Stirring Women's March in San Jose, California: A Muslim Perspective

(You can also read the article here.)

Chanting “This is what democracy looks like,” I joined 25,000 of my fellow Americans in downtown San Jose, Calif., as part of the worldwide Women’s March on January 21 to assert our rights against the unacceptable presidency of Donald Trump. We were among the more than 2 million women, men and children who rallied in almost 700 marches in 50 states and 32 countries in the world’s seven continents to demonstrate against the harrowing possibility of fascism taking root in the "land of the free and home of the brave."

It took us almost two hours to march from City Hall to Plaza de Cesar Chavez but what a march of swirling, energizing, kaleidoscopic humanity it was! The witty and incisive posters told the story as well as any narrative could: “Avoid Unwanted Presidencies,” “Girls Just Wanna Have FUNding for Planned Parenthood,” “Don’t Poke Mama Bear,” “A Woman’s Place Is in the Resistance,” “Let Me Choose My Own Path,” “We Are Here to Stay,” “Tiny Hands Won’t Hold Us Back,” “What Would MLK Do?”, “I Ain’t Going Back to the ‘50s,” “Women Are the Wall and Trump Will Pay,” “I Choose a Democracy of Justice & Compassion, Not a Trumpocracy of Cruelty & Greed,” “Science Before Stupidity,” “Tyrannical, Racist, Unscrupulous, Misogynistic, Plutocrat,” “He Grabbed Us by the Caucus!”, “Real Men Love Feminism,” “I Revolt Because He is Revolting,” and the incomparable, “Dear World, Majority of Americans Did NOT Vote for Him ... We are Sorry.”

At the Plaza, San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo declared that San Jose, a city not known globally for its activism, “has awoken.” He spoke of his recent trip to Washington, D.C., where, he said, “I did not stay for the inauguration because I just couldn’t but I did take a long look at the White House before it turned into a hotel and a casino.” “This great city,” he said, “will not confront its peace-loving Muslims with a registry, but embrace them with equality.” 

Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez said the march represented the new civil rights movement of our time. “Promise yourself,” she said as the thousands roared their approval, “you will remember where you were when you changed history.” 

Maha ElGenaidi, founder of Islamic Network Group and a Bay Area activist, quoted a verse from the Quran: "'We made you into nations and tribes so you may know another.' This means diversity is built into the Divine plan," she explained. "This also means we must cherish our diversity, irrespective of our faith, race, gender, or sexual orientation."

There were many more speakers whose messages of solidarity, compassion and resistance in the face of tyranny, misogyny and kakistocracy (government by the worst persons) fired up listeners who filled the plaza with a vow that seemed to reach the sky: “We are here to stay.” 

I only had to look around at the river of humanity to know in my gut that the movement against the Trump presidency had only just begun.

As a Muslim American, I was drawn to posters held aloft by Jews and Christians in our support. Two in particular caught my attention: “We Stand With American Muslims,” and “Would Muhammad Ali Have Signed Trump’s Registry?” I expressed my gratitude to the woman and the man holding the two posters but because of the crush of the crowd, could not exchange names, although we managed to hug.

While my spirit was lifted by these selfless Americans driven to defend us from injustice, I also found myself growing sad and somewhat despondent. Where were the local Muslim-Americans? I counted just 10 that included my wife, but even if I missed others, the number could not have been more than a hundred. That would be about three Muslims per thousand in the march. “Pathetic” was the only word I could think of. The million dollar question, of course, was, “Why? Why did so few of my fellow Muslims did not show up?”

From my three decades of interaction with Muslims in the Bay Area, I knew it was not from a lack of concern for the well-being of America, nor from a lack of gratitude for what other Americans do for us.

To understand why, I asked some Muslims friends the day after the march why they were not at the historic event. 

“Well, we knew you would be there, so …” a few said guiltily. Others told me they were uncomfortable in big gatherings. 

