February 18, 2024
By Bilal Baseer
ISLAMABAD
The capital city on Saturday saw dozens of people from all walks of life take part in the annually held ‘Feminist Mela‘. The Mela was held to initiate fundraising for the upcoming Aurat March activities on March 8.
“Everything that everyone has done in this mela has been voluntary,” says Bariya Shah, who is one of the main organizers of the festival. She speaks to Voicepk, while in the background, the lilting melody of a song and the percussion of the dhol fill the air.
“People have contributed their own money; we organised it with the small donations we have gotten. People have brought in homemade stuff like someone has baked cakes. We have organized it with minimum expenses and maximum effort.”
Women of all ages were joined by men too, who came to show their full support to the cause. Ghazi, a young man who has been coming to this feminist mela for the past five years also opened up about his participation.
“Last year there was a big complication because of the (radical) Islamists and their brigade of ‘Haya’ marchers,” he said. “They tried to take over our place. But this year we are trying to have solid security measures, like training our own security team which will help them to put up a fight in defense. Because last year even though the police were there, they were not trying to do anything to make us feel safe.”
Musicians, including the internationally known Arieb Azhar, and other artists also came and earned praise for their performances. There was a ‘feminist dholki’ where songs bringing down patriarchy and hoisting women’s rights, were sung; there were stalls with home-baked food, dance performances, music and open mic. The participants said that while they had gotten the opportunity to enjoy themselves by coming to the fair, the income earned here would be used to create awareness about women’s rights in society.
Dr Farzana Bari, women’s rights activist and a key organizer of the festival, spoke about the challenges this year.
“We can see an increase in backlash by those who are most reactionary, anti-women people with patriarchal mindsets,” she said. “Those people who use religion as a tool to play their political game are seen every year resurfacing on the very same day we decide to come out – that is, women’s day. They become active and begin threatening Aurat March participants.”
Dr Bari says women have the right to celebrate International Women’s Day however they want. Speaking about the NOC (No Objection Certificate), she said, that Aurat March had already applied for it – in fact, they are the first ones to have applied for it. “We did it over a month ago so that they can’t say to us we have given the venue to someone else,” she said. “But they keep telling us that they will give us the NOC, and yet they also say that there are others who have come out also like Haya March and those from the Lal Masjid, and that there will be some kind of danger and we cannot provide you the protection. This is how they discourage us from going. But we want our space and we won’t back down, so then in return our resistance increases.”
Dr Bari says they automatically become vulnerable because of that. “Not only are we susceptible to being attacked by the right-wing, but also the State of Pakistan, which can be seen as the local administration or the police, and the women are attacked.”
The participants expressed hope that the new government would come up with a better solution to this problem and give hope to the women that the State stands with them.