You Can Escape a Country, But You Can’t Escape Its Culture

Canada is a beautiful country, it is a country that has been kind to me in ways that my own birth country never could have been. In Pakistan, I was a member of a religious minority, the Ahmadi Muslim sect. The law there persecutes us and most people do not want us to exist there. I am a woman, I am an Ex-Muslim and I am dark-skinned and it is so unfortunate to be all those things in this world, but especially to be those things and be born in Pakistan. I left Islam many years ago; becoming Atheist was an integral part of my immigrant experience in Canada. And it would have been difficult, and outright dangerous, to be an Atheist in Pakistan. Being in Canada allowed me to embrace my sexuality, my womanhood and my atheism. But make no mistakes, Canada is no heaven on Earth.
I consider Canada to be my sanctuary — coming here felt like finally coming home, like I could finally sit down and breathe a sigh of relief and feel safe. I escaped religious persecution and a culture of misogyny that was so rampant, so tangible, that even the act of being alone in a public space alone would be considered daring for a woman. I am not writing this to convince anyone that Canada is perfect — I know misogyny exists everywhere, I know bigotry exists everywhere. I am painfully aware that no place on this earth can ever be my ultimate refuge. The difference between Pakistan and Canada isn’t that misogyny does not exist here, the difference is that I have never been kept from speaking up against it and that I have always had choices and the right to choose. The difference is that the law here does not legitimize the violence and misogyny against me — and trust me, that matters.
Misogyny is like this inevitable street you always have to cross and go through as a woman, and it is always filled with the shards of women’s broken dreams but sometimes the shards are less than other times. Sometimes the path is easier and shorter to navigate and sometimes you have the choice to avoid crossing the street the best you can. Living in Pakistan never could have given me that choice, not for a moment. This essay is not a tribute to Canada, I write it because it is important to acknowledge that Canada is not a feminist utopia for all women. It is, in fact, far from being a utopia for Muslim and Ex-Muslim women who still find themselves entangled in a culture of religious misogyny that they may have hoped to left behind them.
Canada has indeed been my sanctuary, but it is not a sanctuary for every woman who comes here from Muslim countries that have inherited internalized misogyny. Sometimes, the culture and its traditions follow you here, stalk you and stay with you forever almost as though in holy matrimony. Being in Canada does not bring freedom to everyone. Honour killings happen here, forced marriages happen here and even when progressives and liberals criticize these inhumane practices, they tiptoe and dance around their criticism. Not offending Muslim communities and not offending Islam takes priority over actually condemning inhumane and regressive misogynistic cultural practices. Most Canadian Muslims definitely do not think that honour killings are okay, but most of them do uphold women’s modesty as an integral cultural and religious value. And I think we can all benefit from an honest critique of how the obsession with a woman’s modesty leads to the legitimization of practices like honour killing and female genital mutilation.
The modesty culture that is pervasive in Muslim communities is what often leads to justification for honour killings, and other forms of honour-driven violence towards women. Modesty culture entails policing women’s bodies and sexuality, and tying the value of women and their family’s honour to the way they dress, and the way they conduct their sexuality. Modesty culture thrives on controlling women’s behaviour as a way of “preventing” sexual assault — and it blames a woman’s behaviour if she is sexually or physically violated. Honour killing is merely a symptom of this culture and it would be intellectually dishonest to not criticize and denounce honour killings without criticizing a culture that sets the framework for this level of violence. It would be like me constantly lamenting the outbreak of measles at Disneyland that took place a few years ago without talking about the anti-vaccine culture that exits in the United States.
Being in Canada does not protect women from honour killings, it does not protect them from being forced into marriage, it does not protect them from being forced into wearing the hijab or from being forced out of gaining an education or building a career. There are women who are kept from living the lives they want, every day. I know a woman, let’s call her Zainab, she wanted children and she wanted a home, and those wishes of hers were validated and granted by her family and culture. However, she also wanted to have a good job, a job that would make her feel like she was making a positive contribution to this world. But her husband did not “allow” that, and she accepted that because that is just how things are supposed to be.
When I interviewed my friend Zainab and asked her whether or not she regretted not having had the opportunity to build a career, she gave me an honest assessment of how she felt about her life:
“Maybe I would have if I did not feel fulfilled with my life as a housewife. But it is enriching for me to take care of my home, my family and kids. I don’t necessarily regret this life, but I do wish that the option for a different life had been there.”
I asked Zainab what it was she wanted to pursue her career in, and if she will be willing to give her career another try. Zainab told me that she wanted to be a film-maker, and had gone to school for film-making, and went on to explain how it was now too late to pursue her career,
“I have 3 kids now and a home to look after, I am far too used to this life to try and change it. The idea of change is quite scary to be honest, but if I were to pursue film-making, it would hurt my husband and my family and I cannot be selfish like that.”
There is a sub-culture of Pakistani women who are referred to as imported brides, my friend Zainab is one of those women. These “imported brides” are sent off with a man to be married to so they could have kids here and build a better future for them here. However, it is never about them, it is about their potential children that they had not even given birth to. Before these women could even begin to discover the freedom that I have experienced — it is already taken away from them through forced and unwanted marriages.
And it is such a pity.
