Balochistan is an Active Volcano

By Huzaima Bukhari & Dr Ikramul Haq
February 22, 2012

The great poet, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, on his return from a visit to Dhaka in the wake of dismemberment of Pakistan composed ‘Dhaka say wapsi par’ (On returning from Dhaka) depicting the agony and pain of the separation between the two wings of the country due to follies of our military and political leadership. After four decades of that catastrophic event and tragedy, instead of learning any lessons from history, today’s rulers are doing the same with the people of Balochistan. Blaming foreign hands for everything going wrong, they are in complete denial, ignoring the legitimate rights of the masses and least pushed in solving the long-standing issues of deprivation, poverty, education and economic justice for all.

Our embassy in Washington, while rightly reacting furiously on the move of Rep Danna Rohrabacher informed the outside world that “Balochistan has a directly elected provincial assembly of its own and has due representation in the National Assembly and the Senate of Pakistan.”

Is this sufficient to satisfy those who claim nothing less than independence? Are elected members of Balochistan playing their role in pacifying their angry brothers?

The move by a US House representative is certainly offending to our territorial integrity and is totally unacceptable. But what about those who claim that “…articles in the Balochistan Liberation Charter that relate to Balochistan’s independence and ‘one person one vote’ after independence cannot be amended in any case. Our youth and leaders have sacrificed for an independent Balochistan, we will not go back a single inch from our stance.”

How do our rulers intend to deal with voices raised by many Baloch leaders recently for an independent Balochistan? Is an All Parties’ Conference a viable solution?

It is justified for our ambassador in Washington to remind the Americans that “Balochistan’s affairs and issues are an internal matter of Pakistan, and it is for the people of Pakistan and our democratic institutions to address these [issues].” Every Pakistani’s concern and question is: where are these democratic institutions?

In Balochistan, civilian rule is a farce. The province is ruled by men in uniform. If this is an undeniable reality, why are we hiding it? What is preventing the government from opening political dialogue with all the Baloch leaders?

There is no disagreement over the right of government to condemn any resolution in the US House of Representatives about Balochistan, but at the same time it is the duty of the government to punish those who are guilty of violence and excesses against the Baloch people.

We maintained silence when the same thing was happening with the Bengalis and the point of culmination came in 1971. In 2012, we are once again heading towards a similar disaster. Should we still remain quiet?

We should not repeat the mistake of remaining silent, naively believing the so-called rulers who say that all the problems are created by a handful of miscreants in connivance with enemies of Pakistan. The process of national reconciliation should not be left to political and military leadership – both are guilty of causing mayhem in Balochistan.

The issue of human rights violations in Balochistan must be solved on war footing before it is too late to convince the people that an independent Balochistan is not the only solution. Winning the hearts of the angry Baloch youth will not be an easy task, but there is still hope to bring them back into the national stream if true autonomy is given.

The centre should keep only defence, foreign affairs, currency and communications and all other matters should be vested with the federating units – the survival of Pakistan now rests in a confederation where the provinces have meaningful control over their resources.

Baloch leaders have recently accused the establishment of using “the fundamentalist jihadi forces against the secular and tolerant Baloch nation” – they are referring to conglomeration of ultra-right militant groups under the name of Difa-e-Pakistan Council, alleged to be proxies of intelligence agencies. This is a serious allegation and needs to be looked into objectively.

These elements are in fact friends of neo-colonial forces that are being used in the new great game for destroying the Pak-Iran Gas Pipeline Project and ultimately for the containment of China.

If these forces are not contained and sanity does not prevail this time, we may have another poet writing another lament.

Dhakasay wapsi par

(On Return from Dhaka)

hum ke tahrhe ajnabi itni madaraatoon ke baad
phir banain gain aashnaa kitni mulaqatoon ke baad

(After those many encounters, that easy intimacy,
we are strangers now –
After how many meetings will we be that close again?)

