Saturday, May 7, 2022
#Afghanistan - Taliban Impose Head-to-Toe Coverings for Women
By David Zucchino and Safiullah Padshah
A new decree recommends, but doesn’t require that women wear burqas, and says male relatives of those who don’t cover themselves would be punished.
The Taliban government decreed Saturday that Afghan women must cover themselves from head to toe, expanding a series of onerous restrictions on women that dictate nearly every aspect of public life.
The government’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice suggested the burqa as the preferred garment for covering a woman’s face, hair and body. But it did not mandate wearing the garment as long as women otherwise cover themselves with a hijab.
The full-body burqa, long emblematic of patriarchal control of women’s public attire in Afghanistan, was described by the ministry as “the good and complete hijab” — a garment with various versions that cover a woman’s hair and much or all of her face and body.
Since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in August, Afghan women have been subjected to a cascade of announcements restricting their employment, education, travel, deportment and other aspects of public life. Many had assumed that the return of a burqa-style body covering was the inevitable next step.
The burqa, which leaves only a woman’s hands and feet visible and includes a stitched facial netting for vision, was required by the Taliban when it ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.The ministry’s definition of “hijab” Saturday described a garment that “should not be too short or too tight,” the ministry announcement said. The intent was to obscure the outlines of a woman’s body, the ministry said.In public announcements regarding women in recent months, the government has often delivered vaguely worded proclamations left open to interpretation. Wary of Western condemnation as the Taliban government seeks diplomatic recognition and humanitarian aid, many announcements have appeared to rely on inference and intimidation.
But the ministry, which is responsible for enforcing the government’s interpretation of Islamic law, was quite specific Saturday about punishments for the male head of family of women who fail to adhere to the latest decree.
At a three-hour news conference dominated by pronouncements promoting the religious virtues of the burqa, ministry officials and Islamic religious figures dictated a series of escalating punishments — including jail time for male family heads who repeatedly disregarded warnings from government officials regarding women’s attire.If a woman failed to wear the prescribed hijab in public, ministry officials would visit her home and advise the male head of the family to require her to comply, the ministry announcement said. Failure to comply would result in a summons to the ministry, the officials said. If the man still failed to follow the guidelines, he would be jailed for three days. If the jail sentence did not compel adherence, the man would be compelled to appear before a religious court for further punishment, ministry officials said. Male government employees whose wives or daughters fail to cover themselves in public would be subject to suspension or dismissal, the announcement said. And the relatively few women still permitted to hold jobs — such as nurses, doctors and teachers — could be fired if they did not comply with the regulations. “We want our sisters to live with dignity and safety,” said Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, the acting vice and virtue minister. Shir Mohammad, a vice and virtue official, said in a statement that “all dignified Afghan women” should cover themselves from head to toe. “Those women who are not too old or too young must cover their face, except the eyes,” he added. Since the Taliban takeover in August, more women in Kabul appear to have begun wearing burqas. But the majority of women on the streets of the capital have continued to wear less encompassing versions of hijabs, with many covering only their hair and leaving most or all of their faces still visible.Even under the previous, Western-backed government, many women — especially in rural areas and small towns — continued to wear burqas. The history of the garment dates back generations in Afghanistan, and is a product of conservative Afghan culture that long preceded the emergence of the Taliban in the 1990s.At Saturday’s news conference, religious speakers delivered dissertations on the Islamic history of the hijab and its benefits according to Islamic law and practice. The ministry instructed officials across Afghanistan to put up posters in bazaars and other public locations with instructions and images of approved garments for women. In recent months, small posters have appeared in Kabul depicting head-to-toe hijabs, including burqas, as proper public attire for women. On Saturday, ministry officials said the “ruling, importance and benefits of the hijab” should be discussed in mosques and distributed through the news media.In September, the Taliban converted the previous government’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs to the office for the Vice and Virtue ministry. Under the Taliban government of the 1990s, women