Donkey Punch: On the Politics of Zoosadism

Photo: ACF Animal Rescue 

According to the author and journalist Fatima Bhutto, it makes little real difference who wins the election held today in Pakistan amidst predictable violence and claims of widespread vote-rigging. 

It is, she says, the nation's supreme tragedy "that such a young, hopeful, promising people are offered this glut of shoddy candidates", all eagerly playing their role in a political circus - including the ex-cricketer turned sinister clown, Imran Khan, peddling a morally flexible manifesto and relying upon the support of the powerful military establishment. 

Khan's mixture of militancy and misogyny is shocking and depressing enough. But most shocking and depressing of all is the following tale of animal cruelty reported by Ms Bhutto ...

On 17 July, Karachi-based supporters of Khan's political party - the PTI  - tied a donkey to a pole: 

"They punched its face till its jaw broke, ripped open its nostrils, and drove a car into its body, leaving the animal to collapse, having been beaten to within an inch of his life. Before they left, they wrote 'Nawaz' (the name of the former prime minister) into its flesh, seemingly inspired by their leader, Imran Khan, who has taunted [his opponents in the PML-N] as ghaddhay or donkeys. The donkey was rescued by the ACF Animal Rescue team, a private organisation, who noted that, even days later, it could not stand up on its own because of the ferocity of its torture. It soon succumbed to its injuries, an innocent creature beaten to death for entertainment."

As if that wasn't horrifying enough:

"A day later, another donkey in Karachi was mercilessly attacked, this time the skin on its face was ripped off, the flesh on its forehead torn apart till all that remained between its eyes was a pulpy, bloody hole."

What, really, is one supposed to make of such disgusting acts of cruelty?

Bhutto worries that it is yet one more sign of the horror to come in her homeland. And maybe she's right: for zoosadism is one of those behaviours often considered a precursor to psychopathic violence; i.e., research indicates that madmen who can cheerfully punch a donkey in the face, are far more likely to punch their fellow man in the back of the head.

See: Fatima Bhutto, 'Imran Khan is only a player in the circus run by Pakistan's military', The Guardian, (24 July, 2018): click here to read online. 

Thanks to Afiya Zia for bringing the above article to my attention. 

The Case of Qandeel Baloch

How em looking?

The murder of 26-year-old model and social media celebrity Qandeel Baloch by a sibling attempting to restore and secure his family's honour, has succeeded only in elevating her status and bringing genuine shame onto himself, his religion and his nation.   

Whether by accident or design, Miss Baloch transformed herself from just another Kim Kardashian wannabe and pouting selfie-queen, into a political activist and pop-feminist icon within the deeply depressing Islamic dystopia that is Pakistan today.    

Her death, far from being senseless - as some liberal commentators like to claim - actually makes perfect sense within the misogynistic logic of a phallocratic regime. As Afiya Zia writes, it's simply a continuation of the "historic and routine act of eliminating female bodies that are defiant of the male-defined socio-sexual order".

She continues: "The more threatening that fitna-potent women in Muslim contexts are, the more chances that they will be physically eliminated to prevent rupture of the order." There was, thus, a grim inevitability that Miss Baloch's fate would be a tragic one. And hardly surprising that it would be at the hands of a close male relative. 

Obviously, something needs to change: we need to stop thinking of young girls as symbols of family honour, or pieces of family property; we need to dispel the fear and loathing that continues to surround female bodies; and, as Afiya Zia, suggests, we need "more women like Qandeel to scale up the discomfort of those privileged hypocrites and morality-mongers who fear sexual women more than murderous men".


Note: I am grateful to Pakistani feminist and critic Afiya S. Zia for sharing her recently written and as yet unpublished article, 'A Problem Called Qandeel', with me and consenting to my quoting from it.