Where the girls’ schools burn

By: Palvasha von Hassell

WHY are our ‘Islamic’ fanatics burning girls’ schools, or taking them over and renaming them Jamia Hafsa? In examining this question, we gain not only interesting insights into the mindset that does such things as well as the message it wants to convey through such acts.

We also gain a perspective on the wider context, i.e. the society in which the perpetration of such deeds for their symbolic value becomes possible in the first place.

Until 2006, there were reports of girls’ schools being set ablaze by the Taliban in Afghanistan. The phenomenon hit Pakistan in the aftermath of the army action against Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa in July last year, and has recently become the preferred method for Mullah Fazlullah and his ilk to signal dissatisfaction with the federal government. Targeting girls’ schools is, then, a kind of revenge act for what the army did to Jamia Hafsa.

Now, no one would claim that the Taliban, Al Qaeda and whoever is on the same wavelength stand out for their devotion to women’s emancipation the way it is understood today, that is equality in all walks of life. They consider this un-Islamic and themselves to be good Muslims. So in view of the fact that they are fighting western forces in Afghanistan and associate ‘secular’ education for girls with the (Christian) West, girls’ schools become legitimate targets. They have taken care to explain that girls do not receive ‘Islamic’ education in the institutions they burn. So what is their concept of what good Muslim girls should learn?.

Here it is enlightening to refer to an excellent piece of investigative journalism by Aliya Salahuddin called ‘Rendezvous with the ‘Others’’, based on her meeting with the inmates of Jamia Hafsa in February 2007. The picture that emerges is that of young, impressionable girls, often orphans or children of poor families, who, after being lured into joining the Jamia, are brainwashed and indoctrinated with fanatical notions of virtue and vice.

What use are their computer training and their claims of fighting the exploitation of women if they are capable of asserting that the stick-wielding, burqa-clad beings were actually angels, and that they were getting orders to terrorise the citizens of Islamabad directly from the Prophet? They themselves are being exploited by the men who use them for their own ends. This, then, is the farcical and violent ‘education’ our extremists deem appropriate for girls, and explains why schools seized by them are renamed Jamia Hafsa.

The reason why females are selected for victimisation is directly linked to the prevalence of a male-dominated culture. While this is unfortunately the case in varying degrees in all four corners of the world, one has to admit that the potency it receives from the belief that Islam ordains it lends it a powerful institutionalised legitimacy in Muslim countries. Since our Taliban, etc believe they have a monopoly on interpreting Islam and that means restrictions of all kinds on women, girls and women become the obvious victims.

People like the Taliban and those who share their beliefs are the extreme symptoms of what is wrong with Muslim societies. Sadly the more intolerant and anti-female interpretations of Islam have, for obvious reasons in a male-dominated world, found more acceptance than the progressive ones. Consequently, both the vast majority of Muslims as well as non-Muslims believe that Islam is incompatible with the notion of equal rights for women, which is then seen as a hallmark of western, Christian or secular societies. When, therefore, people like the Taliban seek to express opposition to the West and all that it represents, it makes sense for them to burn girls’ schools, as they are seen as imparting ‘un-Islamic’ education. This of course leads to a very pertinent issue today, that of interpreting Islam, of which more another time.

What a tragedy that people are becoming such mental and moral dwarves in the country created by a leader of such progressive views as M.A. Jinnah. We could do with a good dose of both his and Iqbal’s enlightened and modern grasp of Islam, mistakenly understood as ‘westernised’. Dismayingly, a generation of misled young people believes that a ‘different’ kind of leadership is required for Pakistan today. Beware, Pakistanis, this is exactly what Pakistan doesn’t need, because it doesn’t make sense to shoot oneself in the foot by countering western neo-imperialism with pseudo-Muslim neo-barbarism. This only reinforces misconceptions about Islam. Those who burn girls’ schools should find no sympathy in Pakistan.

The writer is a Cambridge-educated analyst based in Hamburg. p_v_hassell@t-online.de