The Repercussions of Nuclearization on Pakistani Women
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Development. Copyright © 1999 The Society for International Development. SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), 1011-6370 (199906) 42:2; 71–73; 008413.
Local/Global Encounters
The Repercussions of Nuclearization on Pakistani Women S A B A G U L K H AT TA K 1
ABSTRACT Saba Khattak looks at the impact of the Pakistan nuclear industry on women. She argues that the nuclear programme has a specific impact on women as the poorest and less powerful in their society.
The system empties our memory or fills it with garbage, and so it teaches us to repeat history instead of making it. Tragedy repeats itself as farce, the famous prophecy announced. But with us it’s worse: tragedy is repeated as tragedy. Galeano (1991)
Women and nuclear explosions Many Pakistanis proudly celebrated Pakistan’s nuclear explosions because, in their opinion, Pakistan had successfully repeated what the big powers had achieved, and carved a place for itself in history. Others, aware of the tragedy, highlighted the dangers of nuclear weapons’ effects upon human life and nature. However, very few questioned or expressed concern about how nuclearization might affect women as a group. While men as well as women are affected by what happens in the country, women, being more vulnerable, suffer more under negative trends. Both nationally and internationally, women’s groups and movements have lobbied for peace and protested against the negative trends of militarization and nuclear weapons; however, in the current atmosphere, it seems that their voices have been all but forgotten. The question of women and public space in the nuclear debate hardly exists in the popular imagination in Pakistan. We have been largely using theories of imperialism, morality and pragmatism to justify our quest for power in a world that we construct as Hobbesian: where realpolitik prevails, survival of the fittest is the rule; balance of power principles, game theory and deterrence theory dominate. These conceptions, steeped in a masculinist view and patriarchal nature of the state, make women ever more invisible.
13 Khattak (cr/k) 21/4/99 10:47 am Page 72
Development 42(2): Local/Global Encounters I write this piece with a sense of hesitation as well as conviction. Hesitation, because it is difficult to talk about women as a single category when the impact on women of nuclearization will vary due to divisions of class, geographical location/ethnicity and ideas or ideological stances. Conviction, because one can make some assertions with certainty, based on past experience of militarization and its effects upon women in Third World contexts. The impact of nuclearization upon women can be addressed in two contexts: economic/material and non-material/ideational. Impact at the economic level One can only conjecture at this point about the economic implications for women because the economic picture is not entirely clear yet. Economic sanctions induced by the nuclear explosions will affect women more negatively. In a world of market liberalization and IMF
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