“But you were there when Christians and Jews came to our Islamic Center to express their solidarity with us after we received that hate mail last November,” I reminded them. 

It dawned on me that many Muslims were comfortable being gracious hosts when people of other faiths come to visit our mosques, but when it is our turn to visit churches and synagogues and events like the Women’s March, many of us rely on a few “interfaith experts” to represent us. To me, this represents a serious lack of
self-assurance, with some insecurity and arrogance thrown in.

I don’t know if my analysis is right but what is clear is that Muslim-Americans must shed their sense of entitlement (let others go to bat for us), insecurity and religious chauvinism to become full participants in American democracy. Otherwise, we will not move beyond a permanent and debilitating sense of victimhood. Now more than ever, when president Trump has explicitly called for banning Muslim immigrants to the U.S., we need to be bold and collectively speak out against any executive order that undermines American values.

There will be many more marches against Trump’s un-American policies.
Muslim-Americans must be at the forefront of these marches.

Christians and Muslims Find Common Ground Through MLK's Words

(You can also read the article here and here.)

"If you want peace, work for justice. That includes housing the homeless, ending the death penalty, organizing labor unions, standing up for minority rights, and countering rising Islamophobia in the U.S.”

So said Dublin-born San Jose Diocese Bishop Patrick J. McGrath, leader of over 50 Catholic churches in Santa Clara County, and the prime mover behind the Catholic-Muslim dialogue held at the Shia Association of the Bay Area (SABA) Center on MLK day, January 16.

Bishop McGrath quoted MLK to make his point: “Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” 

Bishop McGrath addressing the Christian-Muslim Interfaith Event

Speaking to an overflow audience of about 500 Christians and Muslims, he reminded them that “Xenophobia has always been a part of America’s social and political landscape ... But we have much more in common than what divides us. Both the Bible and the Quran list mercy and justice as foremost divine attributes. I ask each one of you to use your light to replace the darkness of hate.”

Aurora Solis, a Latina leader with San Jose-based ‘People Acting in Community Together’ (PACT) spoke of a co-worker who told her, “I am a Muslim. I am scared. What will happen to me and my family?” Her response: “I will be with you. My friends and I will register as Muslims if it comes to that. We will work with Muslims so we can become better Christians.”

Tahir Anwar, an Imam and a long-time Bay Area activist, spoke passionately of the Golden Rule, a common theme that unites the major religions of the world: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” 

He also urged those in the audience to "make a habit of visiting synagogues, churches, mosques and other places of worship," adding,  “Islamophobia poses a threat not just for Muslims but for everyone. If our phones are tapped, yours will be too, sooner or later. The Quran says we will have some good days and some not-so-good days. That is life. But if we work together, we will overcome.”

Imam Tahir narrated how he travels separately from his family when returning to the U.S. from a trip abroad. “I am questioned at such length and harassed by immigration and law-enforcement officials that I try to spare my children the humiliation I am often subjected to when I return to my country. So they travel a day or two before I do.”

Speaker after speaker reminded us of the importance of extending hospitality to strangers, not to be haughty but to associate with the lowly, the sick, the disabled, the unemployed and the underemployed, to cherish our diversity, to overcome evil with good, to not suffer injustice with silence but to engage in non-violent activism that can change the world for the better.

There is a moral momentum growing across America. On January 21, the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration, an estimated 200,000 women are expected to participate in the Women’s March on Washington. On a smaller scale, this symbolic march will be enacted in cities throughout America, including San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco. 

As in other cities, too, San Jose city leaders recently approved a campaign to create sanctuary places in schools and churches were deportation sweeps may occur, while Santa Clara County supervisors allocated about $1.5 million over two years to provide legal aid for undocumented workers in danger of deportation.

On a personal level, it also struck me forcefully how easily Shias and Sunnis prayed, listened and shared meals together at this event, as we have been doing for all the decades we have been in the Bay Area. I am a Sunni because I was born into a Sunni family, and I find no hindrance to my visiting Shia mosques to pray when it is convenient to do so. Same goes for Shias who pray at our mosque at the Evergreen Islamic Center when it is convenient for them.