who failed to wear a burqa in public were often beaten by vice and virtue religious police, who also delivered warnings to male relatives. Also Saturday, a spokesman for an Afghan opposition group that has mounted an insurgency against the Taliban government repeated earlier claims that it had “liberated” three districts in the northern province of Panjshir. Asked whether the National Resistance Front, as the movement calls itself, had seized government district centers, the spokesman replied by text message, “They were besieged in the district offices,” referring to Taliban officials. The Taliban government spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said on Twitter that “no military incident has taken place” in Panjshir or any other nearby areas. National Resistance Front claims “were not true, no one should be worried,” Mr. Mujahid wrote. He added that thousands of Islamic Emirate fighters were in Panjshir and preventing any military advances by the front. The National Resistance Front, or N.R.F., was formed by several leaders or supporters of Afghanistan’s Western-backed government before it collapsed last summer. It is part of a resistance that consists of a smattering of armed fighters spread across the mountains of northern Afghanistan, according to interviews with more than a dozen resistance fighters and leaders. The N.R.F. has an estimated several hundred fighters, many of them low-ranking officers in the former government’s security forces. It is led by Ahmad Massoud, the son of the deceased Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. Mr. Massoud left Afghanistan after the Taliban seized power and has directed the N.R.F. from abroad.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/07/world/asia/taliban-afghanistan-burqa.html
Anti-Americanism in Pakistan
By Uzair SattarImran Khan’s narrative of conspiracy and regime change is a symptom, not a cause, of anti-American sentiments in Pakistan. The most challenging problem the United States faces in executing its foreign policy goals in Pakistan is anti-Americanism. The ouster of former Prime Minister Imran Khan following a note of no confidence reinvigorates this perennial challenge.Khan is rallying his supporters over a new slogan, “Imported Government Na Manzoor” (translation: rejected), after alleging that the United States spearheaded a conspiracy to remove him from office. His accusation of regime change has been refuted by Pakistan’s National Security Committee (NSC), the country’s highest bipartisan civil-military forum. The NSC stated that a U.S. official’s “undiplomatic language” at a lunch amounted to “blatant interference” but concluded that “there has been no conspiracy.” Yet, in an era where alternative facts are as good as true, this does not matter to Imran Khan or his supporters. His narrative is merely a symptom and not a cause of anti-Americanism in Pakistan. There may be a temptation to dismiss conspiracy claims as resurgences of repeated tropes in Pakistani politics. However, this avoids confronting why Khan can effortlessly tap into anti-American sentiments and dynamics that in turn impact Pakistani politics and its foreign policy. Anti-Americanism sells in Pakistan. A Gallup poll revealed that “only” one-third of Pakistanis (36 percent) believed the foreign conspiracy claim. The same poll, however, showed that more than two-thirds of Pakistanis (72 percent) thought the United States was an enemy rather than a friend of Pakistan. This figure has remained relatively consistent over the past two decades. Two-thirds of Pakistanis today are under 30 and have lived through the strongest waves of anti-Americanism in Pakistan since 1990. The United States and Pakistan have well-known laundry lists of foreign policy grievances. When Pakistan airs these grievances, Washington’s establishment often dismisses them as “familiar tropes.” Whether or not Washington wants to believe these grievances are legitimate, its passivity increases anti-American sentiment in Pakistan. This, in turn, makes it difficult to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives. While the relationship has been historically predicated on security asks, moving toward non-traditional security collaboration may be the only structural approach to mitigate anti-Americanism in Pakistan. Anti-Americanism in Pakistan Anti-Americanism is not exclusive to Pakistan but takes a unique form in the country. Radical anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and poor people-to-people relations are not the major factors. Radical anti-Americanism has erupted in minuscule pockets in Pakistan but remains an anomaly in the 75-year relationship. There is also no mainstream fiscal ideological debate in Pakistan, which keeps Islamabad tied to the Washington Consensus. While new leftist parties have added invaluable dimensions to socioeconomic debate, they still have a long way to go before uprooting centrist groupthink and historic economic alignments.Instead, liberal and sovereign-nationalist critiques remain salient because of the United States’ securitized engagement with Pakistan and its foreign policy goals. Liberal anti-Americanism critiques relate to Washington upholding values for domestic audiences but dismissing