Real Men Don't Hit

Today when I got home, my sister was watching the news with full attention. It came as a surprise to me as my sister usually watches Indian saas bahu serials like Yeh Rishtha Kya Kehlatha Hai or American TV shows like How to Get Away with Murder and Last Man Standing. I thought there must have been a serious incident like God forbid, a terrorist attack or a natural catastrophe.

I looked at the TV screen and immediately saw a woman being slapped by a security guard. The news channel was replaying the clip over and over again, which is why I didn't have to wait long to see the whole thing. The woman, as it turned out, was a news reporter. The lame excuse of a man was a security guard of the government office the incident took place in.

Apparently, the reporter was doing a live program of the problems faced by citizens at Nadra Office. People go to Nadra Office in order to make their NICs, B Forms, and other legal documents. Which is why there is always a crowd.

First, I thanked God for it not being as harmful of an incident as I initially thought. But that does not mean that I think what happened to the poor woman wasn't a bad thing. It was an awful thing to happen to anyone, especially in the public. Her being slapped was not only seen by the people around her, but was also seen by people watching the live show in their homes. Not only that, the video footage has been playing repeatedly on every news channel and has been shared countless times on different social media sites.

The first thing that came into my mind was how poorly this man must be treating his wife, sisters and other female family members. It would come as no surprise if tomorrow we find out that he is a criminal of domestic violence. Or that his wife is unhappy with him. How a woman can live with such a beast, I can not even fathom.

While going through the comments people made about the incident on social media, I was shocked to see most men were praising the security guard for hitting the woman. I expected to see no such views. They said things like "she was asking for it", "she touched his uniform, that's why the guard slapped him", and "the man was doing his job". These comments, mind you, were all from 'educated' people. 

People said the guard was doing his job, but wasn't the reporter doing her job too? She was given the task of going to Nadra Office and giving a report on the conditions and the problems faced by citizens. It was her job to uncover the faces of those responsible for those problems. The guard was obviously one of them. If he can slap a reporter on live TV, imagine how many other people he has hit when there was no camera.

People said she was asking for it. But I fail to comprehend this. How was she asking for it? By showing us the problems faced by people in government offices? By exposing the guard? By stopping him from attacking the cameraman?

Some people went as far as saying she hit him first. I watched the video several times but did not find any such thing. The reporter did pull the guard from his uniform when he was attacking the cameraman, but that is not even close to hitting. Secondly, the force she pulled the guard with and the force the guard slapped her with, are like the earth and the sky. She lightly pulled him, he went full fledged.

Slapping a woman isn't an option. In my opinion, the only time a man can hit a woman is when the woman is physically attacking the man and trying to kill him. Other than that, the question of hitting a woman should not even arise. Hitting someone can be okay or not okay based on the strength and size of both individuals.

Let's say there is a 6 feet person and a 5 feet 5 inch person, both with same percentage of strength. It doesn't matter which one is the male or which one is the female. The size difference is what matters. In this case, it will not be okay for the 6 feet person to hit the 5 feet 5 inch person, whether that 6 feet person is a man or a woman. But if the 5 feet 5 inch person hits the 6 feet person, whether it's a man or a woman, will be okay.

A kid is smaller is size than his parents. The size difference alone equates to the basic logic that the bigger person should never hit the smaller one. Ninety percent of the time, women are smaller than men and also physically weaker than them. That is why I say it is not okay for a man to hit a woman. 

The Curse of the Cosmetic Surgery

"Never Judge a Book by its Cover" is a saying we have all heard many times throughout our lives. But how often do we actually think like that? We might have seen the best person in the world but ignored them just because they didn't look 'beautiful' on the outside. We also might have thought someone was a good and kind person based solely on their outer appearance. 

The question for appearing beautiful on the outside has brought out the concept of modifying one's appearance either temporarily or permanently. The temporary method being makeup  and the permanent one being cosmetic surgery. 

I am all up for makeup, as long as it is used to enhance the existing facial features, and not to create to new ones. Plus, it's temporary and people know that it's makeup. That is why it isn't too much of a surprise for someone to see you without makeup. 

Plastic surgery, on the other hand, is a different story. It is a way to permanently change one's appearance. Due to the importance given to appearing beautiful on the outside, plastic surgery is becoming more and more common. 

If a person wants to change a certain part of their body that they don't like, then they should. But I think it is sad for someone to be so insecure about their body to even consider plastic surgery.

