Qandeel Baloch was a beautiful and a spunky woman with a zest for life.  She was the darling of the social media in Pakistan.  Indeed, she was snidely but also admirably referred to as the Kim Kardashian of Pakistan depending on what you think of the American socialite.  But let me not digress.  In essence, Qandeel represented everything that is anathema to a deeply feudal and suffocating orthodox society that Pakistan can be.  To be comfortable in your sexuality, dressing the way you want to, living life on your own terms, in other words, acquiring a second skin of western mores.  Surely a price had to be paid, and pay she did.  Her own brother throttled her to death in the name of restoring the ‘family honor’.  This thing called ‘family honor’ is a very curious beast not just in Pakistan, but also in India.  It is quite fragile and vulnerable, and it’s basically used to control and make women conduct themselves in a certain way.  The more docile and submissive they are, the more this creature will find sustenance.

  This pious cant about honor and tradition has been effectively used to keep the patriarchal order intact.  A woman was saddled with the soul destroying burden of being the repository of the family’s shame and honor.  A kind of human receptacle where the clan would pour into all of their fears and anxieties.  As if how she lived or not lived validated their own identity.  Qandeel Baloch’s very existence tapped into this primal fear of the reversal of the established order.  Whether to kill somebody for the choice of her lifestyle, or to harass and hound someone because you didn’t agree with the choice of their life partner is the symptom of the same malaise that is corroding the soul of a large section of society.

  For every sister like Qandeel, there are many brothers like Waseem (that was his name), lurking in the shadow, marinating in their misogyny.  Consumed by their impotent rage to make sense of the modern world and its women, these hateful dregs of humanity will not hesitate to murder their own wife, mother and sister.  I mourn for you Qandeel.  We’ve failed you as a society in fact, we are as much complicit in your murder as the actual man who did it.  We, in our self-righteous notion as to how ‘good girls’ are supposed to lead their life, we in our insatiable appetite for gossip, we through our constant condemnation and judgment, have all contributed our bit in bringing about this horrible tragedy.  

So, after a lot of bumpy ride, the Republican Party’s convention finally came to its conclusion in Cleveland, Ohio with Donald Trump formally anointed as the nominee to take on Hillary Clinton come November in what’s going to be perhaps the most bitterly contested and brutal elections in our lifetime.  Add not least because of such high stakes involved considering the current the geopolitical and economic situation not only in the United States, but around the world.  What is also going to be unique about this election is the personalities of the two contenders on either side of the political divide, but particularly what Mr. Trump has brought to the table as an opponent to the quintessential establishment person and Democratic nominee Ms. Hillary Clinton.  In what is undoubtedly the longest acceptance speech in the history of campaign nomination, Donald Trump, while essentially preaching to the converted, tried to paint a dark vision for the people in the event of him not becoming the President.  His acrid rhetoric was based on grievance and contempt, old hurt and new.  There was no humor, only poisonous anger directed against his opponent.  It is mind boggling the way he is putting out and projecting himself as the panacea for all the ills affecting the American society.  Can one man really have all the answer to the very complex problems of our time? Mr. Trump seems to think so.  “Get me into the office and I will fix everything.  I know how to get things done.”  If the main purpose of the convention was to humanize Mr. Trump, it wasn’t too much of a success because if you don’t feel empathy or sympathy for that person, you can’t see the humane side of him.  And in that cauldron of paranoia and prejudice, it was very difficult to see the human dimension of Donald Trump.  Whatever may be happening in America right now, things are never as dire as they seem, they never are.  But judging by the oratory employed, you would think “after me, deluge.”  I am just thinking what will happen if Mr. Trump is not able to achieve his dream of becoming the President of the United States after  all.  Because make no mistake, until now, every six out of ten American voter has a very unfavorable view of Donald Trump.  So something will have to change drastically between now and November to install him in the Oval Office.  He has staked so much on this like a maniac, really put himself out there, on the line.  I don’t know how religious he is, but he must be fancying himself as Moses parting the red sea and leading the faithful to the Promised Land.  I shudder to think how will he deal with failure.  Only time will be the judge.