Thursday, September 15, 2005

The war on ignorance

I'm amazed it took Paul Martin to point out the utter disgrace that was Pervez Musharraf's comment on rape victims in Pakistan:
Musharraf, speaking to the Washington Post newspaper earlier this week, questioned the motives of rape victims in Pakistan who now want to emigrate to Canada and other western countries for their safety.

"You must understand the environment in Pakistan...This has become a money-making concern," the Post quoted Musharraf saying in a long interview.

"A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped."

There may be more noted issues in play at the U.N., but for sheer detachment from reality it's awfully hard to top a claim that the likes of Mukhtar Mai are greedy for wanting to escape Pakistan alive. Of course, making that part of official Pakistani policy may well do the trick, and Musharraf managed that already before being shouted down.

On the other hand, maybe Musharraf's constructive solution to deal with rape is to have the victims follow through on Nazish Ashgar's threat of self-immolation following a gang-rape. Or perhaps to follow through with the charge of "loose morals" that was leveled at Ashgar after her rape.

Yet another option would be the action taken toward Shazia Khalid, who was forced out of Pakistan through repeated death threats. The apparent message from Musharraf on this one: here's your homicidal mob, what's your hurry?

Meanwhile, Musharraf feels unfairly singled out on the basis that rape happens everywhere. The latter fact is unfortunately true, but most governments at least have the sense not to actively vilify the victim, or accuse her of seeking to be raped for profit. And until Musharraf gets in line on that point, no other state with any respect for human rights should be putting large amounts of trust in Musharraf.

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