Celebrities or people that are role models to many people, including vulnerable young people, should think twice before undergoing any kind of cosmetic surgery. But we see that it is the celebrities that have started this trend, They are the ones promoting the concept of plastic surgery for cosmetic reasons (unnecessary reasons).

Celebrities have fans that want to be like them. These fans want to dress like them, style their hair like them, and have bodies like them. The fake bodies of these celebrities cause body image issues in young girls (and boys too!). The stress of wanting to look like their role models, results in these people becoming depressed or developing eating disorders.

Due to the popularity of celebrities like the Kardashians, many girls want to get big lips. In order to get those big lips, they get liposuction and surgeries or follow stupid internet diy's (for example, the Kylie Jenner lip challenge), where every second person gets injured and even doctors warn of the damage being permanent.

These kind of things how damaged our society really is. Plastic surgery done for non medical reasons is the biggest reason why people nowadays focus on outer beauty rather than inner beauty. And that's what we need to change.

Honor Killing: Culture Disguised as Religion

On October 4, 2016, I was left in a state of shock and bewilderment as news emerged of a Pakistani man killing his sister in the name of honor. The woman had been killed because she had married a formerly Christian man. Rajhu seemingly warned 18 year-old Tasleem not to marry the man, as he did not think it possible to be able to face his friends owing to shame. He warned her that people will not respect their family anymore.

The dread of being disrespected and appearing inferior in the eyes of others, made him take his sister's life. His friends had seen the girl with the man she was secretly married to, the man that had accepted Islam for her, and taunted Rajhu for it and urged him to kill her. After the pressure got too much, Rajhu put a gun to his sister's head and took her life.

This is not the first time women have been killed in the name of honor. According to Wikipedia, "honor killing is the killing of a relative, especially a girl or a woman, who is perceived to have brought disgrace to the family.". It can simply be defined as the heinous act of killing one's own family member for the name of honor. In Pakistan, there are, on average, 800 honor killing cases every year, excluding those unreported. In August, Samia Shahid's murder case again reminded us of the evil act of honor killing. Samia was a Bradford-Pakistani Muslim woman killed by her ex husband and father for marrying the man she loved.

Only a few months ago, a Pakistani social media star, Qandeel Baloch, was killed by her brother, Waseem, in the name of honor. What made her brother take her life were the controversial photos of her that she posted on various social networking sites, such as Facebook and Instagram. According to the brother, Baloch was bringing disrepute to the family's honor.

It is incidents like these that make us wonder if we, as a nation, have evolved or gone back to the times of ignorance. In around 30 BC, during the rule of Augustus Caesar, he made it permissible for men to kill their wives if their wives were found to be unfaithful. Similarly, in 1810, similar rules were made in the Napoleonic code. However, if a man was found guilty of the same offence, his wife was not permitted to kill him.

Around 700 AD, when Islam spread, people finally realized how atrocious this law was. Islam did not allow for someone to make accusations about a woman without presenting four witnesses. It did not allow the killing of people. Islam was and is, totally against honor killing.

Islam does not support killing your sister, mother, daughter or any female relative because she spoke with a man not related to her. Islam does not allow killing a woman because she refused to marry someone the family chose for her. Islam does not allow killing your daughters and sisters because they married someone according to their personal choice. It does not grant the killing of a victim of rape. Islam does not allow killing a woman because of rumors regarding a premarital affair. It does not permit killing a woman who wants to leave her abusive husband.

In the non-Muslim world, however, it was only in 1975 when this permission of killing one's wife was not granted anymore. By then, men had finally understood how absurd this whole ordeal was. In the Western countries, the concept of honor killing has completely disappeared. One can only hope for it's elimination from the entire world as soon as possible. Thankfully, Pakistan is not turning a deaf ear to these issues.

In June 2016, around 40 Islamic Ulemah (religious scholars), issued a ruling declaring the murder of women in the name of honor as 'un-Islamic'. They argued that according to Islam, a mature woman, a woman who can distinguish between right and wrong, is allowed to marry of her own free will. They stated that in Islam, it is not permissible to hurt a soul, therefore killing for the sake of honor is out of question.

In conclusion, Islam does not allow honor killing. In Islam there is no concept of killing women in the name of honor. It is un-Islamic and an merely an act of terrorism and viciousness.