law.

Once reported a case is investigated and if reasonable data suggest that a culprit can be convicted beyond reasonable doubt (witnesses, collaborative evidence, DNA matching etc) then he or she be apprehended and brought to justice and punished in a reasonable humane way. A few years in jail or transfer of his property to the women or such will suffice.

In this system the law is dynamic, new methods of investigation when available are looked at (like DNA analysis) the only underlying essence of the law is to decrease the incidence of rape in a society and mitigate its trauma to its victim.

And if a case is weak due to lack of evidence and no evidence of lies on part of the victim she is allowed to live a life with the same dignity as before a rape occurred.

This brings us to another issue of the definition of rape. Rape is sex without informed consent. Zina is not synonymous with rape as consensual sex can be zina but not rape. Consensual sex is no body else's business. A concept very alien to a pushtoon when his sister is mentioned. But something absolutely necessary for creating a just, healthy and equitable society.

Our focus should be to decrease the exploitation of women. Forced marriages, marriages of minors, buying and selling of women, prostitution due to starvation, polygamy, and incarceration of women within walls and behind veils, domestic violence and lack of say in their own affairs are some of the things that we need to address as a nation. None of these can be addressed without a dynamic judicial system.

Why secularism is a threat to the religious minded Pashtoon

Some one asked me once, puzzled, as to why some religious Pashtoons considered Secularism a major threat to them and how they could not see that it would not only suit the less religious but they themselves could practice their individual peculiarities more freely by avoiding sectarian conflict with other faithful in such a state. I used to be puzzled by this myself. Then it started to make sense. They are actually not any different than you and I.

In the end it’s about activation of what is called the fear response. An automatic reaction in the brain that produces involuntary reaction we all call fear. The precipitating stimulus if happening at the moment is fear and when anticipated, in the future, is considered anxiety, both through the same mechanism.

Now fear and anxiety are powerful moderators of behavior. Since the day we are born we map the environment for this and soon find mechanisms to subdue these emotional responses.
This then becomes habits, if large number of people do it, it becomes a ritual (not all rituals are for this purpose some can be for pure joy). Each cultures unique environment generates its own patterns of fear and anxiety.

We start with our own mothers, those early pangs of anxiety melts in her arms, But a women herself traumatized with war and misfortune can only transmit her own fears and anxieties and the child see a perpetual tussle of its rise and subsequent dissipation through - dhamm, daroodh, dhwaa, thaweez, khatam and such. So when his own turn comes he has a well tested remedy in hand.

It would be all fine if this was all that happened. But things soon get out of control. People see that fear and anxiety is a major force in human condition and its mastery can bring power and prestige. Wheelers and dealers have manipulated both ends of the equation. Both generation of fear and anxiety and its subsequent relief are trillion dollar industries even today.
Why does a pashtoon go to a mullah, a murshad, bends towards kaaba, or in extreme cases blows himself up. Mostly to calm the pain and suffering of the fear response. The mullah created world view of fear and more fear, of a God , all powerful, all conquering but one that will skin you alive and roast you in molten lava if a is not equal to b, and b has to be equal to c, and d and f should not mix with e, and if x, y and z occur together than you have to slaughter l and m so on.

But then this lava has a potion that protects the skin from burning, from eternal pain, he will guide you and you will follow for you have a fully activated and outside controlled fear response, running rampart in your amygdyla. Your internal brain circuitry powerless to calm it down, for they were never allowed to develop, you must rely on these wheelers and dealers for your own calibration.
Now some fortunate can develop their forebrain functions that can calm anxiety and fear through internal mechanisms (well described and not so hard to do). To them this game is so backward. They live in a world where dangers are real and have real solutions, solutions and problems they can see, touch, feel, explore, quantify, analyze, not those based on random descriptions of random story tellers. They get afraid as well but then they search in areas in avenues they know will lead to solutions. Solutions that calm the same circuitry.

Then what is the difference. Well one leads to the pursuit of the imaginary (ookhrawi mameelath{dealing with akhirath}, fantasies like harry potter and other fairy tales including Bedouin fairy tales) the outcome a person having tremendous intellect and effort spend in an imaginary world. Only good if you subscribe to his imagination, of no good to others(thus the zeolot persistence on their way, e.g. mullah Omar).

The other one in pursuit of the obvious (dunyawi mameelath, science, non-fiction) even if he be of lesser intellect and if he works only one day in his life will leave something here, in this world for his fellow humans to feel, see and appreciate. Something far more than left after a lifetime in the pursuit of the imaginary.

Secularism makes sense if you are the second type, for wheelers and dealers in imaginary pursuits it is a game changer, a society tilt in the other direction, an unacceptable nuisance and a major hurdle.