The Truth About Peacock Blue

by Rosanne Hawke

  A program on TV recently discussed how free our speech is. They decided that what is lawful and what is acceptable can be two different things. One man said we need to stand up, speak up and say when something is not acceptable, to use free speech to help our society.

  COMMENTS

  Tamsin We should keep freedom of speech for the important things like abuses in politics and religion, and in our dealings with people on a daily basis we need to be polite and not offend them.

  Dana You have to say what you think or you’re not being honest. If my friend looks fat I tell her. She’ll thank me later after she’s gone on a diet.

  Tamsin I pity your friends, Dana. Truth is good but truth delivered without love is judgemental and destroys relationships.

  Crystal Children in the UK learn to be inoffensive through education, music and sporting activities.

  Dana So what is blasphemy law anyway? Did Peacock Blue swear at the teacher?

  Abdulla Thousands of people are marching saying this girl should be given the death sentence. If you don’t know what blasphemy is, you all deserve what’s coming to you.

  CHAPTER

  21

  The weeks turned into two months. It was the end of July and Ramadan. Everyone fasted from sun-up to sundown; the azan, the call to prayer, told us when to pray. It was late summer, hot in the cell and no matter that I wasn’t even Muslim, no food or water came until after dark. Only Jani was given a chapatti during the day.

  There were no gifts for Eid ul Fitr at the end of the fast in August either. We were given chicken curry, at least, but there was so little chicken it was like Mrs Rafique’s soup and didn’t taste as good. Gazaalah had a set of knuckle bones and the women played together when they got too bored. It usually ended with Muneerah or Durrah shouting.

  Kamilah, Jani and I relished our courtyard exercise once a week if the guards weren’t too busy. Jani had been born in the cell so she often stood in awe gaping at the tree and sky. We were teased by the other women, though, when they realised we weren’t being tortured.

  A few days after Eid a small parcel came. The genie seemed hesitant to give it to me. It had been opened and checked. By her? If so, it had to be something she didn’t care for. Dr Amal had sent me batteries for the Walkman but they were confiscated; when I received that envelope only the note remained.

  This parcel was from Sammy. There was a note, but no return address as usual.

  Hey Cuz,

  I thought I’d send these as everyone else might be getting gifts from their families for Eid and you’d be the odd one out. We miss you and hope you are okay.

  All our love, Sammy.

  Inside were twelve tiny tubes of paint and two paintbrushes in a tin. His thoughtfulness brought me to tears. He was looking after me like a brother. What would Ijaz had done if he was alive? But I was glad he never saw me like this. Ijaz didn’t have Sammy’s lightness; he would have gone mad not being able to save me.

  I thought of the good times. The harvesting that we all helped with. The village school was shut on harvest days so we helped the men with the winnowers like huge flour sieves, as they tossed the grain high, separating the chaff from the grain. We had a harvest festival in church when it was all finished and thanked Khuda for his kindness and grace. Even though it was the landlord’s land we received a percentage.

  I took out one of my exercise books and drew pictures of the harvest with a peacock in the foreground. Before Sammy sent the paints I only had ink to paint with and I used my finger or a piece of paper. I had missed colours so much – there was no peacock blue in the cell. It was the first colour I used.

  Jani watched me. ‘Can I do that too?’

  I shifted closer to the bars dividing us, handed her a brush and ripped a piece of paper out for her.

  ‘What will you paint?’ I asked.

  ‘A bird like yours.’ Jani had never seen a peacock or a cow or a goat. Not even a chicken, so I drew them for her. I drew our whole courtyard for her to colour in.

  When letters or parcels came I felt better, even if the genie or Karam threw them in and they landed in the muck on the floor. The cleaner didn’t come every day, and we had no way to wash the cell ourselves.