them abroad. Sovereign-nationalist critiques concern the impingement of sovereignty – both directly, such as military intervention, and indirectly, through coercive diplomacy. Imran Khan is the latest in a long line of politicians to exploit anti-Americanism for political survival. WikiLeaks revealed that Pakistan’s civilian leadership (some of whom are now back in office) privately supported U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan (2008-2018) but lied about their stance publicly. This created an impression that the United States was playing a double game in Pakistan. In addition to fueling the fire, Khan has added another dimension to the phenomenon. During the initial no-confidence vote, the deputy speaker of Parliament, a Khan loyalist, justified dismissing the vote by declaring all opposition members disloyal under Article 6 of the constitution for allegedly working with the United States. The term “traitor” has provided unending currency in Pakistan. While military officials seem to remain immune, when applied to critical politicians, journalists, and civilians, the “diagnosis” is a cue to begin “self-treatment” through self-censorship. Not doing so can have severe consequences. Today, advocates for maintaining or improving Pakistan-U.S. relations represent a collective group at risk of being sent to “Traitorville,” whose proverbial boundaries expand as Khan’s false narrative gathers steam. This is hampering a meaningful debate in Pakistan about its relationship with all superpowers. Washington’s relative non-engagement with Pakistan’s civilian government and society has not helped either. A Military-Centric Relationship Pakistan and the United States have a state-to-state relationship predicated on two primary issues: war and terrorism. In that context, the United States has directly engaged with the military and not civilian governments to achieve its security objectives. This has undermined Pakistan’s post-colonial democratic institutionalization and represents a structural faultline in the relationship. The United States has taken advantage of indigenous military coups by perpetuating dictatorships that have lasted almost half of Pakistan’s political life. None of the four U.S.-supported dictators would have survived for as long as they did without the United States’ backing. Washington’s modus operandi has not changed following Pakistan’s transition to procedural democracy in 2008. The Pakistan Army’s top brass has been the primary benefactor in this equation, receiving military hardware, technology, and economic support in return for counterterrorism operations and helping fight two wars in Afghanistan. These were wars which the Pakistani people had nothing to do with. Recognizing this nuance is critical for Washington to achieve its foreign policy goals in Pakistan, even if the will to do so remains elusive.Over 220 million Pakistanis, of whom two-thirds are under 30, have lived through the most vociferous waves of anti-Americanism, sparked by the Pressler sanctions (1990-2001) and the War on Terror (2001-?). Pakistanis have had to reconcile Washington’s military-centric engagement with their changed lives. It is unfortunate that Pakistan’s ongoing sacrifices in the War on Terror – 80,000 killed on the street, at weddings, in their houses, in school, at checkpoints, on their way to work, and in places of worship, not to mention economic losses – fall on deaf ears in Washington. By choosing to fixate on the United States’ engagement with the military’s top brass, Washington overlooks the consequences of its approach to Pakistanis’ lived experience. This active choice increases anti-Americanism in Pakistan.I grew up during the War on Terror. Like many Pakistanis, I heard Washington’s calls for Pakistan to “do more” to fight terrorism. This was puzzling to me as a student since most Pakistanis I know were directly or indirectly impacted by terrorism. In just one of many examples, after the school massacre in Peshawar in 2014 – when the Pakistani Taliban killed 132 students and 17 staff members – the government permanently increased security measures across educational institutions, which inadvertently made kindergartens, schools, and colleges a vessel for policing and fear. My schoolmates and I were rigorously searched as we entered our newly erected, prison-length school walls topped with layers of barbed wire. Instead of going to class, we rendezvoused at the school ground for daily morning terror prevention drills. Watching four government-mandated snipers slowly patrolling roof corners as we completed the drill, I thought I had a clear idea of who the enemy was – as I imagine the snipers did too. But when told we weren’t doing enough against terrorism, I began questioning who the enemy might be. Washington’s “do more” ask may have been geared toward Rawalpindi and not even related to the Pakistani Taliban. Still, the public drumming at every seeming opportunity felt like a ploy to humiliate Pakistanis for something they had no control over – and indeed suffered from daily. I felt that empathy was lacking. Tackling Anti-Americanism in Pakistan Imran Khan taps into some of these dynamics as he galvanizes his supporters on trumped-up charges of regime change. On