Kab nazar main aaey ge bai_dagh sabzey ki bahar
Khoon ke dhabbey dhulain gain kitni barsaatoon ke baad

(When will we again see a spring of unstained green?
After how many monsoons will the blood be washed
from the branches?)

thay buhat bai_dard lamhey khatm-e-dard-e-ishq ke
theen buhat bai_mehar subhain meherbaan raatoon ke baad

(So relentless was the end of love, so heartless –
After the nights of tenderness, the dawns were pitiless,
so pitiless)

dil to chaaha par shikasht-e-dil nay muhlat he na di
kuch giley shikvey bhi kar laitey manajaatoon ke baad

(And so crushed was the heart that though it wished
it found no chance –
after the entreaties, after the despair — for us to
quarrel once again as old friends.)

un se jo kehney gaey thai “faiz” jaan sadqa kiye
unkahee he reh gai voh baat sab baatoon ke baad

(Faiz, what you’d gone to say, ready to offer everything,
even your life –
those healing words remained unspoken after all else had
been said.)

The Balochistan cauldron

By Sheikh Asad Rahman

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=20122\28\story_28-2-2012_pg3_2
Enforcing a politically sustainable settlement in Balochistan necessitates the reining in and permanent exclusion of the GHQ from the political sphere

The shrill indignation in the media and government circles that emerged around the US Congress resolution on Balochistan has finally exposed the class-based atrocious nature of callous insensitivities of the Pakistani state and civil-military bureaucracy to the value it puts on human life, especially in respect to the people of Balochistan, FATA and Gilgit-Baltistan. Pakistani columnists, journalists, political analysts have written and debated on television, some on and off, others extensively over the years, about the Balochistan conflict. Civilian and military governments along with elected legislators chose to insidiously ignore the writing on the wall being pointed out. The East Pakistan debacle was constantly quoted in these analyses to no avail.

Denial, disinformation, harassment, in some cases abduction, illegal detention and even extrajudicial murders of columnists, debaters, journalists, activists who dared to raise their voices was the response by the military establishment, with civilian governments acquiescing in the establishment’s diktat. It finally took the US Congress resolution to bring the issue into the public domain because of international exposure just as in 1976, the 1973-77 civil war was internationally exposed by Lawrence Lifschultz in the Far Eastern Economic Review. Till then the rest of Pakistan was in the dark about the conflict in Balochistan as there was no independent national coverage or debate and only the state’s misinforming propaganda machinations were available to the general public, reminiscent of the 1971 war in East Pakistan.

Public debate and exposure of actions undertaken in ‘aid of civil power’ by the armed forces are perceived as a challenge to the unbridled control the military establishment enjoys in Balochistan, FATA and Gilgit-Baltistan to perpetuate its own (confused and anti-people) agenda, the so-called and convoluted ‘national security’ paradigm. Public debate and information seems to be anathema to the military establishment and any individual’s or organisation’s patriotism and credibility is immediately questioned if he dares to bring such issues into the public domain. I, personally, had to undergo hours of interrogation over three days by ISI officials in 2010 when my organisation, Sungi Development Foundation, organised a conference on Balochistan’s issues. The basic questions asked were: who are you? What are you doing? Why are you doing what you are doing? My cell phone was under surveillance till recently.

Governor Balochistan inaugurated the conference, parliamentarians and civil society participated and got extensive media coverage. Two speakers from Balochistan were mysteriously killed (Habib Jalib, BNM Secretary General, and Mohammad Razzak, a young lawyer from Kalat) within a month of the conference. It should be noted that we had invited the COAS, DGs ISI, MI, ISPR and FC to participate in order to understand the concerns being debated and respond to questions. None participated but they did send an ISI colonel and a major to monitor and report back to the high command.

