Mukhtar Mai

October 26, 2005 11:58 AM

Mukhtar Mai, the Pakistani woman raped by village order, is now in Madison, Wisconsin, at the invitation of Glamour Magazine, to receive an award honoring her struggle for women's rights. Nicholas Kristof, of the New York Times, broke her story to the world, calling her "one of the gutsiest people on Earth." She is in the United States despite an attempt by President Pervez Musharraf to bar her from traveling, because the visit might tarnish the country's image. Her "crime" was previously discussed on MetaFilter.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium (27 comments total)

She has used the money from a government settlement, as well as money from selling her own jewellery, to establish two schools in her village and so break the cycle of ignorance.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 12:05 PM on October 26, 2005

How dare she tarnish Pakistan's good name like this? When it comes to human rights, Pakistan is right up there with the USA.
posted by mullingitover at 12:06 PM on October 26, 2005

This is one of those stories that just makes you cry. Her bravery is so profound that it leaves me speechless.

As an aside, I know a bunch of people here live near or in Madison, Wisconsin. If anyone listens to her speech, PLEASE record it and drop a link here so we can all have a chance to listen.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 12:10 PM on October 26, 2005

Some messed up part of my brain thought the post right before this was the wording for this FPP.
posted by Peter H at 12:15 PM on October 26, 2005

Ha - excuse me - but I'm also glad the post right after this isn't the wording for this FPP, either.
posted by Peter H at 12:21 PM on October 26, 2005

Oh shoot, I meant this

But it serves me right for making the quip.
posted by Peter H at 12:22 PM on October 26, 2005

MeTalk
posted by mischief at 12:31 PM on October 26, 2005

She is in the United States despite an attempt by President Pervez Musharraf to bar her from traveling,

Stop already with the President Pervez Musharraf. He's not a president - he is a friggin dictator; a general who overthrew the elected President of Pakistan in a military coup in 1999. He's Saddam Hussein with a bad mustache.
posted by three blind mice at 12:33 PM on October 26, 2005

Jeez, relax. A dictator by any other name would still be a dictator. There's nothing in this post that attempts to paint Musharraf as anything other than what he is.
posted by 327.ca at 12:40 PM on October 26, 2005

How can anyone with a human heart decide that gang-rape of an innocent third party is an appropriate element of Justice? (Admittedly since the charges against the brother were not true, I guess we were just dealing with a sanctioned rape gang.)

But still; how the hell does that even get considered in any culture as a viable option?
posted by BeerGrin at 12:42 PM on October 26, 2005

327.ca, I think three blind mice's point is that journalists in this country always call him 'president' because that's what he likes. However the word president implys elected, so it gives credibility to the lie that Pakistan is a democracy with similar values as the US.

He's a military dictator, and it would behoove us all to remember that no matter how much our president wants to cozy up to him.
posted by lumpenprole at 12:52 PM on October 26, 2005

But still; how the hell does that even get considered in any culture as a viable option?
posted by BeerGrin at 12:42 PM PST on October 26 [!]

If you're posing this as a serious question, the answer is: religious faith. It's been used to excuse inequality and injustice since the dawn of mankind. But hey, they take care of the poor and stuff so it's OK.
posted by mullingitover at 12:53 PM on October 26, 2005

President Pervez Musharraf. He's Saddam Hussein with a bad mustache

Are you implying that Saddam's mustache was a good one?
posted by tkchrist at 12:55 PM on October 26, 2005

[T]he answer is: religious faith. It's been used to excuse inequality and injustice since the dawn of mankind. But hey, they take care of the poor and stuff so it's OK.
posted by mullingitover

I agree that lots of religions have encouraged horrid behavior, but this in particular does not seem to fit the mold of other heinous acts religions have advocated.

When I read old American cases some of our ideas about women and justice are horrible and alien. i can only think that this "authority" who called for a gang-rape is just a wretched criminal clothed in faith and traditional authority.
posted by BeerGrin at 1:05 PM on October 26, 2005

tkchrist writes "Are you implying that Saddam's mustache was a good one?"

You've gotta admit that his current look, at least, is working for him. He's got kind of a business casual war-crimes defendant thing going on.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:26 PM on October 26, 2005

BeerGrin, it's the same reason that horrendous abuses of any group have taken place everywhere. Once you designate one group of humanity lesser than your own, your inclination to treat them as fully human is weakened. Slaveowners told themselves that blacks were animals and therefore could only be controlled by brutality--even that they felt less pain than white people would. Misogynistic cultures say much the same about women--that they can't control themselves, want to hurt men, are less valuable than men, sometimes even that they don't have souls and are little better than animals.

