While President Musharraf continues his globe-hopping within the nominal "war on terror" alliance of nations, reviewing the troops of New Zealand yesterday, a real Pakistani hero is back in her Punjab home, still unable to travel on a planned goodwill tour of the United States.
But even as Musharraf travels in his Presidential jet, the word is spreading. Even as he defends his abyssmal record, the word is spreading. Like wildfire, the immoral detention of Mukhtaran Bibi has taken on a media-based life of its own. Musharraf's thugs can take her passport, threaten her lawyers, and place her under house arrest - but in a wired world, ever more connected and free to write, to post, to speak, word is spreading. We're routing around President Musharraf and the military of Pakistan. And Mukhtar Mai's words are spreading.
Today, I listened to an interview via telephone and translator, conducted by reporter Lisa Mullins for The World audio service. Mukhtar Mai refused to discuss her current situation, and was clearly nervous about pushing the government too far. She does, after all, have to live in her country; she is committed to her schools and her province, and to the children who will embrace the modern world. But Mullins was good, and pressed softly; here are some exerpts (some paraphrasing on the questions) - it was very moving:
Your village thought you would kill yourself?
They believe that a woman who has been dishonored like this would be better off dead.
Did you ever consider sucide?
In the beginning, I thought about it, how other girls who go through this kill themselves, but then I thought that the one who gives us life demands life.
What do you think of all the attention you've gotten from people outside of Pakistan who have taken up your cause?
I am very thankful to them. One person alone cannot do this. I am only able to stand up if the whole world is behind me.
Do you feel safe now? Does the international attention make you safer?
The little hope that I've got for justice is because of the support I'm getting from the rest of the world. I think maybe if I get more support from outside of Pakistan, I may get justice.
Nick Kristof's column on Sunday may well shed more light on the situation - he has a longstanding relationship with Mukhtar Mai and has really led the charge in telling her story - but more and more people are getting involved. I think we're up over 70 bloggers signed onto this effort now (I will attempt to keep the list as much as possible). The good folks over at Huffington Post invited me to write something for them and I did (it's here - nothing new, except for the wider audience). The Columbia Journalism Review's Samantha Henig did a very nice story on the blogging effort on Mukhtar Mai's behalf yesterday - please take a look, some of you are mentioned. And last night, this whole thing got a nice pop from CNN on Inside Politics; the transcript is here.
Meanwhile, the Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Women, the organization which was sponsoring Mukhtar Mai's speaking tour, has decided to protest the Pakistani government. It will hold two press conferences - on in DC and one in New York - next week. New York will be June 22 from 10:30 to 12:30,and Washington will be the next day from noon to 2 pm. They are requesting people to sign up in advance via these email addresses: [email protected] or [email protected] - let's get plenty of bloggers and friends away from the keyboards and face to face for a while!
UPDATE: This in from Kristof's forum late this afternoon. The guy has terrific sources and a knack for pointing out official hypocrisy of the highest order:
Today a Pakistani government official I know called me and we had a long talk about Mukhtaran – and about Today a Pakistani government official I know called me and we had a long talk about Mukhtaran – and about Pakistan’s refusal to give me a visa to visit her. This official emphasized that while Pakistan had made mistakes in handling the case, they were by lower officials and that President Musharraf himself was on Mukhtaran’s side.
Half an hour later, I found this wire story from Auckland, New Zealand:
Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Friday that he ordered a travel ban on the victim of a village council-ordered gang rape to protect Pakistan's image abroad.
Musharraf said Mukhtar Mai, whose rape was ordered to punish her family for her brother's alleged affair with a woman from another family, was being taken to the United States by foreign nongovernment organizations "to bad-mouth Pakistan" over the "terrible state" of the nation's women.
"She was told not to go" to the United States to appear on media there to tell her story, Musharraf told the Auckland Foreign Correspondents' Club.
He said NGOs are "Westernized fringe elements" which "are as bad as the Islamic extremists."
Musharraf acknowledged placing the 36-year-old on the list of people banned from leaving Pakistan while responding to media questions during a three-day visit to New Zealand….
Musharraf said atrocities are perpetrated daily against women in developing nations round the world -- "in Kashmir and many other places."
"I don't want to project the bad image of Pakistan," he told the journalists' club.
"I am a realist. Public relations is the most important thing in the world," he said, adding that media misperceptions would discourage tourists from traveling to Pakistan.
"Pakistan is the victim of poor perceptions. The reality is very different," Musharraf said.
He defended his regime's treatment of women, saying it was working for their emancipation. Rape was not "a rampant malaise Pakistan suffers from every day," he said.
Well, where to start? NGOs as "Westernized fringe elements" as bad as extremists? Rape as a "rampant malaise." Public relations as more importan than human life. And "poor perceptions." A disgrace.