Contrast this with the terrible sectarian conflicts that plague some of the world’s Muslim countries in which Sunnis kill Shias with terrifying regularity and Shias retaliate in kind. It is clear that Muslim countries are in far greater need of Intrafaith, rather than Interfaith, events. We Muslim-Americans must find a way to play a larger role in eliminating the deadly sectarian conflicts between Sunnis and Shias.

The backdrop of the stage where the religious leaders sat at the SABA Center on MLK Day contained these words of Imam Ali (601-661), son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad: “Man is either your brother in faith, or your equal in humanity.”

These are MLK's words too, and the words of America's founding fathers, even if expressed differently. MLK's "fierce urgency of now" has taken on a significance no conscientious American can ignore without eroding the fundamental values that make us who we are as a nation.

It's Going To Be Good

What a difference a hate mail can make!

On the day before Thanksgiving, Wednesday, November 23, the Evergreen Islamic Center (EIC) in San Jose, CA, received a hate mail that set off a chain of events that not only diminished the haters but in the most moving and celebratory way, reaffirmed our faith in America. I have written about the overwhelming support we received from our fellow-Americans from near and far in an article in the San Jose Mercury News, so I will not repeat the details here.

What I want to focus on is the gathering of over 400 Americans at EIC on Sunday, December 11 – Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, atheists and, of course, Muslims -  to denounce hate and Islamophobia and express solidarity with us.

Speaker after speaker invited the writer(s) of the hate letter to meet Muslims and overcome their prejudice against a minority of Americans (about 3 million in a population of about 330 million Americans). Rabbis, priests, reverends, clergies, young and old took to the stage to invite Americans to celebrate our common humanity. “There is enough love to go around,” declared the president of EIC, and so true it was!

Supervisor Dave Cortese reminded the gathering that San Jose was one of six metropolitan areas of the world lauded and emulated for its religious harmony. Mayor Sam Liccardo reiterated his vow to make San Jose a sanctuary city for undocumented workers and students if Donald Trump’s government attempted to deport them.

Symbol of support from Shira Goldman of Tarzana, CA

Imam Tahir Anwar quoted Martin Luther King, Jr: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” 

That 400 people of different faiths had given up the leisurely pleasures of a Sunday afternoon to travel to EIC and spread the message of love was a testament to the greatness of ordinary Americans.

Perhaps the most moving remarks came from Reverend Kiley of the Silicon Valley Faith Group who said, “I see the tapestry of this community with deep belief in love.” He then quoted a poem by Edwin Markham:

He drew a circle that shut me out-
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him in!

The year 2016 will go down as one of the most traumatic in history. The plight of refugees, the deaths of innocents, the accelerating pace of global warming, all capped by the election of an unexpected and unpredictable candidate to the highest office in America has put most of us on edge. 

But despair is the hallmark of the weak. It is in our power – ordinary Americans driven by a sense of duty, responsibility and love – to overcome policies that challenge our bedrock values. Things will not fall apart; the center will hold for it is the best among us who are full of passionate intensity while the worst lack all conviction.

Paraphrasing the Beatles: Take a sad year and make it better.

Generous Americans Teach Us the True Meaning of Thanksgiving

(You can also read the article here.)

On the day before Thanksgiving this year, the Evergreen Islamic Center in San Jose, CA, received a postal mail that contained these lines:

“There’s a new sheriff in town – President Donald Trump. He is going to cleanse America and make it shine again. And he’s going to start with you Muslims. He’s going to do to you Muslims what Hitler did to the Jews. You Muslims would be wise to pack your bags and get out of Dodge.”

After some deliberations, the EIC board contacted the police on Thursday, November 24, Thanksgiving Day. Within minutes, law enforcement officials rushed to the Center and offered to provide extra security for the community. Local Priests, Rabbis and elected officials condemned the bigotry and assured us of their support.