Secrecy and denial are tactics that always get exposed in the long run. Even with all this hullabaloo and questions being asked in the Baloch missing persons’ case in the Supreme Court the ISI wants in-camera hearings. If they have concrete evidence, as they claim, of foreign interference and Baloch resistance groups’ connivance, why are they not willing to produce it in the public domain and open court hearings? What do they want to hide and not disclose?

My critique of the electronic media discussion panels on this issue is that they invite people who have no background or informed knowledge of the history of the political differences, approach and subsequent deterioration in Balochistan.

The Baloch leadership being interviewed is understandably wary (being under threat) and at the same time unable to calmly present their case because of the long history of atrocities against them and their people for which they are justifiably extremely angry and pushed to the point of no return by our establishment. To be perfectly honest, invited panellists are also monitored by the ISPR and channels are instructed not to invite knowledgeable panellists who can discuss the realities of the conflict. Channels that did invite such panellists after the extrajudicial murder of Nawab Akbar Bugti were immediately informed to desist from calling them again. So much for the independence of the media!

Can the situation be retrieved from the point of no return? Some of the younger Baloch leadership (Hyrbyair Marri and Bramdagh Bugti) are sceptical because of personal agonies they have suffered as many of their Baloch elders have been extra-judicially murdered at the hands of the military establishment over the last 64 years.

Can the current political or future dispensation wrest control of Balochistan, FATA and Gilgit-Baltistan from the GHQ before reaching a critical breakup point? That can only happen if the federal, provincial governments and all political parties set aside their own vested power interests and stand united with the leadership and people of Balochistan. Enforcing a politically sustainable settlement in Balochistan necessitates the reining in and permanent exclusion of the GHQ from the political sphere.
Confidence-building measures need to be taken immediately, which address the missing persons and mutilated, tortured, dumped bodies of Baloch political activists, students and leaders, unhindered public movement by removal of FC, Navy and Customs manned checkposts, release of all alive missing persons in the custody of the ISI, MI and FC. A comprehensive compensation and rehabilitation mechanism for families of the martyred and missing persons needs to be put in place as soon as possible. General amnesty to the members of resistance groups and leadership is fundamental. Withdrawing the FC from interior Balochistan and placed along the border to tackle drug, gun and Taliban smuggling and infiltration (mandated duty of the FC) would reduce conflict risk. Curtailing the IB, ISI and MI operations is a prerequisite to bring normalcy to life in Balochistan and must be done forthwith. Agencies funded and backed assassination, kidnapping gangs need to be identified, arrested and prosecuted in relevant courts. Last but not least, all the army officers, serving or retired, who ordered the ISI and FC troops to abduct, illegally incarcerate, torture, kill and dump Baloch activists’ bodies be tried for these gross human rights violations in High and Supreme Courts. This will truly enforce the writ of the governments under the constitution. Then and only then will the estranged Baloch leadership hopefully come to the negotiating table to chalk out the future framework of Balochistan-Pakistan integration or autonomous status. Nothing less will assuage the sufferings of the Baloch.

The writer is Director Programmes Sungi Development Foundation. He can be reached at asad.rahman@sungi.org

Re-reading the conflict in Balochistan

Madeeha Ansari

In a world characterized by violence and volatility, this year’s message for International Literacy Day was ”Literacy for Peace”.

Within the bleak context of political turmoil and lack of social development in Balochistan, Karrar’s background as a Shi’ite Hazara placed him at a unique disadvantage. Hailing from a remote valley near Quetta where matriculation is a rarity, he described his hometown as a place where ”nobody wants to see the dream of higher education, because they know that it is impossible.”

His personal journey from Marree Abad, to the Lahore University of Management Sciences, to the Harvard campus in Massachusetts cannot be measured in terms of distance – it is a leap across cultural, traditional and societal barriers. As he put it, the first step was for him to overcome his reservations about English being a ”colonial remnant”, and accepting it as a tool to facilitate progress. After completing his fully funded MPA and PhD in theUSA, he plans to return to Balochistan to raise awareness about the importance – and possibility – of education among his people.

