hijab

The nation has heard plenty of debate over racial profiling. But there’s a form of religious profiling that some young Muslim women in America say they endure whenever they voluntarily wear the hijab. The hijab, also known as the veil, is the headscarf worn by Muslim women around the globe. It’s a simple piece of cloth, but it can place young Muslim women in Western countries in difficult situations.
She doesn’t want your frosty public stares; the whispers behind her back; the lament that she’s been degraded by her father. What the Muslim high school senior wants you to understand is that she doesn’t wear the hijab, the head scarf worn by Muslim women, because she is submissive.
“It represents beauty to me,” says Abdelaziz, the 17-year-old daughter of two Egyptian parents living in Old Bridge, New Jersey. “My mom says a girl is like a jewel,” Abdelaziz says. “When you have something precious, you usually hide it. You want to make sure you keep it safe until that treasure is ready to be found.”
Some hijab-wearers say that strangers treat them as if they’re terrorists. Others ask them if they’re a nun — or even allergic to the sun. In some cases, their worst critics are not Americans, but fellow Muslim Americans. The pressure on Muslim teenagers in the U.S. who wear the hijab may be even more acute. Their challenge: How do I fit in when I wear something that makes me stand out?
Randa Abdel-Fattah, who has written two novels about this question, says wearing the hijab can “exhaust” some young Muslim women in the West. “You can sometimes feel like you’re in a zoo: locked in the cage of other people’s stereotypes, prejudices and judgments, on parade to be analyzed, deconstructed and reconstructed,” says Abdel-Fattah, a Muslim who has Palestinian and Egyptian parents but was born in Australia. Abdel-Fattah says people should not assume that Muslim women who wear the hijab are being controlled by men. She, too, struggled with the choice of wearing a hijab when she was a teenager.
“When it comes to the hijab — why to wear it, whether to wear it, how to wear it — there is theology and then there is practice and there is huge diversity in both,” says Abdel-Fattah, author of “Does My Head Look Big in This?”
The surprising history behind the hijab
Some women say the hijab makes them feel like they’re locked in a cage. But others say it leads to personal freedom.
Sarah Hekmati first wore the hijab at age 15 growing up in Detroit, Michigan. She is the daughter of Iranian parents who left Iran in 1979 during the Islamic revolution. Hekmati says the hijab liberated her from some teenage angst: Does my hair look good? Am I cute enough? Should I lose weight? “It gave me a sense of identity,” she says. “I really liked the purpose behind the hijab — a woman covering herself so that a man should know her for her mind, not her body.”
That purpose can be traced back to the Quran, Islam’s holy text, which encourages women to dress modestly, says Faegheh Shirazi, author of “The Veil Unveiled.” Some Muslims take the Quran’s advice as a command for women to wear the hijab, while others disagree, she says. “The Quran is very ambiguous about whether you have to wear the veil or not,” Shirazi says.
The hijab, however, actually predates Islam, Shirazi explains. The first known reference to veiling (Shirazi uses the term hijab and veil interchangeably) was made in an Assyrian legal text in the 13th century B.C., Shirazi says.
In the Assyrian, and later, the Roman and Byzantine empires, the veil was a symbol of prestige and status, she says. By the 12th century, the veil had been imposed on women in the Muslim world to exclude them from public life, Shirazi says. “A sign of distinction had been transformed into a sign of exclusion,” she writes in her book. People are still debating the meaning of the hijab today.
In 2007, British Muslim groups protested when schools were given the right to ban students from wearing full-face veils. In 2008, Turkey’s top court upheld a ban on wearing Muslim headscarves at the country’s universities. That same year, a Muslim woman was briefly jailed at a suburban Atlanta, Georgia, courthouse after refusing to remove her hijab in court.
Some moms against hijab wearing
The debate over the hijab can literally hit home for some young Muslim women. Those that wear the hijab in the United States can befuddle their mothers, who often immigrated to the West so they could be free from wearing the hijab and other rules imposed on women.
That’s what happened to Hekmati, the Muslim-American from Detroit. Her mother, Behnaz, was puzzled by her daughter’s decision to wear the hijab. Behnaz Hekmati grew up in Iran, where she did not wear the hijab. Young women who attended college in Iran like she did generally didn’t wear the hijab, she says.
Behnaz Hekmati warned her daughter that wearing the hijab would arouse the suspicion of Americans. “I said Sarah, when you cover your head here the people think you are political — they see you differently,” Behnaz Hekmati says. Most of the trouble, though, came from Iranian-Americans, who came to the United States to escape the Islamic fundamentalists who seized power in 1979, she says.
“The Iranians here bother her more than Americans,” Behnaz Hekmati says. “They say, ‘We got rid of you guys. We came here because we didn’t want to see you guys anymore.’” Hekmati was more concerned as a teenager about more personal issues, like her relations with boys. The hijab made it more difficult, she says. Few asked her on dates. Guys always seemed to put her in the “friend category.” She wondered if she was attractive.
“I wondered at times: Am I always going to be a guy’s friend and nothing more.” Strangers in public saw her as something else — a subjugated woman. They looked at her with pity, she says. Some were just baffled. “One guy asked me if I was allergic to the sun,” Hekmati says.
Abdelaziz, the New Jersey high school senior, also had her tense public encounters: angry looks, people feeling sorry for her or assuming her father ordered her to wear the hijab. “It’s not oppression; it’s not that I’m accepting degradation — it’s about self-respect,” she says. But it’s more about faith as well. She says the hijab affirms “Islam in the most respectful and purified way.”
“When you actually wear it, it opens your eyes,” she says. “It makes you want to explore your religious faith.” At times, Abdelaziz says she wonders what it would be like to attend her prom, get a tan at the beach and have a boyfriend. But she says her decision to honor her faith is already paying off. “It really feels good,” she says. “It felt like I was missing something and now I’m complete. I finally understand my purpose.”