So using a woman's body to wreak revenge on an enemy (as happened here) is not a major crime, to that way of thinking, anymore than slaughtering an enemy's goat would be.

I can't help wishing that Mai would seek asylum here, but she seems brave and determined enough to go back to Pakistan.
posted by emjaybee at 1:42 PM on October 26, 2005

C'mon. Mushy has a much better moustache.

The legality of his succession notwithstanding, the word "President" is commonly, but not exclusively associated with democratic succession, and wg-p was merely quoting the words used in the New York Times.

It should also be noted that Ms. Mukthar's treatment was not mandated by Islamic law, but by tribal law. She has taken pains to point that out repeatedly, and her supporters inside Pakistan are unsurprisingly also devout Muslims.
posted by dhartung at 1:43 PM on October 26, 2005

The legality of his succession notwithstanding, Musharraf is still a rat bastard military dictator that a country like the United States should have nothing to do with.
posted by three blind mice at 2:06 PM on October 26, 2005

From her webpage:

" When the local imam, or Islamic cleric, heard of what had happened to Mai, he used his position at the pulpit to speak out against the injustice that had been done and to call for Mai's condemners and attackers to be brought to trial before a civil court. The balance of political power that had once favored the attackers was slowly beginning to shift. The imam encouraged Mai to file an official complaint with the police. Mai filed the complaint, which was at first ignored. "

posted by jb at 2:11 PM on October 26, 2005

You've gotta admit that his current look, at least, is working for him. He's got kind of a business casual war-crimes defendant thing going on.

*golf clap*
posted by iron chef morimoto at 3:02 PM on October 26, 2005

Thanks for posting the photo. I'm glad she's alive and in the U.S. She could stay here if she wanted to, but knowing of her courage and bravery I'm sure she will go home and continue her work there.
posted by snsranch at 4:31 PM on October 26, 2005

What happened to her is horrible. But to think that the concept of rape as an instrument of justice is only the product of a backwards and superstitious culture is a little chauvinist or a little naive.

Rape is so commonplace and tacitly accepted as a secondary punishment for people sentenced to US prisons that it's fodder for soft drink ads.
posted by crabintheocean at 5:00 PM on October 26, 2005

But still; how the hell does that even get considered in any culture as a viable option?

the answer is: religious faith. It's been used to excuse inequality and injustice since the dawn of mankind. But hey, they take care of the poor and stuff so it's OK.

Seriously?

It should also be noted that Ms. Mukthar's treatment was not mandated by Islamic law, but by tribal law. She has taken pains to point that out repeatedly, and her supporters inside Pakistan are unsurprisingly also devout Muslims.

Thanks for the data point. The west needs to cease this knee-jerk demonization of Islam and start trying to actually understand.

tacitly accepted as a secondary punishment for people sentenced to US prisons

Excellent call. It is a shame of our own society, not anybody's "religion", that we so blithely accept this as a) perfectly acceptable behavior and b) a fit topic for general advertising.
posted by scheptech at 5:20 PM on October 26, 2005

Excellent call.

Indeed. Rape is rape, and prison rape in the US is so determinedly ignored by authorities it might as well be an officially sanctioned tribal punishment. And we don't have the excuse of being a poor, ignorant mountain tribe.

As for the "President" thing, it's his title, for chrissake. What, you want all world leaders you don't like prefaced by "Evil Bad Person" in all media, including MetaFilter? I don't think much of Bush either, and he wasn't democratically elected in 2000, but he's the president. So is Musharraf.
posted by languagehat at 5:23 AM on October 27, 2005

I wonder if one knows in advance that one will be raped, and at a specific time, and by a precribed number of people, and possibly in public, and that one will not necessarily die during its commission, is it more, or less, horrific?

I couldn't even manage to call the police after my rape. Mukhtar Mai sound like a heroine to me.
posted by goofyfoot at 8:02 PM on October 27, 2005

yikes - sounds, not sound
posted by goofyfoot at 8:03 PM on October 27, 2005

Mukhtar Mai was supposed to kill herself after her "punishment", as is the custom. She said she couldn't bring herself to do it.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 11:17 AM on October 28, 2005