Karrar’s decision is based on first-hand experience of what it is to bridge the chasm between Balochistan and the rest of the world. The province stands in isolation withinPakistanitself; there is a clear disconnect between the population there and the rest of the country, particularly in the urban centres. The gap can be illustrated in terms of education; qualitative standards aside, the literacy rate in Balochistan is more than 20 per cent lower than the national average of 57 per cent. While the Balochistan government has pledged 13% of the provincial budget to the education sector, statistics mean little in the context of a province notorious for the phenomenon of “ghost schools”. Effective disbursement of funds also remains a problem – for instance, it has recently been reported that the largest school in Gwadar has not received a single rupee for maintenance and rehabilitation. This level of misgovernance and neglect is particularly dangerous given the complex political situation in the province, in which the absence of alternate narratives makes it vulnerable to forces fuelling cyclical violence.

Amid ominous talk of separatism, Balochistan has been described by human rights organizations as ‘‘an active volcano that may erupt anytime”. The description is drawn from the examination of a history of grievances harbored by the province against the central government; festering wounds that are renewed by an increasing number of missing persons whose absence is attributed to state agencies.

The strong presence of the army and the ISI in the region aims to stamp out separatist forces, only to stoke Baloch nationalism. As a result, the young Baloch nationalist views his (or her) interests to be diametrically opposed to those of Pakistan as a nation and will not concede that secession is not a viable option; that an independent Baloch state cannot be sustained by untapped natural resources and underdeveloped human resources. This mindset makes the youth of the province susceptible to the kind of violent prejudice that has triggered a rise in brutal targeted attacks against non-Baloch teachers and laborers, as well as minority communities like the Shi’ite Hazaras.

UNESCO calls education and armed conflict ”the deadly spirals”, each affecting the other in multiple ways. Apart from the retarding effect of war on social development, educational institutions themselves can become nuclei for the concentration of ”attitudes, beliefs and grievances that fuel violent conflict”. This is evident from the militarization of student groups in Balochistan, including the Baloch Students’ Organization. BSO members now make up an alarmingly large proportion of the ”missing person” whose cases are pending in national courts. If this is the situation regarding the more educated segment of society, it is a worrisome indicator not only of endemic conflict, but also future instability. The generation on whom it falls to build and create is instead contributing to fragmentation, and the state response is to further exacerbate the situation.

The Beard is a Key Symbol of Masculine Amish Identity & Attackers Cutting it

Myron Miller and his wife, Arlene, had been asleep for an hour when their 15-year-old daughter woke them and said that people were knocking at the door.

Mr. Miller, 45, a stocky construction worker and an Amish bishop in the peaceful farmlands of easternOhio, found five or six men waiting. Some grabbed him and wrestled him outside as others hacked at his long black beard with scissors, clipping off six inches. As Mr. Miller kept struggling, his wife screamed at the children to call 911, and the attackers fled.

For an Amish man, it was an unthinkable personal violation, and all the more bewildering because those accused in the attack are other Amish.

“We don’t necessarily fight, but it’s just instinct to defend yourself,” Mr. Miller recalled.

The attackers, the authorities said, had traveled from an isolated splinter settlement near Bergholz, south of the Miller residence. Sheriffs and Amish leaders in the region, home to one of the country’s largest concentrations of Amish, had come to expect trouble from the Bergholz group. It is said to be led with an iron hand by Sam Mullet, a prickly 66-year-old man who had become bitterly estranged from mainstream Amish communities and had had several confrontations with theJeffersonCountysheriff.

But the violent humiliation that men from his group are charged with inflicting on their perceived enemies throughout this fall, using scissors and battery-operated clippers, came as a bizarre shock.

The assaults — four are known to the authorities — have stirred fear among the Amish and resulted in the arrests, so far, of five men, including three of Mr. Mullet’s sons, on kidnapping and other charges. Officials say that more arrests are possible.