Technorati Tags: allergic, america, beauty, car, clot, dates, geo, home, house, interesting, ISI, Islam, life, lose weight, mom, mother, muslim, muslims, NIH, oic, Pakistan, Pakistani, pakistanihousewife, parents, power, protest, Quran, sin, STR, terror, terrorists, time, US, war, weight, WHO, wife, Women

When you thought I wasn’t looking I saw you feed a stray
cat, and I learned that it was good to be kind to animals.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw you make my
favorite cake for me and I learned that the little things can
be the special things in life.

When you thought I wasn’t looking I heard you say a
prayer, and I knew there is a God I could always talk to
and I learned to trust in God.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw you make a meal
and take it to a friend who was sick, and I learned that we
all have to help take care of each other.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw you give of your
time and money to help people who had nothing and I
learned that those who have something should give to those
who don’t.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I felt you kiss me good
night and I felt loved and safe.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw you take care of
our house and everyone in it and I learned we have to take
care of what we are given.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw how you handled
your responsibilities, even when you didn’t feel good and I
learned that I would have to be responsible when I grow up.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw tears come from
your eyes and I learned that sometimes things hurt, but it’s
all right to cry.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I saw that you cared
and I wanted to be everything that I could be.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I learned most of life’s
lessons that I need to know to be a good and productive
person when I grow up.

When you thought I wasn’t looking, I looked at you and
wanted to say, “Thanks for all the things I saw when you
thought I wasn’t looking.’”

Technorati Tags: child, children, Kids, kids observe, mom, parents

my mother my teacher

1. My mother taught me: TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE .
“If you’re going to kill each other, do it outside. I just finished cleaning.”

2. My mother taught me: RELIGION.
“You better pray that will come out of the carpet.”

3.My mother taught me : TIME TRAVEL .
“If you don’t straighten up, I’m going to knock you into the middle of next week!”

4. My mother taught me: LOGIC.
” Because I said so, that’s why.”

5. My mother taught me: MORE LOGIC .
“If you fall out of that swing and break your neck, you’re not going to the store with me.”

6. My mother taught me: FORESIGHT.
“Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you’re in an accident.”

7. My mother taught me: IRONY
“Keep crying, and I’ll give you something to cry about.”

8. My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS .
“Shut your mouth and eat your supper.”

9. My mother taught me: CONTORTIONISM.
“Will you look at that dirt on the back of your neck!”

10. My mother taught me about STAMINA.
“You’ll sit there until all that spinach is gone.”

11. My mother taught me: WEATHER .
“This room of yours looks as if a tornado went through it.”

12. My mother taught me: HYPOCRISY.
“If I told you once, I’ve told you a mi llion times. Don’t exaggerate!”

13. My mother taught me: THE CIRCLE OF LIFE.
“I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.”

14. My mother taught me about BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION.
“Stop acting like your father!”

15. My mother taught me: ENVY.
“There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don’t have wonderful parents like you do.”

16. My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION.
“Just wait until we get home.”

17. My mother taught me: RECEIVING .
“You are going to get it when you get home!”

18. My mother taught me: MEDICAL SCIENCE.
“If you don’t stop crossing your eyes, they are going to freeze that way.”

19.< U> My mother taught me: ESP.
“Put your sweater on; don’t you think I know when you are cold?”

20. My mother taught me: HUMOR.
“When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don’t come running to me.”

21. My mother taught me: HOW TO BECOME AN ADULT .
“If you don’t eat your vegetables, you’ll never grow up.”

22. My mo ther taught me: GENETICS.
“I swear you’re just like your father.”

23. My mother taught me about my ROOTS.
“Shut that door behind you. Do you think you were born in a barn?”

24. My mother taught me: WISDOM ..
“When you get to be my age, you’ll understand.”

25. And my favorite: My MOTHER TAUGHT ME ABOUT JUSTICE
“One day you’ll have kids, and I hope they turn out just like you!

Technorati Tags: mama, mom, mother, my mother taught me

Technorati Tags: humor, mom, mother

Must not be squeamish about bottom-wiping, snot clearance etc. Good sense of humour essential. Working knowledge of hamsters and other small rodents an advantage.

