V-Moment

http://newsite.vday.org/vmoment/alam

AYESHAH ALAM: “This is not what we want for Pakistan…”Renowned social activist Ayeshah Alam speaks out against the recent flogging of a teenage girl by Taliban fighters. The violence was captured on a mobile phone and spread throughout the internet, highlighting militant brutality in the once-peaceful district, a sign of Taliban influence spreading deeper into the country of Pakistan.

When Samar Minallah first forwarded me the video of a young 17-year-old girl being flogged in public I was stunned. These were images that one had gotten used to seeing come out of Afghanistan but not my country. For years on my morning radio show and then later on my morning television show. I had been saying, “we are ignoring what's really happening in our tribal areas.” Hushed stories had been filtered through and my pathan friends kept going on about how the government was ignoring the gradual growing strength of extremist elements. We failed. As a society. When we could see the warning signs, they weren't in our faces and perhaps that's why it was easier to brush them aside...but we failed and today the flogging of our 17 year old sister...daughter is because we kept quiet then and didn't make a loud enough noise to say NO.... this is not what we want for Pakistan.

Today I am proud to see so many men and women stand up for the little girl and tell the people who did this...YOU WILL NOT DO THIS ANYMORE. I was even more pleasantly surprised to see clergymen, different political parties, all come together with one voice and say NO. Yet there are still the men in those areas, which are not under the write of the government who continue to have their beliefs and are making the women of that territory miserable. Some were cynical and said it was fake. Clearly Chaand Bibi's screams for help and mercy were not enough proof for them. Today we don't know where Chaand Bibi is. We don't know if she is still alive. The courts have asked for the victim to be produced but the family will never come forward as it "dishonors" the family name. That today in the year 2009, these events and ideas are still alive is a shameful thing. Yes governments have their role to play, but even as individuals, we can all contribute in making a change of opinions and ideas and ways of living and thinking, if only in the slightest way. We have a saying in Urdu that says "katray katray say durya bunta hai" which means “ a river can be created drop by drop,” or, as Margaret Mead liked to say "Never doubt a small group of people can change the world... it never happened any other way."

Thank you for your work in challenging accepted norms... lets keep challenging and changing so the Chaand Bibis' of the world don't have to scream helplessly anymore.

-Ayeshah

Ayeshah Alam is a blogger, filmmaker and radio host based in Pakistan.
http://www.ayeshahalam.wordpress.com