'Throwing acid on the uncovered faces of women ... There is no harm in it.'

From 3quarksdaily, a truly chilling report from a physics professor at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan. Pictures courtesy of Ishaque Choudhry.

What next after Karachi's carnage?

by Pervez Hoodbhoy

Since Jan 21, 2007, baton wielding burqa-clad students of the Jamia Hafsa, the women's Islamic university located next to Lal Masjid, have forcibly occupied a government building, the Children's Library. In one of their many forays outside the seminary, this burqa brigade swooped upon a house, which they claimed was a brothel, and kidnapped 3 women and a baby.

Students of Jamia Hafsa (Women’s University) in Islamabad demonstrate for Shariah law

Victory for the Burqa Brigade

The male students of Islamabad's many madrassas are even more active. They terrorize video shop owners, who they accuse of spreading pornography and vice. Newspapers have carried pictures of grand bonfires made with seized cassettes and CDs. Most video stores in Islamabad have now closed down. Their owners duly repented after a fresh campaign by militants on May 4 bombed a dozen music and video stores, barber shops and a girls school in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

Enjoying video burnings in Islamabad

The Lal Masjid head cleric, a former student of my university in Islamabad, added the following chilling message for our women students in the same broadcast:

The government should abolish co-education. Quaid-e-Azam University has become a brothel. Its female professors and students roam in objectionable dresses. I think I will have to send my daughters of Jamia Hafsa to these immoral women. They will have to hide themselves in hijab otherwise they will be punished according to Islam. Our female students have not issued the threat of throwing acid on the uncovered faces of women. However, such a threat could be used for creating the fear of Islam among sinful women. There is no harm in it. There are far more horrible punishments in the hereafter for such women.

If the truth be told, QAU resembles a city of walking double-holed tents rather than the brothel of a sick mullah's imagination. The last few bare-faced women are finding it more difficult by the day to resist. But then, that is precisely the aim of the Islamists. On May 7, a female teacher in the QAU history department was physically assaulted in her office by a bearded, Taliban-looking man who screamed that he had instructions from Allah. President Musharraf - who is the chancellor of QAU and often chooses to be involved in rather petty university administrative affairs - has made no comment on the recent developments.

What next? As Islamabad heads the way of Pakistan's tribal towns, the next targets will be girls schools, internet cafes, bookshops and western clothing stores, followed by shops selling toilet paper, tampons, underwear, mannequins, and other un-Islamic goods.

In a sense, the inevitable is coming to pass. Until a few years ago, Islamabad was a quiet, orderly, modern city different from all others in Pakistan. Still earlier it was largely the abode of Pakistan's hyper-elite and foreign diplomats. But the rapid transformation of its demography brought with it hundreds of mosques with multi-barrelled audio-cannons mounted on minarets, as well as scores of madrassas illegally constructed in what used to be public parks and green areas. Now, tens of thousands of their students with little prayer caps dutifully chant the Quran all day. In the evenings they roam in packs through the city's streets and bazaars, gaping at store windows and lustfully ogling bare-faced women.

ArtWalk this Thursday

Image: Kelly Lane Design

ArtWalk Fashion Show to Highlight Pittsburgh Designers, Artists

Hosted by WTAE's Sally Wiggin, Dress for Success benefit takes place May 24 at Warhol

PITTSBURGH--At a gallery crawl, artwork isn't all that's on display: From students in paint-splattered jeans and T-shirts, to leather-clad rock 'n' roll scenesters, to wealthy patrons swathed in furs, the audience themselves provide endless observational fodder.

Inspired by these elements of voyeurism and exhibitionism, three local artists and designers created the concept for ArtWalk, a fashion and art showcase to benefit Dress for Success Pittsburgh taking place 6-9 p.m. Thursday, May 24, at the Andy Warhol Museum (117 Sandusky St., North Side).

ArtWalk was conceived by designer Anne Rainbow Savage and artists Susan Englert and Julia Brooke Hustwit. The trio partnered with the Pittsburgh branch of Dress for Success, an international not-for-profit organization that seeks to advance low-income women's economic and social development and to encourage self-sufficiency through career development and employment retention.

Hosted by WTAE's Sally Wiggin, ArtWalk will feature professional and amateur models, including Dress for Success clients, wearing fashions by Pittsburgh's hottest designers and boutiques. Admission includes two free drink tickets, catering by Big Burrito, a silent auction, and access to all four floors of the museum.

Ten prominent Pittsburgh-based artists were invited to design picture frames for the Warhol's entrance gallery, placed to choreograph the models' movement along the path of the runway. The artists include architects, a fine furniture craftsman, a painter, and multimedia 3D visual designers, each transposing themes from their work to a new medium: translucent corrugated plastic.

Each artist's frame will be displayed on a stylish stand of stainless steel fabricated by master metalsmith Jerry Gardner of Gerald's Forge in Lawrenceville. The artists will donate their work to the Dress for Success Silent Auction at the event's finale.