  Some days I was scared and cowered on my bed, not able to move. I felt I was standing at the entrance to a tunnel in a cornfield in early summer, knowing I would have to walk through it alone and the cobras were waking. Sometimes Hafsah was feeling low and sometimes me, but never usually at the same time, so we could pull each other out of bed before a guard came with breakfast. The genie was the strictest about being out of bed. The food smelt – I felt ill most of the time. Sometimes I couldn’t wait to get to the toilet in the mornings and had to relieve myself over the hole. I washed water down, embarrassed about the smell.

  A letter came from Hadassah.

  Piari Aster

  Greetings from us all in Rawalpindi. I hope you are managing to bear up under your extreme suffering. A verse that helped me last year was ‘Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and he will strengthen your heart.’

  I pray for you all the time, for in one way we have a similar path: you are accused wrongly and I would have been too if anyone had known. Little Daud calls me Ammi, even Rebekah forgot her reticence a few weeks ago when she had a bad dream and cried for me to come. She is polite with me now.

  My life is fine after the harrowing experience I’ve had, and I pray yours will be so when you are released. It will be a different life than you imagine perhaps, but Khuda is with us wherever we are – in the belly of a fish, or in the cell of a prison.

  Please don’t lose hope or faith. I couldn’t bear it if you lost yourself. Your father is working as a rickshaw driver and does tailoring too so your parents are fine, though they worry about you. Everyone misses you so much and sends love. All my love, dear sister-cousin,

  Hadassah Bashir.

  The genie threw a paper into our cell as she delivered the breakfast next morning. ‘Read that and see what happens to evil girls like you.’

  There was a picture of a girl my age. A Light in the Dark, the title read. I read the article to Hafsah.

  We strongly condemn the attack on Malala Yousafzai and her friends. Members of the Taliban studied the daily route that Malala took to school in Swat when girls were being discouraged against going to school. But Malala stood up for girls’ right to an education. When they shot her the Taliban took responsibility, saying she had spoken against them.

  The poor girl, I knew what it felt like to be falsely accused. ‘They vow to shoot her again if she survives.’

  ‘Where is she now?’ Hafsah asked.

  I scanned the article. ‘This happened a while ago. It must be the anniversary. Now she’s in England, in a town called Birmingham.’

  ‘I hope she stays there and makes a life for herself.’

  Malala sounded like the sort of person who would want to come back and finish what she started. If she wasn’t so young, what a prime minister she would make. But it was a dangerous job. Anything was, when you stood up for someone else. Salman Taseer was murdered after he supported Asia Bibi and others like her on death row.

  ‘What else does it say?’

  ‘That we need critical thinking in education—’

  ‘What’s that?’ Kamilah asked.

  Surprisingly Muneerah answered, ‘It means being able to think for yourself and not just believe the crap we get fed.’

  I kept reading. It has the power to diffuse terrorism. It is an internal liberation that jihadism cannot offer. Malala said before she was shot that if the new generation is not given pens they will be given guns by the terrorists. We must raise our voice.

  I stopped. I’d just realised that Malala was Gul Makai. She’d been writing in the papers under that assumed name years ago. I looked for the author of the article and found with a shock that it was the daughter of Salman Taseer, the assassinated governor of the Punjab who believed in social justice and reforming th
e blasphemy law.

  I couldn’t read any more and put the paper down. I was sure the genie hoped to demoralise me, but reading about Malala from the courageous daughter of such a brave man was like putting a match under a dying fire. A phrase that I hadn’t read aloud from the article kept reverberating in my mind: the power of ignorance is frightening.

  But what could I do in prison to help my situation – or anyone else’s who was in the same predicament?

  The women in the next cell were quiet for a long time after I read from the article. Then Muneerah said, ‘They shouldn’t have shot her – she was just a good girl who could think for herself.’

  ‘What’s wrong with girls being educated anyway?’ Kamilah asked.

  Most of the women glanced my way but Gazaalah observed me with a frown.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, ‘as long as they still obey their parents and do the right thing.’

  She lifted her chin at me through the bars. ‘You, poor thing, couldn’t help being born a Masihi, I suppose.’

