The joint sittings of the parliament finally managed to pass bills that had been presented at the assembly more than a year ago. The two bills, namely: The Anti-Honour Killing Laws (Criminal Amendment Bill) 2015 and the Anti-Rape Laws (Criminal Amendment Bill) 2015 are said to target the ill of honour killing in our society. These tend to do away with the loopholes that murderers could take advantage of and go unpunished for the murder. Now, it’s become very difficult to do that, if not impossible.
Jamshed Dasti argued that there was a message within the lines. He insisted that this was not the right time to waste time on the meagre topic of honour killing. Moreover, besides the wrong timing, the bills themselves were pointless. They were, as he has been reported as saying, part and parcel of a parliament that’s dictated by American NGOs and their Jewish agenda. He shamed the parliament for passing the bill.
In some ways he is right. The parliament passed the bills after the gruesome murder of Qandeel Baloch by her brother over supposed ‘honour’. Had Qandeel been any other usual Pakistani girl, the case would have become the same tragedy that previous cases have become; unresolved and useless. And yet, because Qandeel was able to hop onto the American (read globalised) venue of social media, she became a somebody. And this somebody left ripples when she died. International personalities recognised the incident and spoke against honour killing. Even Mr. Trump mentioned Qandeel’s death. Sharmeen’s “A girl in the River” once again started raising eyebrows. The civil society here and internationally, put in pressure onto the government to do something about the ill in the society. Eventually, the government gave in.
What Dasti terms as American NGOs lapping away Jewish Agenda can be seen as a collection, though not as crude, of the general mindset of the Pakistani population at large. That said, the country is not alone. INGOs everywhere are thought to be puppets to agenda making bodies. Of course, there are many reasons to believe in this. The INGOs penetrate traditional societies and seek to implement internationally recognised principles, which almost always go against the local social dogmas. In this way, they tear at the social fabric and try to transform it into something else. The question is, is change bad?
INGOs spread what has been termed by some academics as “world culture”. This includes policies, conditions and frameworks that are recognised internationally as the modus operendi of doing things. This world culture however is naturally more reflective of the most dominant nations in the world who, if seen historically, have pretty much evolved to share the same character. That does not mean the less powerful countries don’t get a say. Of course they do, however, their effect on the world culture is only as much as their influence on the world at large.
If you chose to live like North Korea, and shut yourself from the world, escaping “world culture” is a possibility. Countries are aspiring endlessly to become part of the globalised world find it impossible to avoid the clash between the primitive bindings of tradition and the trends of the contemporary world. What follows is a mesh of the two in most cases where the international concepts are either glocalised to reflect a local touch or the traditions are globalised into becoming a trendier realisation. However, there is no escape from the said fusions.
People like Dasti would want Pakistan to live like North Korea and shut itself from the international influences. Would that sort of Pakistan be a place worth living in? Imagine a country run by the likes of Dasti’s kind, and no civil society there to counter such bigotry and dismal proclamations. It is the sort of country where the Council of Islamic Ideology would not just insist on ludicrous declarations but also impose them onto everyone. Indeed, such conditions would hardly be the best for a country that continues to become more and more narrow minded and tragically comfortable with its naivety.
The INGOs even with their supposed links to international spy agencies, have been working to make traditional societies more modern (if not civilised). If the road to being modern leads to more rights for women, children, minorities etc., and pushes for more scientific methods towards finding solutions to problems, it is a win in the long run. The state must keep an eye onto the workings of the NGOs and put its foot down when an agenda is being pursued. However, if nothing such comes by, it is the duty of the state to help the NGOs in doing their jobs. Lest they want everyone to live in Dasti’s world.