Aurat March and Linguistics: جسم کی جنگ

Many people are finding it extremely hard to comprehend how and why the word جسم (Urdu translation for Body) is causing this uncomfortable rift.

In a paper I co-authored, there is a brief discussion about the use of hybrid language and its association with complex yet raw emotions and feelings.

'People in the urban areas of Pakistan are now increasingly using a hybrid language - one that combines Urdu and English vocabularies for ease of communication. The hybrid technique helps in bridging the linguistic gap between the two languages."

People tend to selectively prefer English when reporting mixed emotions such as disgust, despair, annoyance guilt or shame, but when we discuss primary emotions and primitive feelings we tend to rely on our primary language. In that same paper we have discussed:

"But from a dynamic perspective, it shows how the process of translation of complex feelings sometimes can subject feelings to unnecessary censorship so much so that they may sometimes eventually lose their true identity."

When primary language is used deliberately to translate complex mixed feelings, the narrative of the group sounds either too poetic or too intense and some may find it rather artificial. Linguistically, I believe it's coming from our strong historical influence of the British colonial empire.

If anything in the primary language is جہالت or indecent, then why don’t we feel and express this deep concern when adults are okay to swear using our gender as either suffix or prefix in front of children, in public, social media? If that is okay, then why does any protest need a softer version using politically correct language?

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This dialogue around Aurat March is bringing so many conflicts to the surface along with gender-based patriarchal oppression.

What women talking against Aurat March 2020 need to realize is that their narrative is only making it worse by juxtaposing a domestic sweet-girl image to an image that’s too inappropriately feminist, further strengthening the stereotypes. This might help one receive a short term validation but it has grave implications that one can't see right now. It is undoubtedly putting our daughters into unwarranted suffering that could have been prevented.

Last year I met this wise person who shared a beautiful concept with me:

جب ظلم کا کیچڑ معاشرے میں سونامی اور سیلاب کی شکل میں آ جاہے تو بھلے لوگ بھی اس کے زد میں آکے کیچڑ تلے دب جاتے ہے۔ ان مِن سیے جو اگر کوئی کیچڑ سیے نِکل کے کھڑی ہوتی هے ، آواز بلند کرتی هے تو اُنگلی تو اُٹھے گی.

کیون؟ کیونکه وه سب کو دکھتی ہے ، کیچڑ لگے جِسم سے کیچڑ کو ہی کوستی ہے۔

هے نا خراب بات؟

The position achieved by these Pakistani women who are being called privileged and modern was not granted to them voluntarily or out of any kindness. They struggled. Their mothers struggled. Someone decades ago fought for these women and protested hard for the rights to education, freedom of work and earning that is taken for granted today. They went through painful experiences, sacrificing many birthrights. Yes, women have come a long way, but they have not yet won; they still have a long way to go and must continue to struggle to achieve the status they, and the generations to come, deserve.

I urge you all not to allow these distinctions to obscure the fact that traditional Pakistani female and modern Pakistani female are only separable in theory. Without this clarity, the societal tendency to add a value judgment, when presented with an apparent dichotomy of this kind becomes inevitably destructive.

Please stop dividing women. Modern or traditional, a female is a female. In Pakistan, we all are suffering in our known and unknown ways. Living in a context where tradition wins over common sense or science, the transfer of intergenerational trauma becomes a part of the DNA of our society. Expressed or unexpressed, we all carry this silent mutation.

In our culture, femininity is a specification that makes neutrality almost impossible. There are always going to be sides. Either you are a sophisticated 'other' or a rebel 'other'. The only difference is that one becomes the part of the convention and the other ignores it.

Both remain marginalized.

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Reference:
Khan S, Sanober A. Crossing Borders – Laying the Landscape of Balint in Pakistan. Journal of Balint Society. Vol. 46, 2018. Pg 69-74.