In the first incident, on Sept. 6 in the town ofMesopotamia, a married couple who had left the Bergholz community four years ago, Martin and Barbara Miller, were attacked at night by five of their own sons and a son-in law, along with their wives, all of whom had elected to remain with Mr. Mullet, according to the victims. The gang left the father with a “ragged beard,” as a sheriff’s report described it, then turned on their mother — who is Mr. Mullet’s sister — and chopped off large patches of her hair.

The beard is a key symbol of masculine Amish identity. The women view their long hair, kept in a bun, as their “glory,” and shearing it was “an attack on her personal identity and religious teaching.

The men accused in the attack were released on bail. The elder Mr. Mullet has not been charged, although he remains under investigation.

Federal prosecutors are considering whether to pursue federal hate-crime charges, according to theClevelandoffice of the F.B.I.

The prosecutions are unusual because the Amish do not believe in revenge and prefer to settle disputes internally. The couple inMesopotamia, Barbara and Martin Miller, have refused to testify, telling officers that they will “turn the other cheek.”

But others are cooperating with law enforcement.

“We want to see these people behind bars so this cult can be torn apart before it ends up like most of them do,” said Myron Miller, who lives in Mechanicstown. Many Amish regard Mr. Mullet as a danger to the wider community and above all to the 120 people in the settlement, including dozens of children growing up under his sway.

Mr. Miller now has a trimmed two-inch beard. He and his wife believe that the attack was retribution because, years ago, they helped one of Mr. Mullet’s sons leave Bergholz.

Mr. Mullet, through the front door of his large white house at the center of his Bergholz settlement.

Mr. Mullet said that the recent attacks resulted from “religious differences,” and that he had not ordered the attacks, though he had known that they were taking place.

The remarks enraged other Amish. “It’s not a church issue, it’s plain revenge,” Arlene Miller said.

Many Amish say they no longer consider Mr. Mullet to be Amish or even a true Christian. While the Amish have a long history of schisms, clusters of congregations tend to have cooperative ties, and the fact that Mr. Mullet’s group is not linked to any other is a sign of their renegade status, said David McConnell, an anthropologist at theCollegeofWoosterwho studies the Amish.

In 1995, when Mr. Mullet bought land in Bergholz, he was already known as a loner with a provocative attitude. But his conflicts with outsiders have increased in the last decade, according to Sheriff Abdalla and local Amish leaders. One follower was convicted of threatening to kill the sheriff after losing a custody battle; one of Mr. Mullet’s sons went to prison for molesting a 12-year-old girl.

Mr. Mullet’s central religious grievance apparently stems from his effort about five years ago to excommunicate families who had moved out. A group of Amish leaders told him that he did not have proper grounds to do so, and he has stewed with resentment ever since, according to the sheriff.

The Sept. 6 attack on Mr. Mullet’s sister and her husband sent ripples of anxiety through the Amish community.

Mrs. Miller told the officers that she and her husband had quit Bergholz but that their children had remained and had become involved with what she called a cult.

Further episodes on Oct. 4 finally led to the arrests. A group of men were accused of attacks at two different homes after attending a horse auction, roaming over several counties in a hired trailer with a puzzled driver.

The first victims that night were a 74-year-old Amish bishop and his son inMountHope. Later that night, members of the same group allegedly assaulted Myron Miller.

Mr. Miller grabbed at the face of one assailant, and later found clumps of beard, not his own, on the ground, which the sheriff collected for evidence.

“It just terrified me that these guys were actually pulling me out of my house,” Mr. Miller recalled. “My whole family was terrified.”

Winning 6 Lakhs Proved to be a Nightmare for a Widow in India

It took a few moments of intense uncertainty before Aparna Mallikar, 27, decided to relinquish her hot seat opposite Amitabh Bachchan. Something told her that the answer to the question he had just posed (‘Who wrote 4000 abhangs on Vithoba?’) was Sant Tukaram—but not wanting to lose out on what was within reach, she chose to withdraw from the contest with a prize money of Rs 6.40 lakh. She believed the amount would be enough to bail her out of the misery awaiting her back home in the hamlet of Vara-Kawatha in Yavatmal district, about 750 kilometers away from the glamour of where she was. Instead, there was more anguish lingering at her doorstep.

