#BostonWithHazara: Silent vigil at Copley Square in below freezing temperature. My mother Zakia Sarwar in the middle with her pink pom pom hat.
PERSONAL POLITICAL
Even as media attention focused on the goings on at America’s capital where protestors shocked the world by storming the Capitol Building (nothing shocking for Pakistanis used to such attempts to subvert democracy) another drama — tragedy rather — unfolded in Quetta, Pakistan.
This too is not new. The target killings. The silent, and the not-so-silent protests. Standing in front of the Boston Public Library at Copley Square in the freezing cold, in solidarity with the Hazara protestors who are also out there in below freezing temperatures of Quetta.
Protest in Karachi over the ‘motorway gang rape’ incident. 12 September 2020. Reuters photo.
I haven’t updated this site for a while, caught up with teaching two journalism courses at Emerson College this semester – prepping for the courses, training for the unprecedented online situation, then assignment-setting, student feedback, grading – it’s been hard to do much else. But when Mehr Mustafa at The News on Sunday asked me to contribute to their special report on rape culture, I couldn’t refuse. Was up till 3 am to meet the deadline for the piece – The outrage culture masks a landscape of pervasive abuse (TNS Special Report, 27 September 2020).
They asked me to define ‘rape culture’ as a lens to view the issue as a social/political construct rather than individual/isolated events, and to address the systematic nature of sexual violence. That rang some bells. Among the things it got me thinking about was systemic oppression – visible in the racial injustice in the USA highlighted over recent months. I revisited the piece I did last year, Moving towards a cycle of healing, focusing on the need for preventive rather than reactive measures and the concept of restorative rather than retributive justice (thanks Anita Wadhwa and Dina Kraft for expanding on my understanding of this). And just found my 2012 post: We must move beyond outrage against selected rape cases.
Sharing below an informative, moving and insightful piece by friend Jaspal Singh in Cambridge commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Baba Bujha Singh’s extrajudicial murder in Punjab, India. The story is reflected in other instances of police brutality elsewhere too. And so is his comment on democracy. He regularly dispatches his ‘Reflections’ to friends via email; a list I feel privileged to be on. Over to Jaspal ji:
The Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) has begun a series of online discussions aimed at reclaiming the people’s narrative. The PIPFPD The page has several video excerpts from these and other discussions.Below reports on both discussions by Neel Kamal, published in Times of India and Aman Ki Asha.
Updated screenshot of my piece in Washington Post. Editors replaced the earlier photo after…
…I conveyed the feedback that he doesn’t normally wear a ‘topi’ (religious skull cap) and this photo highlighted religiosity in Pakistan which is not relevant to the topic.
But even if he is granted bail now – after over 100 days of being denied his liberty and that too at a time of Covid — this will be a minor victory achieved at a huge cost, not only for Rahman, but also for media freedom and democracy in Pakistan.
This is a follow up to my earlier post about physicians of Pakistani and Indian origin, already in the frontlines of the Covid19 battle in the US, stepping up in the war against a longer-running pandemic, racism. We know that racism is not limited to the US. In our home countries in South Asia, it is expressed as casteism and oppression of vulnerable communities.
Greg White on the many knees on our necks, and the need to keep on keeping on…
Last night, I caught up over the phone with an old and dear friend, Greg White in Chicago who heads a tuition-free public education charter school system with 12 branches, opening a 13th in DC soon. Greg is the first Black or African American friend I made within days of my arrival in the USA as an international student at Brown University in 1982. As a sophomore and Minority Peer Counselor in my dorm, Greg became a mentor and guide who went on to obtain an MBA at Harvard Business School. He now heads a tuition-free public elementary school system. Read below his powerful letter to their 500 employees, a moving message inspired by Martin Luther King. It comes straight from the heart.
Greg’s words resonate with the universal fight against oppression, in America and elsewhere. Keeping populations poor and deprived of education is the surest way of continuing systemic oppression. Read his letter below.
Last Sunday some physician friends in the Boston area invited me to help them organise a rally under the banner White Coats for Black Lives. These rallies began last Friday with synchronised standouts taking place at hospitals and medical institutions around the United States. This may be the first one taking place at a public venue.
Dr M. Sarwar, Jan 2007. Photo: Anwar Sen Roy
I found it exciting that Pakistani and Indian physicians are joining hands for a common cause, across the political divide. I’m glad to have been able to help them and glad to see doctors becoming politically active.Remembering my father Dr M. Sarwar who believed so passionately in equality and social justice. He not only wouldn’t charge workers, artists and journalists but also gave them medicines for free. He would have approved ❤️
The event has generated a lot of support (see list of endorsing organisations below).
The current coronavirus pandemic, and lockdown that is essential to prevent even more destruction, increases urgency in countries like Pakistan to ensure the survival of daily wagers and their families. With lockdown the only way to #stopthespread of COVID-19, many organisations are working on the ground to provide rations to families and PPE to health workers.
This is the first of a series initiated by the US Pakistan Students Coalition, including students at Harvard, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore, Yale and others. The Joy of Urdu is supporting this effort, that I am honoured to collaborate with.
— Jailed chief editor’s son after accountability court in Pakistan again extends father’s physical remand
Photo leaked from NAB cell after MSR’s arrest March 12.
“Today was disappointing for us all…. But let me tell you why I am still standing. Because our Mir Shakil ur Rahman is”, wrote Mir Ibrahim Rahman in a note to a WhatsApp group of Geo TV reporters Saturday after an accountability court again extended the physical remand of his father, Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman, Editor-in-Chief Jang/Geo Media Group, for another 10 days.
Journeys to democracy 