As word of the hate mail spread through TV, newspapers and social media, support poured in. Our initial emotions of shock and distress gave way to hope and courage, and we realized anew how fortunate we were to be living in a country where ordinary citizens were united by the common goal of justice and freedom for all.

There is clearly a strong correlation between the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States and the spike in hate crimes directed against Muslims and other minority groups. More than 100 anti-Muslim incidents have occurred across the country and more than 700 incidents targeting different minority groups have been documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center since November 8.

We are not afraid that bigots and hatemongers, emboldened by Donald Trump, are coming out of the woodwork to threaten us, although we remain cautious and vigilant. Ours is a land of law, and even though the law is sometimes bent by the wealthy and the powerful in their favor, we are confident that no one is above the law. Remember the case of the late President Richard Nixon, who had to resign in disgrace in 1974 to avoid certain impeachment.

Jews and Christians gather in front of Evergreen Islamic Center, San Jose, CA,
on Friday, December 2, 2016, to express their solidarity with Muslims.

Far from frightening us, this hate mail has, in fact, given us a renewed sense of mission when the ‘new sheriff’ begins his presidency. We are heartened that mayors and presidents of colleges and universities across the country have declared their cities and campuses ‘sanctuary spaces’ for undocumented workers, students and their families.

But ultimately, our faith in our country comes from the numerous messages, emails and cards we received from neighbors and strangers.

“As a Christian,” wrote Vance, “I am taught that above all else, ‘love thy neighbor.’ I want to extend my love to your community and want you to know that many Christians, like me, stand in solidarity with you.”

Miriam wrote that “not all Americans feel the way the hateful people do. I am a Jew and I support you, my cousins. Love and peace, we are all 1!”

Holly assured us that “I will do whatever it takes to help protect your first amendment rights.” Stacy reminded us that “there are many of us in San Jose who do not feel the way the haters do. We welcome you for the diversity and the rich culture you bring to our lovely city.”

Davida was sad because “here in Bay Area we think we live in a sanctuary of unity but unfortunately that is not the case. I pray for peace and understanding for all in this uncertain time.” And this from Marina: “I have heard some people talking about a ‘Muslim registry.’ Many Americans have said they will register as Muslims regardless of their faith, as many Danes under Nazi occupation wore yellow stars. I, too, will register as a Muslim if that time were to come.”

Muslim-Americans could not have learned more vividly the true meaning of Thanksgiving were it not for our generous fellow Americans. We are truly blessed.

Students Ponder A Grim Future Under Trump

I teach mathematics at a college in Northern California. In the tests that I give to my students, I always include a question that deals with the ‘big issues’ of life, such as, “Name three things that make your life meaningful,” or, “Are you afraid of death? Why or why not?” or, “What are your core values? Are you spending your time in college that reflect those values?”

Students frequently open up to such questions, something that obviously doesn’t happen when they are solving quadratic equations or constructing confidence intervals. Their responses help me better understand them as unique individuals, which help me become a better teacher.

In my recent test, composed a week before Nov. 8 and given on Nov. 10, to two classes consisting of about 90 students, my question was: “If something could happen right now that was highly unlikely, or even impossible, that would make you unbelievably happy, what would that be?”

I never connected the question to the presidential election, whose ‘foregone conclusion’ of Hillary Clinton’s victory I shared with millions of my fellow-Americans.

Was I ever wrong!

Apart from a few students who wanted to win the lottery and a few who longed for one last heart-to-heart with a departed loved one, most of the responses reflected the raw, angry and anguished thoughts they had about Donald Trump’s victory and what it meant for America.

Ruth expressed the common sentiment shared my Mario, Robert, Erik, Aurora and Andrea: “I fear for my safety and for the health of my country with Trump as President. If only the election gave a different result!”

Claudia wrote: “If only Hillary became the president! I am shocked how racist my country is. I had no idea! It saddens me how this country has so much hate in its heart.”