Aparna, whose debt-ridden, cotton-growing farmer husband Sanjay ended his life in August 2008, thought that winning the money would, if not entirely put an end to her family’s misfortune, at least temporarily assuage their distress. However, the sudden windfall and the publicity accompanying it translated into burgeoning problems with her in-laws, the arrival of a clutch of people posing as creditors and an unprecedented increase in familial and neighbourhood discord. Amitabh Bachchan, moved by her sorry tale, gave her Rs 1 lakh. The money that she won on the show, aired on September 29, is yet to be transferred to her.

After her husband’s death, Aparna was left to raise her two daughters, eight-year-old Rohini and four-year-old Samruddhi, all by herself (Samruddhi was barely nine months old when her father consumed pesticide). Sanjay’s debts to private moneylenders and banks stood at Rs 2 lakh. The family did not get compensation from the government, as his suicide was considered “ineligible” for it. In the circumstances, KBC could have been the panacea but it was not to be.

“The problems started even before my show was aired,” says Aparna. “Days before I was to appear on it, my brother-in-law, who’s an NCPturned-Congress leader and former mayor of Nagpur, called the organisers and said that my husband’s was not a case of farm suicide, and that the suicide was, in fact, propelled by my parents and me. The allegations took a great mental toll on me. As if I hadn’t borne a heavy enough burden after my husband died, I had to now start proving with documents that he had indeed ended his life because of debts. My in-laws, who abandoned my daughters and me days after my husband died, have been trying to ensure that the money doesn’t reach me. Various other people are approaching me, saying that they had lent my husband money, but I have no way to verify this.”

Aparna’s is not an isolated case—very often, a simple act of assistance has turned into a nightmare for widows because of the publicity surrounding it. When Rahul Gandhi visited and later mentioned Kalawati Bandurkar from Jalka village in Yavatmal during a Lok Sabha debate in 2008, she went on to become the face of the agrarian crisis in Vidarbha. Soon enough, help poured in for this mother of nine, whose husband’s death had drained her emotionally and financially. As the news spread and grabbed the attention of everyone from local leaders to the global media, several hawks swooped down, demanding money. “Suddenly, her family members increased. Those who were never around earlier came and started demanding their share of the money. It caused a lot of problems,” says Kishore Tiwari, leader of the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, afarmers’ advocacy group.

Magsaysay award winner P Sainath, who has worked to highlight the agrarian crisis for over a decade, explains that the problem often arises after a huge public spectacle is made of the simple act of extending assistance to an affected family. “When one draws attention to help given or received, one invites a host of predators to descend on the widow and children, including all the creditors of her late husband and money lenders,” he says. “Most of this debt is illegal. Even though the principal amount is repaid several times over, high interest rates ensure that the widow can never be out of debt. Also, more often than not, the farmer never consults his wife and doesn’t even keep her in the loop about his financial transactions, most of which are based on word of honour. After he dies is probably the first time that the wife meets his creditors. While some of them exaggerate the amounts owed to them, others are plain frauds.”

A few years ago, a Californian idealist read about farmers’ suicides in Andhra Pradesh and decided to clear all the widows’ debts. While his visit was accompanied by a flood of media publicity, the entire amount went to money lenders. The result, says Sainath, was the same as in most cases: “The widows were left with nothing.”

In many cases, a widow gets socially isolated and at the receiving end of resentment and jealousy from neighbours and family members who are all in the same, impoverished state. “When Amitabh Bachchan asked me why I still wore a mangalsutra, I told him it was to ward off unwelcome male attention,” says Aparna. “But now my in-laws and others have been taunting me, saying the mangalsutrais a sign of another man’s presence.” Tears well up in her eyes as she ends, “This is the most difficult part of the journey.”