  I didn’t feel like explaining that we aren’t born into faith. We accept Khuda’s invitation to believe and if we decide not to, our parents don’t beat us. Our faith is in Khuda’s hands, not theirs.

  Muneerah let loose a snort. ‘Men don’t like educated girls because we get ideas of our own. They want us to be mindless slaves, still living in the dark ages, to bring up boys who treat women just like we have been.’

  The bitterness squirted out of her like a lanced boil. I stared at her until I checked myself and looked back at the paper, but I couldn’t see the words – they were too blurred.

  Later, after her sleep, Jani wanted a story.

  ‘Tell me your favourite one,’ she asked.

  I tried not to mind, even though I felt tired. Jani had helped me more than I’d known at first. Without her would I still be able to think, to remember things? Would I be like Hafsah when I first went into her cell – not caring or remembering, just sleeping all day?

  In the village I used to tell the story of Queen Aster’s choosing and wedding. It was every girl’s dream, and mine. But the wedding wasn’t the end of the story. There was intrigue, injustice, racism and ethnic cleansing.

  ‘Would you like one about a queen in Persia a long time ago?’

  Jani’s eyes brightened a little. It would be lovely to see what she would be like living free in a village like Sammy’s little sisters, Marya and Noori. When I told them the story of Aster, they were so full of happy questions.

  I began, ‘Once there was a queen in Persia called Aster.’

  ‘Like you?’ She looked surprised. ‘You’re not a queen. You’re a prisoner like Ammi.’

  I swallowed. I still couldn’t get used to being called a prisoner. I carried on with the story. ‘Queen Aster was a Jew but no one knew.’

  ‘What’s a Jew?’

  ‘It’s a religion but it’s not Muslim.’

  ‘Like you? You’re not Muslim.’

  She probably had never heard of another faith.

  ‘Nay, I’m Masihi, not Jewish either.’ I continued, ‘Her guardian, Mordecai, heard about a terrorist plot that two officials were planning against the king and he told Aster to warn him. The plot was uncovered and the officials were hanged. The king ordered Mordecai’s name to be recorded so he could be rewarded. Next, the king appointed an advisor called Haman. He was proud and not nice at all.’

  ‘Like Green Eyes?’

  ‘Maybe. Haman hated Mordecai because he wouldn’t bow to him. He wanted revenge so he deceived the king to have every Jew murdered, which would include Mordecai.’

  ‘He’s mean.’

  ‘Ji, and so Mordecai told Aster about it. “You have to ask the king to stop it.”

  “‘How can I do that? I have to be invited to see the king. If I approach him and he is displeased he will have me killed.”

  “‘Do you know how many people will suffer? Hundreds of thousands of people living in the provinces from India to Africa will be slaughtered and you cannot escape either. Are you not Jewish?”

  ‘Queen Aster said, “Pray for me and fast for three days. Then I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”’

  I paused – could I do something like that? She wouldn’t have been able to live with herself afterwards if she hadn’t tried.

  ‘After three days, Queen Aster put on her purple royal robes and stood in the inner court of the palace. The king was struck anew at her beauty and he held out his sceptre. She walked towards him and touched it.

  ‘“What is it?” he asked. “Whatever you ask for, I will give it.”

  ‘“If it pleases my Lord,” she said, “come with Haman to a banquet I have prepared.” The king was so intrigued he immediately called for Haman and they went to her rooms. After they had eaten the king asked again. “Tell me what it is you would like and I will give it, even half the kingdom.”

  “‘Nay, I ask only for my life and that of my people and Mordecai. We are to be annihilated. Please spare us, we are Jews and we are innocent.”

  ‘Then the king remembered how Mordecai had saved him from the terrorist plot. “Who would plan to kill Mordecai? And you?”

  “‘It is this man, Haman, my Lord.”

