Now here’s a brave woman: a Pakistani who goes by the name of “Eiynah” and is described in Pakistan Today this way:

Eiynah is a Pakistani-Canadian blogger/illustrator who writes about sexuality in Pakistan. She dreams of a progressive motherland and is also a children’s book author. She blogs at http://www.nicemangos.blogspot.com, and tweets at @Nicemangos

And in yesterday’s issue of Pakistan Today, you’ll find her piece: “An open letter to Ben Affleck“. As a few quotes below will show, she goes after Affleck for trying, as she argues, to minimize the plight of Muslim women like her. Just a bit to give you the flavor:

Noble liberals like yourself always stand up for the misrepresented Muslims and stand against the Islamophobes, which is great but who stands in my corner and for the others who feel oppressed by the religion? Every time we raise our voices, one of us is killed or threatened. I am a blogger and illustrator, no threat to anyone, Ben, except for those afraid of words and drawings. I want the freedom to express myself without the very real fear that I might be killed for it. Is that too much to ask?

When I wrote a children’s book that carried a message of diversity and inclusivity for everyone, my life changed. My book, ‘My Chacha (uncle) is Gay’ has the innocent anti-homophobia message, ‘Love belongs to everyone’. This was not palatable to many of my Muslim brothers and sisters.

Since that project I have been declared an ‘enemy of God’ and deemed worthy of death. All because I want to help create a world where South Asian children too can have their stories told, so they too can know that love comes in all forms, and that that’s okay. My Muslim brothers and sisters were hit hard by this work because it addresses the issue of homophobia within our own community. It is not something they can pass off as ‘Western’ immorality. Just like they deny that any issues exist within the doctrine of Islam, many deny that homosexuality exists amongst good, ‘moral’ Muslims. Just like that, millions of people’s existence is denied. Please do not defend people who think this way, and let me tell you Ben, many ‘good’ Muslims do think this way.

What you did by screaming ‘racist!’ was shut down a conversation that many of us have been waiting to have. . . You became an instant hero, a defender of Islam.

Well, maybe Affleck became a hero to those who willfully overlook the excesses of Islam that are not confined to only a small percentage of Muslims, but to me he’s an ignoramus—and a dangerous one. A 2013 Pew Poll showed that 76% of Pakistani Muslims who favor making sharia the law of the land (and that’s 86% of those Muslims) favor the death penalty for those who leave Islam. That’s at least 50% of all Pakistani Muslims.  89% of that 86% (a minimum of 77% of Pakistani Muslims) favor stoning to death as punishment for adultery. And 88% of that 86% (minimum of 76%) favor corporal punishment for crimes like theft. This is not a small minority or a “fringe,” at least in Pakistan. And Eiynah hits that point hard.

In your culture you have the luxury of calling such literalists “crazies”, like the Westboro Baptist Church, for example. In my culture, such values are upheld by more people than we realise. Many will try to deny it, but please hear me when I say that these are not fringe values. It is apparent in the lacking numbers of Muslims willing to speak out against the archaic Shariah law. The punishment for blasphemy and apostasy, etc, are tools of oppression. Why are they not addressed even by the peaceful folk who “aren’t fanatical, who just want to have some sandwiches and pray five times a day? Where are the Muslim protestors against blasphemy laws/apostasy? Where are the Muslims who take a stand against harsh interpretation of Shariah? These sandwich-eating peaceful folk do not defend those suffering in the name of Islam, Ben, and therein lies our problem.

This is just part of her letter, but I also wanted to put up the ending, because it’s snarky—but in a good way:

If I were allowed to meet a man that is not my father, brother or husband unchaperoned, I would have loved to discuss this over drinks (which I am also not allowed to have) with you. So, you see, things must change.

Sincerely,
Eiynah

The website is apparently produced from Lahore, so I’m at a real loss to understand how this letter got published (Eiynah must be a pseudonym) given the state of Islam there. But I’m also chuffed that it got published.

h/t: Marcel ~