OPINION
Oscar glory for Pakistan
C
ongratulations to Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, and
congratulations to Pakistan. It is great news for
every Pakistani that Ms Obaid-Chinoy secured
the prestigious Oscar award for her documentary, A Girl
in the River, at the 88th Academy Awards ceremony for
the second time. She has shown great courage and
guts by covering the sensitive topic of honour killings,
which, sadly, still very much takes place in the 21st century. Ms Obaid-Chinoy has stirred the conscience of the
Pakistani people and possibly those in the corridors of
power. She selected a subject that results in the death of
innocent girls, almost every day, but successive governments in Pakistan have failed to introduce a law for punishing culprits of this inhuman act. We, as a nation, do
not have the courage to face the cruel realities of life and
condemn such barbaric acts. It is hoped this documentary will open the eyes of our lawmakers, who, instead
of wasting time in parliament on petty matters, will introduce a law for exemplary punishment of perpetrators of
this crime. Another sorry state of affairs in Pakistan is
that many fellow Pakistanis, instead of celebrating this
Oscar, will criticise Sharmeen for exposing to the world
that we still live in a period when women are treated in
an inferior manner as compared to men, and subjected
to all forms of cruelty. We still murder our daughters, sisters and mothers in the name of ‘honour’, with the most
recent case emerging out of Sahiwal on March 2.
7 | BOOM