Simorgh has an annual conference focussed on different issues. As yet we have held conferences on 'Engendering the Nation-State', 'Politics of Language' and 'Colonial Roots and Post-colonial Identites'.

1986 the First international Muslim Women's Conference to discuss the implication of fundamentalist islam as a politcal force with special reference to women and democracy. participants came from Algeria, Bangladesh, Canada, India, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, and Pakistan.

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Violence Against Women Research and Publication Project – Honor Killing

AIMS

The Violence Against Women Research and Publication Project is based on clear socio-cultural analysis. The economical dimension is addressed only tangentially as violence cuts across class and economic differences. This project is the expansion and development of both an old project and an ongoing agenda. Simorgh’s Rape (linked to publication section) booklet was printed in 1991 and the ongoing demand for the booklet and for more information on other areas of violence initiated this project.

There is a need among groups and in organisations working on women’s issues, for material on issues dealing with women’s subordinate status in society and the violence to which they are subjected. This project had been devised as part of Simorgh’s agenda to stem the increasing violence that confronts women at every stage by
i. Questioning the structures, the myths, the images and the language that give birth to reinforce this violence, and
ii. By providing data-based information on the crimes of violence perpetrated against women.

There is a need to change existing perceptions of gender relations. Simorgh holds the belief that a feminist view of violence will change existing perceptions and enable activists and ordinary citizens to question the parameters within which violence against women occurs. To this end, the ‘Violence Against Women Research and Publication Project’ is based on research and documentation, and will comprise a series of ten booklets (in Urdu and English). These publications aim to:

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Project Supervisors

Coordinator

Administrative and Finance Coordinator

Accountant

In Charge Documentation and Desktop Publication

Resource Pool

ACTIVITIES

The project will provide easy to read, accessible material for both the general public and for trainers, NGO and CBO workers, school and university students, teachers, lawyers, members of the law enforcement agencies, para-legals, trade unions etc.

As a resource and publication centre that undertakes workshop, seminars and advocacy work both nationally and regionally Simorgh is in a position to produce and disseminate these booklets in relevant quarters. The series of ten booklets will be on the following subjects:
1. Patriarchy and the Language of Violence.
2. Violence in the Family: son preference and the girl child, the woman’s right to choose, child marriages, exchange marriages, dowry, etc.
3. Domestic Violence: chulha or stove burn deaths and acid burning, wife battering including mutilation, verbal, and psychological abuse.
4. Incest and child sexual abuse.
5. Cultural Violence: honor killings, tribal traditions and customs, etc.
6. Sexual Harassment in the Street and the Workplace.
7. Rape: in the family, community, and by state agencies.
8. Institutionalised Violence: laws, educational system, prisons, police, army etc.
9. Violence of Development.
10.Trafficking and Forced Prostitution.

a. What to do and where to go in instances of violence.
b. List of institutions/individuals with addresses to whom the survivor can turn for help.
c. Other relevant information.

OUTCOME

DONOR

This project was made possible by the generous support of Global Ministries, New York.

1997 National Seminar in Lahore: “ Engendering the Nation State”.

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ENGENDERING THE NATION-STATE

AIM

In the last several years in Pakistan a great deal of discussion and debate has centered on issues of equality, freedom, development, democracy, women’s rights, workers rights etc. While there has been much focus on the democratic development and modernization of ‘backward states’, the development models pursued by these nation-states seem to have only led to increasing misery, poverty, displacement of people and general degradation. The systems of democracy put in place in formerly colonized countries have produced ambiguous results.

These disjunctions appear to be rooted in a tendency to essentialise terms instead of approaching them critically within given socio-historical contexts thus allowing rhetoric and representation to subsume socio-historical reality. Terms such as sovereignty, supreme national interests, nation-state, nationalism, patriotism, democracy, development, modernization, etc. have entered everyday public discourse and are taken as self-evident truths. Seminars and debates in Pakistan have failed to question the very terms in which we debate issues.

In a world that is undergoing restructuring at the global level, a number of these terms are beginning to lose their meanings. With the world changing from a geopolitical one to a geoeconomic one, the nation-state seems to be increasingly losing its viability as the fundamental geographical and identity- forming unit.