Cristina was outraged that America missed a golden chance to break the glass ceiling. “Imagine, the first female U.S. president! And we blew it!”

Lopez was sure that the reckless Trump will do something that will get him impeached. “A zebra cannot change its stripes,” he wrote. “Trump will be forced out of the White House because of what he does.”

Joanna was wistful: “If only Bernie Sanders ran!” Many students were angry that Hillary did not choose Sanders as her running mate, or that she did not use him as much as she should have in her campaign. “Sanders would have appealed to working-class whites in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin,” wrote Katie. “With Trump, I am scared for my family and friends, for people of color, for women, Muslims, immigrants and disabled and other minorities.”

Trisha was despondent and wished she had done more. “I regret not fighting harder for Bernie Sanders during the primaries. I should have spent more time advocating online, phone banking to other states, and inviting respectful dialog with those who had reservations about Sanders’ policies and positions. If by some miracle the presidency went to Hillary who won the popular vote, I would cry tears of joy. We must get rid of the Electoral College. What a useless relic from the past! Under Trump, we are about to enter a period of legislative uncertainty in terms of environmental protection. We need as many well-informed citizens as we can get who will act on behalf of the planet’s well-being, rather than its potential for profitability.”

The unfairness of the Electoral College weighed on the minds of Alondra, Clement, Sanchez, Zamora and Mendoza. “We brag about our democracy to the rest of the world,” wrote Mendoza, “but look what we have in our own country. A majority of Americans wanted Hillary to be our president. Instead, it’s Trump and his third wife who will occupy the White House!”

Acosta was filled with regrets too. “I regret not calling my family and friends in Florida to vote for Hillary. I regret our country’s decision. If I could make it right, I would ask for independents to be excluded from the ballot. I am also mad at the millions who did not vote. What were they thinking?”

Olivia felt it was more a case of Hillary losing the election than Trump winning it. “Hillary ran a flawed campaign. She spent the last Election Day with wealthy entertainers. That couldn’t have gone down well with angry jobless whites in rural America. I think she became arrogant.”

The theme was echoed by Fisher, Jessica and Clark. “I disagreed with everything Trump said,” wrote Fisher. “But there was no denying he was speaking his mind. With Hillary, it seemed like a production from Hollywood! No spontaneity.”

Liz took a particularly grim view. “My favorite subject is history. And I can tell from my studies that when a nation chooses a very bad leader, that nation is in decline.”

Irene was as heart-broken at Hillary’s loss as everyone else but she also took the long-view. “Hillary’s win would have made us lazy. We would expect her to do everything right and not pay any attention. Trump’s victory means we must prepare for the long fight. We will be more active and engaged. That will be a good thing for our country.”

Most angry was Patrick who would have nothing to do with the logic of working-class whites who voted for Trump. “I belong to a white working-class family here in Silicon Valley. My dad works at two temporary jobs. I have to work part-time to cope with high costs of rent, food, gas. I know what that pain is. But basic human decency counts too. Respect for others count. Respect for women count. Humility counts. How can we elect someone who is against these values? Is it only about money?”

What impressed me most was how impassioned students were about an election they deeply cared about, and how articulate they were, even though they were pressed for time. Don’t forget, this was a test in which they had to work their way through some fairly complicated statistical problems!

How do we move forward? The most eloquent response came from Erica, who wrote: “In my dark days I find strength in the words of Martin Luther King. Last night, after I had cried my heart out, I looked up these words: ‘We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.’”

Rabindranath Tagore Was the First Musician to Win the Nobel Prize for Literature

(You can read the article also here.)

Bob Dylan - Rabindranath Tagore

The decision by the Swedish Academy to award Bob Dylan the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition" was lauded by many and lamented by a few. But there was universal acknowledgment that the Academy had broken new ground by awarding the Nobel “for the first time” to a singer-songwriter since the French poet and essayist Sully Prudhomme first won it in 1901.