Participating artists include:

- Lucia M. Aguirre
- Edgar Um Bucholtz
- Thommy Conroy
- Susan Englert
- Jennifer Ferris
- Garth Jones
- Jan Loney & Larkin Werner
- Joana Ricou
- Paul Rosenblatt, Bill Szustak & Bryan Grasso / SPRINGBOARD
- SO-AD (David Burns)

Participating designers include:

- Arretta Carmel
- Cdesign (Coleen Rush)
- Kelly Lane
- Lucid (Emilee Kohan)
- Savage Darling

Participating boutiques include:

- Allure (4730 Liberty Ave., Bloomfield, 412-687-6390)
- Eyetique (2242 Murray Ave., Squirrel Hill, 412-422-5300)
- Hip'tique (5817 Ellsworth Ave., Shadyside, 412-361-5817)
- JUPE Boutique (306 E. Carson St., South Side, 412-432-7933)
- Karma Fashion (2737 E. Carson St., South Side, 412-481-2466)
- Pavement Shoes (3629 Butler St., Lawrenceville, 412-621-6400)
- Sugar Boutique (3703 Butler St., Lawrenceville, 412-681-5100)
- Torque Denim (1931 E. Carson St., South Side, 412-381-TORQ)

ArtWalk is presented by Young Executives for Success (Y.E.S!) and sponsored by Kerastase Paris, Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, the Andy Warhol Museum, Big Burrito Catering, Clear Channel, 96.1 KISS FM, Cyganovich Contracting, Beijo Bags, Grand Bahia, and the SouthSide Works.

Tickets are $65 in advance, $75 day of show ($45 for Y.E.S! members). Advance tickets are available at participating boutiques, by contacting Y.E.S! at 412-361-1757 or yespittsburgh@yahoo.com, or online at www.dressforsuccess.org/pittsburgh.

Pakistan's 'virtue vigilantes'

(Image: Stringer Photo)

As a follow-up to my last post on women in Iraq: OutlookIndia has a story on a similar climate developing in Pakistan.

Just the other day Tahera Abdullah was driving down the spiffy Margalla Road in Islamabad, the windows rolled down to enjoy the evening breeze. A development worker, her silvery hair could tell anyone she's 50 plus. Tahera stopped at the traffic signal; an eight-year-old boy accosted her: didn't she know Islam required her to cover her head? Tahera immediately rolled up the window. "How do you argue with an eight-year-old?" she asks. But the encounter with Pakistan's religious extremism, at once frightening and puerile, has prompted Tahera to choose sweating inside the car over letting in the breeze. "We women are feeling more threatened today," she says.

Sherry [Rehman, leader of the Pakistan People's Party] ... has experienced the destructive passion of the country's religiosity. Two months ago, she was in a truck leading a PPP procession. An assailant stabbed her in the neck with a sharp object, to express his anger against women in politics. "The person who attacked me hasn't been apprehended yet," she said. "We are in a state of anarchy today. It's a dangerous retreat of the state. There's simply no check on the vice and virtue vigilantes."

If we took a Holiday...

City Paper has a story on the closing of a venerable Pittsburgh institution: Holiday Bar.

CMU is buying the city's oldest gay bar as part of its expansion into Oakland. "Last call" is April 29.

My favorite quote:

"I think I'd like to be remembered as Pittsburgh's gay Cheers bar," [Holiday co-owner Chuck] Honse says. "People would go, 'What are you doing on my stool?' You don't get that in big dance bars, and you never will."

Pittsburgh Dish had the scoop. And the last time I was there I saw a Trib PM reporter and photographer, so keep an eye out for that story.

EDIT: Trib PM story is here.

Interracial Marriages in Decline

This surprised me:

Inter-racial and inter-ethnic marriages are declining at unprecedented rates, according to a new study by Zhenchao Qian, a professor of sociology at Ohio State University, reports the Chinese-language World Journal. Qian conducted the study with Daniel Lichter, a professor at Cornell University and published the study in the February 2007 issue of the American Sociological Review.

Zhen said that immigration is an important factor in the decline of inter-racial marriages as native born Asian Americans and Hispanics marry their foreign-born counterparts. Among Asian immigrant men, inter-racial marriage declined from 26 percent in 1990 to 21 percent in 2000; among Asian immigrant women the percentage went from 41 percent in 1990 to 33 percent in 2000. The study showed that the percentage of interracial marriage in native-born Asian men have also declined from 50.2 percent in 1990 to 45.8 percent in 2000.

The only increase in inter-racial marriage was between American-born Asian women and non-Asian men, which increased from 58 percent to 60 percent. The study also showed that although inter-racial marriages of African Americans increased significantly in the 1990s, it is still fewer than other racial groups. The study suggests that people with higher education levels are more likely to marry outside of their race.