At first glance, Malala Yousafzai and Qandeel Baloch have little in common other than sharing the grave misfortune of being born in a regressive country like Pakistan. While being born as a female usually comes with a risk anywhere in the world, it’s particularly perilous in a theocratic nation like Pakistan, a dangerous cocktail of religion and patriarchy, a glorious land where a transgender activist who was shot eight times, died after receiving delayed treatment as medical staff debated whether to put her in the male or female ward.

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

While Malala was shot at by the Taliban for daring to demand education for girls, Qandeel Baloch was throttled to death by her own brother for some god-forsaken notion of honour. Baloch aggrieved every fibre in a patriarchal society which just couldn’t come to terms with the notion that a woman’s body is her own property and she can choose to do whatever she wants with it.

I’d never heard about Qandeel Baloch before the World T20 series this year when on social media she promised to strip for ‘Boom Boom’ Shahid Afridi if Pakistan could beat India. Baloch’s promise seemed to mirror a similar one that Poonam Pandey made before the World Cup 2011. When Pakistan failed to win, she showed a remarkable sense of humour to instead ‘cover up’ and dance in a traditional Balochi dress.

To be fair, I hadn't paid too much attention to Baloch beyond her ability to go viral, so the news that she was killed by her brother came as a huge shock, even among events like the St Bastille Day massacre in Nice or the failed coup d'état in Turkey or Pakistan celebrating Black Day for ‘martyr’ Burhan Wani.

A little examination revealed that Qandeel was battling the same evil forces as Malala. While the Taliban were against the education of girls, Qandeel was fighting against the very notion of how women should present themselves in society. Recent media reports said that Baloch, whose real name was Fouzia Azeem, was forcibly married off when she was 17 and endured a year with an abusive husband, with whom she had a son.

In her last interview before death, she revealed that she had been forcibly married: “I was 17-years-old when my parents forced an uneducated man on me. The abuse I have been through, it happens in places like this, in small villages, in Baloch families. This happened to me too. I said, 'No, I don't want to spend my life this way'. I was not made for this. It was my wish since I was a child to become something, to be able to stand on my own two feet, to do something for myself.”

She also added that her family didn’t support her when she said she didn’t want to live with her husband. She also hoped that when her son was older he would understand what she went through. In her last days, she was attacked by the media for reportedly being married more than once.

In the same interview she said: “I've fought with everyone. And now I have become so headstrong that I only do what I want. I started working in showbiz, I faced so many difficulties, you know what happens with girls here. You know what kinds of offers they make girls here. You know how they try to misuse girls who are new to the industry.”

Calling her life choices, a ‘revenge’ against ‘mardon ki society’ (a patriarchal society), she was fiercely independent till her last breath, wondering why people criticised her and yet enjoyed the works of women like Nicki Minaj or even Mia Khalifa.

She observed, with a wry sense of humour that the media would not back her for her life choices and that they would not recognise that she had fought and was now capable of taking on the burden of an entire household.

Nothing illuminates the struggle against that cocktail of religion and patriarchy than the comments that followed Baloch’s death. Some congratulated her brother for ‘getting rid of a disgrace to Pakistan', others pointed out that it was a lack of honour killing that led to 'hoes like her’. 

Even more shocking was the most popular comment on her Facebook page which went:

“Rest in peace, i never wanted u to die like this, i wish u could understand that the acts u were doing were not appropriate in a place like everyone lives like own way of living and own rules. I am really sad for you. It costed you, your life! REST IN PEACE” (sic).

Not only is this comment seeking to justify her death because of her deeds, it also has over 6000 'likes' suggesting that the response is quite popular - that her ‘unpopular deeds’, made the throttle of death appropriate, a school of thinking similar to the grotesque logic of the victim blaming that goes on for rape victims.

While it’s pretty certain that the world won’t be falling over themselves to hand out Nobel Peace Prizes to her or making her a champion advocate of ‘girl power’, Qandeel Baloch, in life and death, represents the same struggle that Malala was a part of. Her brother might have throttled her, equally complicit is the society that propagates the notion of ‘family honour’.

While Malala’s battle was celebrated across the world, even the most liberal of circles in the West in unlikely to accord the same respect to Qandeel. Her celebration of her body, is in stark contrast of our notion of what’s the right thing for women to do, even in these so-called ‘feminist’ times. Baloch’s free will, her fiercely independent desire to claim her sexual freedom, to not be bound by forced marital ties and to live by her own rules cost her dearly. She was murdered for exerting her free will, for refusing to play by patriarchy’s rules.

Perhaps her death will act as a clarion call to the so-called liberals across the world, the kind who write 1000-word op-eds on ‘rise in religious intolerance’, while staying shamelessly silent when other types of oppression stare them in the face. Qandeel's battle might not have been to everyone's taste but what she was asking for wasn't too much - just the right to own her own body and do with it whatever her heart desired. Sadly, it was too much to ask, even in this day and age.