While much has been said on the importance of democracy and gender equality, there has been little exploration of the possibility of democracy within the context of the nation-state.As noted by several theorists, the nation-state, relying heavily on representation, constructs and re-constructs gender identities as well as the public/private in an effort to reformulate itself and reinforce its nationhood. It draws upon the division between the masculine and feminine in all its policy discourses and, in turn, relies upon this division for its own self-representation. The question to ask is: is it possible to end women’s subordination given the current construction of the nation-state? Is democracy possible as long as the state needs to reinforce gender identities and separate spheres? If not, then is such a state viable or desirable? If not, then what kinds of alternatives to the nation-state can be envisaged for the future?

In order to unravel this discourse, we need to deconstruct and at the same time restore to history, terms like nationalism, nation-state, sovereignty, patriotism, development, modernization etc. to see how we might reformulate or reject these notions in accordance with our own ground realities today. We need to re-think the very terms in which we talk, the very language we use to express our ‘realities’ current and desired. It was with a view towards achieving this that Simorgh conceived a seminar to look at the ways in which social and political realities are gendered; and as gendered realities they produce inequalities, hierarchies and injustices that arise from the basic premises on which these entities are predicated.

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Simorgh published the papers presented during this conference in two books:

Engendering the Nation- State Vols. 1 & 2

DONOR
This conference was made possible with the generous support of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Islamabad.

A continuation of the process begun with conference, ‘ Engendering The Nation-State’ in 1997, this conference hopes to critically examine the links between the late nineteenth and early twentieth century colonial discourses and movements and emergence of pot-colonial identities and discourses in South Asia.

In keeping with our plan to encourage action research, Simorgh Women’s Resource and Publication Centre Organized a conference, “Colonial Roots and Post –Colonial Identities” in December 2001 and "Politics of language" in 2003.

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COLONIAL ROOT ANDPOST COLONIAL IDENTITIES

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Over 25 years military rule interspersed with periods of specious democracy have led to the erosion of democratic institutions, norms and practice in Pakistan. More than anything else, the socio-political mayhem of the ten post-Zia-ul- Haq year bears witness to this fact. Although no social or political institution has escaped the taint of dictatorship, perhaps the worst calamity- precisely because it is less visible and tangible –has been in the area of freedom of thought and speech. Both the media and the educational institutions have been and continue to be circumscribed by officially sanctioned boundaries. Regionally, this would provide the space to examine and contextualise the discursive similarities and differences in the three countries that shared a common history before a parting of the ways took place first in 1947 and then in 1971. For those of us who have lived through different military governments, this would also be a crucial step enabling us to critique the teleological approach to knowledge, which serves the purpose of authoritarianism at all levels of social and political life. The title for the first conference in this series will be “ Colonial Roots and post colonial identities” and the period that will be explored will lie roughly between the mid 19th and mid 20th centuries. This period has been selected, as it saw not only the emergence of indigenous nationalism but also of debates on “purdah” and women’s segregation, polygamy, child marriage etc. it was also the time when colonial interventions in the fields of economics and Indian representation in government service etc had coalesced in modes that still inform patterns of governance and official hierarchies in the post colonial states of the subcontinent.
The conference aims:

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Simorgh plans a three-day national seminar to examine and critique the rhetoric and representation of the concepts discussed above in the light of their impact on socio-economic and legal discourses that have arisen in postcolonial Pakistan. Thirty participants from the major cities of Pakistan will be asked to write and present papers on given topics.

19th December, Wednesday

20th December, Thursday

21st December, Friday

PARTICIPANTS

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POLITICS OF LANGUAGE

AIMS

Planning and preparatory work for conference II that had begun tentatively after the first conference was speeded up with the receipt of fund and dates for the next conference were fixed after consultation with the majority of the participant. History was destined to repeat itself with the second conference too, at least in terms of time schedules. Overall aims to:

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ACTIVITIES
This was a three-day conference instead of the earlier two-day event in order to give more time for discussions. Fourteen papers were presented on different topics within the overall theme of the conference.

Thursday, 16th January 2003

Registration and introduction

Friday, 17th January

Saturday, 18th January

PARTICIPANTS
As with Conference some participants cut down from Pakistan in order to bring in participants from India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as part of our programme.

OUTCOME

Two sets of publications, one from each conference, are still due.

DONOR

This project was funded by Global Fund for Women.

• Neelam Hussain
• Samiya K. Mumtaz

• Ferida Sher (sociologist
• Ghazala Irfan (educationist)
• Lala Rukh (artist)
• Neelam Hussain (educationist)
• Nasrene Shah (educationist)
• Samina Rahman (educationist)