the one hand, he functionalizes simmering sentiments stemming from a lack of historical reckoning. On the other hand, his narrative successfully distracts voters from domestic structural fault lines and veils the factor of his questionable decision-making as a cause for his ousting. Pakistani anti-Americanism structurally stems from a military-first, people-second engagement approach. However, this prism remains less relevant for the future. The United States has placed India’s strategic interests above Pakistan’s because of a newfound common adversary. Washington ignored Pakistan’s decade-long cautionary advice on Afghanistan, which is now home to the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. There is a real chance that the United States will see Pakistan through red-tinted glasses as it gears up for great power competition with China. Instead of fighting these changing dynamics and Pakistan’s changed geostrategic alignments, the Pakistan-U.S. relationship should move away from military-centrism and instead focus on new opportunities to tackle non-traditional security threats, such as climate change and geoeconomics. The COVID-19 pandemic may have also provided a litmus test for this thesis. As of April 28, 2022, the United States had donated the most vaccines to Pakistan through its global distribution program. It is bemusing how few Pakistanis know about this. There is no replacement for on-ground engagement in civil society and public diplomacy. Other countries have demonstrated the benefits of direct engagement after stepping outside embassy walls or hushed military conference rooms. Moving from traditional security to non-traditional security collaboration will also make it more conducive for the United States to meaningfully work with democratic governments instead of direct engagement with the military. It would reflect at least a surface-level appearance that the United States still considers democracy in Pakistan as something worth enabling rather than undermining. Doing so will create space for civilian leaders—who have mics and pulpits that military officials do not—to debate Pakistan’s relationship with all superpowers. Upholding the business-as-normal approach will not only perpetuate anti-Americanism but could give rise to different forms of the phenomenon not substantively seen in Pakistan to date, with dangerous downstream consequences. Engaging with Pakistan’s democratic institutions, changing prisms of cooperation, and reckoning with Pakistanis’ fundamentally altered lived experience after the War on Terror represent perhaps the only opportunities to mitigate anti-Americanism in Pakistan.
https://thediplomat.com/2022/05/anti-americanism-in-pakistan/
EDITORIAL - #Pakistan: ''Playing with Fire in Punjab''
One can only hope that the PTI understands that it has now pushed matters so far in Punjab that what first appeared to be a ridiculous circus is now turning into a very dangerous game where it is practically playing with fire. Disregarding judicial rulings is dangerous enough, especially when you drag it to the point of threatening to file a judicial reference against the judge that called you out for making a mockery of the constitution. But when you appeal to the army chief to intervene where you’re clearly disagreeing with a court decision, you’re pushing the military to override the judiciary, which completely changes the complexion of the whole narrative.
In this way, PTI is itself guilty of strengthening chatter that it’s been looking to provoke the military into stepping in since its dying days in power – just so it can play the proper martyr even if it means throwing the entire country into utter chaos. And, for all intents and purposes, Punjab Governor Cheema, and even President Alvi for that matter, are just carrying out their master’s orders in sheer disregard of the constitutionally mandated neutrality of their offices.
This is exactly the kind of thing they used to attack other parties for in years gone by; though nobody trampled on the constitution quite like this in those days.
That the country’s politics need a dose of sanity is obvious. It’s true that a lot of people don’t like what they see when a father-son duo with considerable political and legal baggage gets ready to preside over cabinets of politically opportunistic electables, most of whom are suspected of serious corruption. But the way PTI’s been making its case, especially after throwing a fit and even fiddling with the constitution just because it was de-seated through a perfectly legal process, is also quite shameful.
It’s best if all parties take the time till the election to regroup and revise their strategies, and leave the public space free of any more unwarranted unpleasantness. With the reputation of serious state institutions also being dragged onto the streets and ridiculed, the situation is quite ready to explode as it is.
https://dailytimes.com.pk/930444/playing-with-fire-in-punjab/
#Pakistan - US Secretary of State Blinken invites Bilawal to attend the ‘Global Food Security’ meeting in US
https://dailytimes.com.pk/930769/us-secretary-of-state-blinken-invites-bilawal-to-attend-the-global-food-security-meeting-in-us/
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