Sexual and domestic violence in Pakistani households are common and while victims have the legal right to file a complaint about this to the police, the family and cultural pressure is far too much to handle for many. Opening up about such things often leads to being ostracized by their community, and if you are an economically disadvantaged woman, it can put you in a particularly vulnerable position. No matter the laws in Canada, no matter the fact that the culture here mostly does not legitimize violence — there is still no escaping or recourse for women who are made to stand and abide by a culture that, so often, legitimizes violence.
Private religious schools in Canada keep a culture of religious misogyny intact. They are private institutions, and nothing they teach, even if what they teach is morally and ethically wrong, will ever come under public scrutiny. Oftentimes, the teachings will be defended by some who would say, “We are just preserving our culture and to speak against it is disrespectful”. But a culture is only worth respecting insofar as it respects people, and I do believe my culture — or rather the culture that I was born in — can be better than this, must be better. There are secular Muslim activists who are working tirelessly, who are doing great things in their communities and abroad in an effort to change the social and political direction of Muslim cultures.
There are people within the culture — Muslims and Ex-Muslims alike — who resist this kind of regressive and misogynistic nonsense every day. But when children are taught in private schools that women are somehow less than men, that they have to somehow work harder to get to heaven because they are less likely to be forgiven, when these same children become adults — it is an enormous challenge for them to unlearn these ideas and values. In effect, a culture of misogyny is maintained with the help of private Muslim schools right here in Canada. And no one dares to criticize or speak up against what goes on in these schools every day, lest they offend someone’s cultural or religious sensibilities.
A friend of mine, let’s call her Lubna, who went to a private Islamic school told me that the worst thing about the culture in these schools is how you are not allowed to question even the most minor things — not just things related to religion — but anything. She told me, in great detail, how challenging this became:
“In English Literature classes, parts of the story that were seemingly risque were purposely censored. The stories had to be tame and sexually non-graphic. We had to write an analysis of Cleopetra’s character and we were told strictly to avoid talking about her sexual prowess, or any of her sexual adventures, even though that was a very main characteristic of her. The story we were told in school entirely censored that part of her.”
Lubna went on to tell me that they had entire parts of films censored in English Literature classes, that the kissing scenes in Romeo and Juliet were purposely fast-forwarded and, interaction between the men and women in these schools was highly policed. Shaking hands with men was looked down upon.
Lubna also articulated the immense difficulties she faced fitting into mainstream culture once she had graduated from high school. She explained:
“All of a sudden I found myself in a room full of men and women and we were watching Blue Is The Warmest Colour together — it was part of my gender studies course. And there is a 10–15 minute long and elaborate sex scene there and I found myself feeling embarrassed and flustered, and I don’t even know what I was feeling embarrassed about, I wasn’t the person acting out the sex scene in this film. But I had been taught to feel embarrassed of sex and sexuality in general. And these were two women having sex — which is considered the ultimate sin.”
Lubna went on to explain her mixed feelings on seeing the sex scene:
“Sexual expression has always been tabooed in Muslim cultures, I really did not know what to feel when I was watching that scene. I felt embarrassed but I also felt like that tight seal I had placed on my sexual desires was finally coming off. I found myself craving for human touch, I found myself realizing how touch-starved I had been. And yet I felt constantly embarrassed and couldn’t look at that scene without looking away every other second. It was as though I was running away from the feeling that I, too, wanted a woman to love me and touch me like that.”
When I asked Lubna if she also faced trouble with regards to dating, considering dating is largely taboo in Muslim cultures, she was honest and heartfelt:
“I had to hide all of my boyfriends and girlfriends, but it honestly didn’t feel like that big a deal — hiding your love life and partners from your family is a tradition as old as time in Muslim communities. You don’t feel alone in that experience when practically every other Muslim Pakistani woman around you is going through that. But I had been deprived of the experience of dating for almost two decades of my life — the hardest part about being deprived of these human experiences is at some point you just find yourself craving for something crave about. I craved for touch and sex and love, but I couldn’t even crave for it properly. What was I craving for? How was I to even know what these experiences felt like? The milestones that people celebrate in their teenage years were things that outright scared me. They were like the forbidden fruits I was told never to bite.”
Strangely enough and somewhat comforting, Lubna’s experience reminded me of my own experience. Even though I never went to a private Islamic school, her words do at least partially describe what it was like for me to transition from a traditional Pakistani culture to the very individualized and sexually liberal culture in Canada. But it honestly never felt like this transition that was hard to do — it felt like something I had been ready for all my life. It felt like something that I had always been waiting for. But throughout this, I must acknowledge that this transition is considerably more difficult for many of my fellow Pakistani and South Asian women, women like Zainab and Lubna who are deliberately deprived of so many of the liberating freedoms and the rights that Canada is presumed to guarantee for so many.
We certainly cannot undermine the role that racism plays in all this — racism is what encourages Muslim people to build cultural enclaves where violence towards women is legitimized. Racism is why Muslims feel compelled to endlessly defend and justify even the toxic parts of their culture and religion. And then there is the racism of lowered expectations — the idea that this is what my culture is and always will be and that because my people can never be expected to do better, we must censor any and all criticism of Islam and Muslim cultures. It is almost as though no one cares about the people within Muslim cultures who suffer as a result of toxic ideologies and traditions.
Many of us suffer every day because of Islamic traditions that demand our respect but that do not respect us in turn. I am simply asking you to please speak up about it. Speak up before it is too late. And most importantly, listen to us, progressive Muslims and Ex-Muslims alike, when we quite literally violate our own privacy to tell you the things we have suffered through.