Mainstream media announced the news with its usual insouciant hyperbole. “It is the first time the honor has gone to a musician,” declared the New York Times. The Los Angeles Times wrote: “Dylan became the first musician to be awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.” According to the Washington Post, “Dylan … is a groundbreaking choice by the Nobel committee to select the first literature laureate whose career has primarily been as a musician.”

That Bob Dylan is being lauded as the first musician to win the Nobel Prize for Literature would have amused Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali polymath who won the Nobel Prize for Literature over a century ago in 1913.

Tagore’s literary output fills 26 volumes but to the 200 million Bengali-speaking people in Bangladesh and India’s West Bengal, as well as to the diaspora, his timeless appeal stems more from his 2000+ songs, of which he was both the lyricist and the composer, than from his poems, short stories, novels, dramas and essays. At the time of his award, his songs numbered about a thousand.

So what explains this ignorance or indifference?

The main reason, of course, was that Tagore wrote in Bengali, not as popular or powerful as English, the lingua franca of discourse across cultures and national boundaries. But as the late great Bengali sitarist Ravi Shankar wrote, “Had Rabindranath Tagore been born in the West he would now be as revered as Shakespeare and Goethe.”

To which we may add, “and Dylan.”

But there is probably another reason that also contributed to Western media’s ignorance about Tagore: Cultural (some may call it civilizational) snobbery.

It is the assumption that any new idea in science, art, technology, medicine, literature and yes, music, begins in the West and flows down to the East. The East may have a monopoly on the ‘exotic’, (after all, the Beatles did visit India for inspiration, didn’t they?) but when it comes to what truly matters, there’s no contest: West wins hands down.

How many Americans, for instance, can name one or two leading writers, poets, playwright or musicians from, say, the subcontinent? I once asked my students here in San Jose, California, and was rewarded with blank faces and some snickers.

Yet ask any adult Bangladeshi or Indian or Pakistani about leading American writers (past or present) or singers and they will rattle off names like Twain, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Dylan, Beyonce and Taylor Swift.

There is no justification for this cultural imperialism, (dare I call it hubris?) particularly when information about any culture or society is only a click away. The only requirement is curiosity and respect for the ‘other.’

Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize, according to the Academy, "because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West." 

What the Academy was referring to was the collection of Tagore’s poems knows as “Gitanjali” or “Song-Offerings.” It was published in English translation in London in March of 1913, and by the time the award was announced that year, had been reprinted ten times. The reference to “a part of the literature of the West” turned out to be wishful thinking at best!

The Bengali-speaking Amartya Sen, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics and a passionate Tagore fan, has tried in recent years to revive interest in Tagore in the West but found himself preaching mostly to the choir. “For many years,” he wrote, “Tagore was the rage in many European countries. His public appearances were always packed with people wanting to hear him. But then the Tagore tide ebbed, and by the 1930s the huge excitement was all over.”

And that’s where Tagore remains, forgotten in the West except to a few connoisseurs.

That’s a pity, for with a little bit of patience and an open mind, Americans can also acquire a taste for Tagore, particularly for his songs. Just type “Tagore Songs” or “Rabindra Sangeet” (music of Rabindranath) on YouTube and you will get thousands of hits of songs sung by leading exponents of this distinctive genre (including some by Tagore himself) that continue to captivate Bengali-speaking people around the world, seventy-five years after his death.

Bob Dylan richly deserved his prize. I confess to a soft spot for this poet/singer because he sang several of his classics in the “Concert for Bangladesh,” (“Blowin' in the Wind,” “A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall,” “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry,” “Love Minus Zero/No Limit,” “Just Like a Woman” and “Mr. Tambourine Man”), organized by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar at the Madison Square Garden in New York on August 1, 1971, during the height of Bangladesh’s War of Independence. 

It is not far-fetched to hope that Dylan’s award will spur interest in the first singer-songwriter who won the Nobel Prize for Literature one hundred and three years before the American genius did. The Government of Bangladesh can also help by instituting a Tagore Award, to be given out every four years to anyone making a breakthrough in Interdisciplinary Research, be it in the Sciences or in the Arts, in honor of one of the most prolific and protean geniuses the world has ever seen.

