Posted on 01/12/2005 8:20:59 PM PST by Straight Vermonter
PESHAWAR: Zuhra Nafees drinks in the sights and sounds of Peshawar's riotous marketplace with newfound enthusiasm. A year ago the grate of a burqa separated her from the outside world. Now the late twenty something is clad only in the traditional chador, the long cloth that covers her body from head to toe but leaves her face completely unveiled. "As our men are no longer stressing that we wear the burqa," said Zuhra, "we have now abandoned it." She belongs to the Mohmand tribe and lives in the semi-lawless tribal areas in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.
Women in her family used to wear the so-called shuttlecock burqa - named for its resemblance to the cone of feathers used in badminton - "but now many wear the chador for covering their bodies in public places," she said.
The Burqa was common for centuries in the ultraconservative ethnic Pashtun heartland that straddles the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It gained international noto-riety when the Taliban came to power in neghboring Afghanistan. The Taliban punished women for not wearing the burqa and, in the West, it became a symbol of religious intolerance and sexual oppression. When the regime was toppled in late 2001 it was partly billed as a victory for Afghan women, who could finally cast off the restrictive garments and show their faces to the world.
Now with the spread of education and exposure to the media, observers have also detected a sharp decline in the numbers of Pakistanis choosing to wear it in the last few years. "This area is experiencing great change in many Pashtun traditions and abandoning the traditional burqa is no exception," said Shahida Parveen, a female journalist. Young, educated women are at the forefront of the revolution, she said, backed by the relaxation of attitudes among Pashtun men regarding purdah, or wearing the veil. It reflects the gradual increase in professional and personal freedoms that women are winning in Pakistan's tribal regions.
Saleswomen can now be seen in some large stores, while females have taken posts in the banking and IT sectors and businesses like carpet and gem sales. In politics, a number of local government seats are reserved for women and a majority of those come from an alliance of strict Islamic parties. The provincial president of the largest Pashtun political party is a woman. Some in the region are not giving up their strongly held social traditions without a fight. Older women in particular still remain hidden from view beneath multi-colored burqas.
The practice has long been largely confined to the Pashtun middle classes, who consider it a mark of social status, according to Slama Shaheen, director of the Pashtun Academy at the University of Peshawar. "Pashtuns were very simple and women in rural areas often worked alongside their men in fields, so it was very difficult for them to wear the burqa," Shaheen said. Despite this, burqas are now more popular in the countryside than in towns and cities, as rural regions are less exposed to Westernizing influences, she said. "Due to education and the role of the media," she added, "a cultural change has been witnessed, even among the conservative sections of Pashtuns." Few people have seen the effect as much as the people who make and sell the all-enshrouding garments. "Young girls do not wear the burqa anymore," said Salim Shah, who has sold the headgear for the last 15 years at the Kochi Bazaar in Peshawar. "They all prefer the chador." He said Afghan refugees were his major customers as they remained more faithful to the old ways than people in Pakistan's northwest.
Ironically the burqa's last bastion is rapidly becoming Afghanistan, where it has lost some of its stigma as an instrument of Taliban repression. "In the past, women in the elite and religious families wore burqas as they were considered as a sign of pride and dignity," said Yaqoob Sharafat, director of the Peshawar-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency. Now, though, it has regained currency "as a traditional rather than a religious form of veil."
It's one small step...
Is this sort of like "banning the bra?"
Any change is better than nothing.
Does this mean Osama has no hiding place now?
"As our men are no longer stressing that we wear the burqa," said Zuhra, "we have now abandoned it."
PCBS Alert! All the intelligent sophisticated liberals have been lecturing us that Muslim women wear the burqa by their OWN CHOICE. Apparently this woman didn't get the talking points memo.
I saw lots of burkas last year while in Afghanistan. I suppose to some women there it is a safety and comfort thing, likened to a Western female not going in public without her make-up....
I think so too. Once they give up the face coverings and other islamic gear, they start to feel like normal people. Next thing these women will want to look and feel feminine and pretty. There goes islam.
When they get the threads going about nuking Mecca and other such nonsense it is important to remember what a effect a few ideas have on people. This is a great example of how things can change from exposure to new ideas. Such seemingly small ideas as these, might prove to be as great of a force for change as our military. I don't think that the dark force of Islamic terrorism can withstand the light of reason.
No joke. Half of them of course are woman. So there goes half of Islam anyway.
Islam is reforming compliments of our quiet little WOT. Even in Pakistan's semi-lawless tribal North West Frontier.
The WOT will be a failure unless Islam fully reforms -- that includes the Koran and all those jihadist clerics.
Well said.
hope all of them that wear burkah in my 'nabe decide to go home for good and be rid of it.
plenty of them in the streets walking,driving (yes), or employed in markets wearing the full get up-with the "grating" or just their eyes visible--veils covering everything else.
when the call went out to be on the lookout for people wearing bulky clothing,that they might be suicide bombers,we laughed ourselves sick......you wouldn't know if it's male or female under all this ,never mind what they might be carrying.
Where is this?
[Now with the spread of education and exposure to the media, observers have also detected a sharp decline in the numbers of Pakistanis choosing to wear it in the last few years.]
I remain optimistic that this corner of the world will soon finally emerge from the year 800 AD and join the rest of humanity, but it's still too early in the game for me to make book on it.
Actually this area has a bit of a head start since the British had such a big impact.
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