  ‘The king was so angry that he ordered Haman to be hanged on the gallows he’d built for Mordecai. Then he chose Mordecai as his advisor and, since a royal decree couldn’t be revoked, an order was sent out to the provinces that on the day the Jews would be attacked they were allowed to fight back. It became the day of Pur, a time in years to come for feasting, as Jews remembered the victory over the people who hated them just because they were Jews.’

  I heard Muneerah mumbling, ‘Those Jews, bombing our people, deserve everything they get.’

  ‘That’s a sad story,’ Jani said.

  ‘Why? Queen Aster saved her people. She’s a superhero.’ ‘But no one will save you. Muneerah says you will hang.’ Kamilah tried to shush her and I was so shocked, I turned abruptly to face the other way.

  Kamilah whispered behind me, ‘Don’t take any notice. They wouldn’t hang a girl like you. No one has been executed for blasphemy, not even those who have been given the death sentence. Aster?’

  I didn’t answer. Asia Bibi was given the death sentence, and yes, she was still alive, but living on death row would be an end to life whether you were executed or not.

  Free Peacock Blue

  To see a world where freedom,

  peace and justice reign

  Sign petition here

  Target: 125,000

  Blasphemy Law

  Dana asked in a post what blasphemy is. In a country like mine it’s not something we think about, so here is my research about blasphemy law. Wiki says blasphemy law is one that limits freedom of speech and expression relating to blasphemy or irreverence towards a religion. Australia’s constitution prohibits a state religion so it hasn’t prosecuted anyone for blasphemy since 1919, but hate speech, i.e. speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of race, religion, gender, disability or sexual orientation, is not tolerated. People who feel they have been vilified according to their religion could seek redress under legislation that prohibits hate speech.

  In the UK the last person to be executed for blasphemy was in the seventeenth century, though a film was banned for blasphemy in 1989. In most countries blasphemy is not a crime, though in Spain people can be prosecuted for vilifying religious feelings and dogmas.

  Pakistan is not the only country with a current blasphemy law. (I counted at least a dozen, though there are more, and some like Ireland only have a fine and Norway hasn’t used theirs for 80 years.) Blasphemy is a serious matter in Pakistan as well as in Afghanistan and many other countries with Sharia law (which can demand the death sentence for blasphemy); no one is to disrespect the Prophet Muhammad or Islam.

  However, the sad thing is, the blasphemy law in some countries, including Pakistan, is often used as a weapon or in
a personal vendetta. People are discriminated against even if they are only charged. Even if the court says they are innocent, they are not safe once they are released. So how will Peacock Blue fare? When she is released she will need to be relocated to a country that doesn’t observe blasphemy law.

  COMMENTS

  Rashid My country has just passed a law that Muslims who change their religion must be given the death sentence. They call changing your religion from Islam blasphemy.

  Habib People should be punished for disrespect of the Qur’an and our Prophet.

  Fozia If Muhammad’s name can’t be disrespected does that mean Eid cards can’t be thrown in the bin? Newspapers with the name Muhammad in them can’t be thrown away or burned to get a fire started. How many million people have the name Muhammad? This is ridiculous.

  Amir A man was sentenced to death recently for defiling the name of the Holy Prophet. A 3000-strong mob attacked his neighbourhood, leaving hundreds of people homeless. It was motivated by a property dispute between him and his friend.

  Ahmed In our paper a couple was accused of sending blasphemous text messages. The texts came from the wife’s mobile phone which she’d lost and the lawyer discovered neither of them could write Urdu well enough to even send a text. Still, the husband was tortured and they were both given the death sentence. The judge must have been intimidated by the prosecution lawyer.

  Affat This year one of our newspapers conducted a poll and found that 68% of Pakistanis believe the blasphemy law should be repealed.

  Dana This whole discussion is disgusting. What if people like that come to Australia and want their laws here? We’ll all get our hands chopped off and be murdered in our beds.

  Maryam What we need is a greater awareness of the lives of others, to release us from self-absorption and help us to understand.