Honor Killing and Misogyny are Two Sides of the Same Coin

(You can also read the article here.)

We are horrified by honor killings and rightly so. That’s why when Pakistan, a country where the practice is prevalent, passed a tough law against it on October 6, we cautiously rejoiced. Perhaps now the killers of daughters and sisters in societies afflicted with this deadly vice will be brought to justice.

A day later, we learned of remarks Donald Trump made in 2005 to a group of admiring toadies on a studio bus about the apparently irresistible attraction he exerted on women. 

Married in January of that year to his third and current wife Melania, he boasted in language unprintable in a family newspaper how he could grope women at will because of his celebrity status. “When you’re a star, they let you do it,” was how he summed up his ways with young, and always white, women.

Pakistan and the United States are two starkly dissimilar countries, yet the two events show that misogyny transcends both border and the GNP. Treating women as less than human, 

- main reason for honor killing - and treating them as sex objects - main reason for sexual assaults - are, in fact, two sides of the same coin.

Consider the statistics.

In addition to hundreds of thousands of sexual assaults every year, on the average, about 500 women are killed annually in Pakistan over perceived damage to ‘honor,’ which includes marrying against family’s consent, elopement, socializing with men, and ‘crimes’ of passion and ‘immoral’ behavior, as defined by men.

The new law mandates life imprisonment for convicted murderers. It has come under attack from some sections of the clergy who accused the government of trying to impose ‘Western Values’ on a Muslim country. But it has also been welcomed by Pakistan’s Human Rights advocates who hope it will bring about a cultural shift in their society.

The critical test will be whether the government has what it takes to enforce the law in Pakistan.

Although statistics vary, according to a study by the ‘National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey’, with support from the ‘National Institute of Justice,' over a million American women annually are victims of sexual assault, rape or attempted rape. According to another survey commissioned by the Association of American Universities, in four years of college, more than one-fourth of undergraduate women at a large group of leading universities said they had been sexually assaulted.

What adds to these chilling numbers are the victims of sex trafficking who often go undetected and unreported.  According to the ‘National Human Trafficking Resource Center,' in the first six months of 2016 alone, about 4,000 sex-trafficking cases have been reported in the U.S. (Worldwide, the estimate is over 20 million annually). 

One of the main enablers of sex-trafficking is a web-based company called ‘Backpage,’ about which Kamala Harris, California’s Attorney General who is running for the U.S. Senate in the November election, said: “Backpage and its executives purposefully and unlawfully designed Backpage to be the world’s top online brothel.” 

Harris issued a warrant that led to the arrest of Carl Ferrer, the CEO of Backpage, on felony charges of ‘pimping a minor, pimping, and conspiracy to commit pimping.’

It happened on the same day that we learned of Trump’s infamous tape.

“Women’s rights are human rights,” declared First Lady Hillary Clinton at the Fourth United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing in September 1995.

It is true that our awareness of the violence of honor killing and misogyny since then have increased but real progress in these areas have been painfully slow. Far too many men worldwide, educated and uneducated alike, continue to treat women as chattels and far too many women continue to be victims of men, often paying with their lives. Far too many men take pride in their propensity for objectifying women while denying it outright. We just witnessed this in the second debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump when the Republican nominee repeated what has got to down as one of the most Orwellian lies of all time: “Nobody respects women more than I do!”

Honor killings by powerful or conservative families in many poor countries, and sexual assaults by powerful men in many rich countries, with the lucrative business of
sex-trafficking flourishing in rich and poor countries alike, are driven by the same factors of power, lust, cruelty, greed and insecurity. We must use a combination of enforceable law, exemplary punishment and education to ensure that women enjoy the same privileges of freedom, dignity and honor that men like Donald Trump seek to destroy with their action.