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.