Women Are a Majority in Brazil But They Remain Less Educated & Are Paid Less Than Men

It’s hardly surprising that Dilma Rousseff,Brazil’s first female President, has placed women in some of her government’s highest positions. Rousseff’s latest opponent is one whom many would have expected to be on her side: Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen.

The political and fashion heavyweights are at odds over recent television ads in which Bündchen instructs women on how to put their feminine charms to practical use: If you crash the car, max out the credit card or invite your mother to stay, the best way to break it to o marido — the husband — is to glide into the room in high heels and sexy lingerie. You pout. You throw your hips to one side. Then you break the bad news.

The campaign for the Hope lingerie label has angered Rousseff’s Cabinet-level Women’s Secretariat, which in a statement said the ads “reinforce the wrong stereotypes of the woman as a husband’s mere sex object and ignore the great advances we’ve achieved in deconstructing sexist thoughts and practices.” The secretariat petitioned the National Council for Advertising Self-Regulation (known by its Portuguese acronym Conar) to open an investigation into whether the campaign was sexist, and Conar accepted the request. A decision is pending.

The controversy has sparked a debate over the role of women in a society that is still resolutely macho despite the advances of powerful women like Rousseff, a former leftist guerrilla who spent three years in jail during Brazil’s 1964–85 military dictatorship. In a culture that exalts female sexuality as few others do, even Rousseff still finds herself the butt of jokes about a business-like appearance and forceful personality that would be largely admired in many other big countries today. Hope argues that Brazilian women don’t need TV ads to tell them how to use their erotic capital. Responding to the government’s complaint, the company insisted that “the natural sensuality of the Brazilian woman is recognized worldwide,” and it said the campaign’s joking point was to show how that sensuality “can be an effective weapon at the time of giving bad news” — especially if Hope’s skimpy garments are on display to soften the blow.

But Brazilian leaders like Rousseff know all too well that there are grimmer realities behind the national ideal of bronze thong-bikini-wearing lovelies like the Girl from Ipanema. While women are a majority in Brazil, they remain less educated and are paid less than men (the latter problem still persists in developed nations like theU.S.).

One in every five Brazilian females has suffered some kind of violence at the hands of a male aggressor: in a nation of 192 million people, there are only 72 shelters for battered women. These lingerie ads show women as stereotypes to keep them in their place, and it is that kind of portrayal that leads women into submission and to accept problems like domestic violence.

Still, while the images of a semi-naked Bündchen have given the dispute more visibility (as is the case with just about everything Brazil’s world-famous “gaúcha goddess” does or says), critics of the government’s tack say the Rousseff administration shouldn’t be wasting its time fighting battles about TV ads and that viewers can decide for themselves by switching off and choosing not to buy the product. In a nation where many remember the two decades of repressive right-wing juntas, there is little stomach for curbing free speech, no matter how offensive it might be. Some suggest it’s even hypocritical: in her inauguration address earlier this year, Rousseff herself declared, “I prefer the noise of the free press to the silence of dictatorships.” It’s one thing to complain about the ads from her Brasília bully pulpit, say her critics, but pushing to sanction them smacks of government censorship.

Some argue that Rousseff is getting it only half right — that Brazilian men should be insulted by the Hope ads as well for portraying them in the just-as-archaic role of sex-obsessed providers who are so weak willed, women can manipulate them simply by donning a teddy and fluttering their eyelashes.

Conar should suspend the Hope and other ridiculous adverts not just because they are offensive to our mothers, daughters and wives but because they profoundly offend men too.

Lima’s position hasn’t exactly ignited a groundswell of male support in Brazil. But while government intervention may not be the best solution in this case, Brazilian men who find themselves looking at Bündchen’s lingerie spots would do well to listen to Rousseff’s presidential points.