PHOTO: ASFA SULTAN/EXPRESS TRIBUNE
KARACHI: March Eight marks Worldwide Ladies’s Day across the globe however in Pakistan, it additionally marks the one most polarising day of the 12 months – the day of the Aurat March.
Regardless of unprecedented backlash from the far-right, on Sunday, Karachi witnessed lots of protesting with elevated fervour, demanding their rights. The venue echoed with chants of ‘Hum lekay rahengay, Azadi,’ (we’ll take our freedom, come what could) as arms swirled within the air to the sound of Laal Meri.
PHOTO: ASFA SULTAN
The night noticed a sequence of feelings and various teams of individuals coming collectively for related aims. However what visuals did they carry alongside to assist their trigger? Let’s simply say, it will depend on the way you have a look at it. From the place we stand, it might both be a threatening array of colors too daring to be worn by the peculiar – or a rainbow that fades finally however scrapes its method throughout the sky, demanding to be observed and remembered.
PHOTO: ASFA SULTAN
The inciting slogans from previous years needed to be toned down, with out changing into ineffective by any measure. Because the march matures, contributors understood that their witty slogans could not convey the correct message to the viewers they had been making an attempt to achieve.
PHOTO: YUMNA AFTAB
The 12 months’s theme demanded bodily autonomy, terming itself as ‘mera jism meri marzi‘ (my physique, my selection), however for some, the slogans needed to be damaged down lest most people deem them ‘immoral,’ or ‘vulgar’. Thus, many produced some fascinating works of craft with their pens, papers and, properly, memes.
PHOTO: ASFA SULTAN
You don’t converse German with the French, except you need to tick them off. So you set a spin on that, in a enjoyable method after all, and produce Meray Paas Tum Ho memes with Khalilur Rehman Qamar’s face hooked up to them, which is precisely what many did.
Learn: Aurat March placards flip up the warmth towards Khalilur Rehman
PHOTO: ASFA SULTAN
One poster even referred to as for Daya (from CID) to interrupt the patriarchy (as a substitute of the door), whereas one other used Deepika Padukone’s image to level out that not each woman desires about aik chutki sindoor.
However many knew even that might provoke hatred, so that they used the one phrase that drove the first discourse earlier than the march and put a spin on it. Thus, it broke into questions like ‘mera poster, tumhari marzi?‘ (my poster, your selection?), making method for ‘mera mazhab, meri marzi‘ (my faith, my selection) in an allusion to compelled conversion, and ‘mera wajood, meri marzi‘ (my existence, my selection), with the 4 phrases taking many kinds however revolving round related notions.
PHOTO: ASFA SULTAN
Those that didn’t need to query these notions, or goal any figures to place some extent throughout, got here up with a number of different methods to specific their calls for with out politicising them. They hung slogans from their ears and round their necks, claiming that their time is right here. They marched throughout the roads, donning ajrak with slogans wrapped throughout their our bodies.
PHOTO: ASFA SULTAN
Others, nevertheless, highlighted that they don’t require anybody’s permission to thrive, with some merely deciding to appear to be Frida Kahlo with their eyebrows talking for themselves.
PHOTO: ASFA SULTAN
Because the march wrapped up till subsequent 12 months, the demand for rights and freedom stays. And so do the questions – will the necessity for such artistic measures current itself with such urgency in future years? Or will dissent fall silent?
PHOTO: ASFA SULTAN
Right here’s hoping that girls – and people who stand with them – proceed to search out it in themselves to specific with out restraint.
Printed in The Categorical Tribune, March 10th, 2020.