An ability to put your own needs last is useful, as is a pair of eyes in the back of your head.

Salary: none. Promotion prospects: what promotion? Time off in lieu: maybe in 25 years, so long as the grandchildren haven’t arrived yet.

Benefits: nice remarks after you’re dead when they finally appreciate you. Immense job satisfaction of creating happy, productive human beings.

Perks: flowers once a year and breakfast in bed on Mothering Sunday if you’re lucky.

I ask you, who would apply for the job of mother? Tomorrow is the one day in the calendar when we may stop for a moment and think about what being a mum actually involves.

Quite frankly, we should be grateful there are any new candidates at all for this most demanding of roles (which, incidentally, more than two-thirds of British women with children under the age of 15 now hold down in addition to doing full or part-time work).

To read the recent headlines, you would swear that motherhood was the end of a life, not the start of an astonishing new one.

On Tuesday, Radio 4′s Woman’s Hour had a Mother’s Day special.

I tuned in hoping to find a touching and hilarious celebration of all things maternal.

One author did speak up for the huge pleasure she took in her role as mummy.

But the overwhelming impression was about as appetising as a bin full of used nappies.

Post-natal depression, ambivalent feelings about babies and problems with “attachment” (or, as we used to call it, love)…

The programme was so miserable it made me want to sell the kids on eBay.

Goodness only knows what terror it struck into the heart of any impressionable young female thinking of starting a family.

“There’s a conspiracy of silence about what motherhood is really like,” the Woman’s Hour listeners were warned.

Nonsense. What silence? We are positively deafened by horror stories about the drawbacks of being a mum.

“Once you have a baby your career will collapse and you will experience a dramatic loss of status and pay,” a report claimed this week.

“Notice that there is no suggestion that – for many women – a baby to cuddle might be some compensation for that “loss of status”.

Then again, you can bet your grandmother’s charm bracelet that another study will be along soon to show that, if you stay home and look after your kids, your brain will shrink to the size of a mini rice cake, you will go mad with frustration and no one will ever employ you again.

According to these doom-mongers, even if you do manage to fight your way through the gluey fog of post-natal depression, you can say goodbye to your sex life.

You will never sleep again. Certainly not with the father of your children, who will be so fed up with being neglected that he’ll have scarpered with Gretchen, the ominously helpful Latvian au pair.

Baby’s routine will bore you rigid, but you will have so little time to yourself you will never read another book. Except one called Why Your Child Is So Stupid And Miserable.

That will turn out to be your fault too, because you accidentally pickled the developing embryo when you drank two mojitos and half a bottle of wine on a girl’s night out in 1998, before you even knew you were pregnant. Cheers!

If motherhood doesn’t make you depressed, then the constant scare stories about motherhood surely will.

Don’t get me wrong. I am all for honesty about the huge adjustment a woman makes when she brings a new life into the world.

With two children of my own, I have experienced those bleached-out early mornings when you have been up all night with a sick baby and the binbag chooses that precise moment to split and spill its contents over the kitchen floor.

The toddler runs into the stink, splashing it on to your only clean work skirt and you honestly think you are going to start screaming and may never stop because you cannot stand another single second of the noise and the mess.

But to suggest chaos, exhaustion and despair are the entire truth about motherhood is like saying an orchestra is only timpani, clashing cymbals and a couple of flatulent tubas.

It would take Mozart himself to write the symphony of joy and fear that is a mother’s love.

This is dangerous territory. If we go on reporting motherhood as a lose-lose situation, then we will put off even more potential mums.

One in five British women currently chooses not to have a child, or their body cruelly makes that choice for them.

Others, of course, are simply leaving it too late.

The “me generation” has postponed the sacrifices necessary to have children because juggling everything just seems too hard.

Yet sacrifice, as generations of Britons who came before us understood, can bring great gains as well as losses.

“Your life is not your own any more when you have kids,” a young beauty therapist said to me the other day.

She’s absolutely right. And I am so glad my life is not my own any more.

Attending to the needs of small people who are entirely dependent on you can be boring, but it also brings a wonderful freedom from that obsession with self which makes our age so superficial and lonely.

The hand that rocks the cradle may not yet rule the world (she probably has better things to do) but mums have a crucial influence on how the people in that world behave towards each other.

If you want proof of the power of maternal love, just look at what the lack of it does.

Take two of the murderers who have dominated the news in the past fortnight.

Ipswich strangler Steve Wright’s mother walked out on him when he was a boy.

The mother of Mark Dixie, serial sadist and brutal killer of Sally Anne Bowman, dumped him on the steps of a Streatham children’s home in South London when he was 12, and has not bothered to make contact since.

Coincidence? I don’t think so. Violent or absentee fathers are a curse on our society, but lost boys who lack a mother to school them in empathy and kindness too often grow into cold, vengeful men.

David Cameron’s Broken Society would mend a lot sooner if there were more good mums around to kiss it better.

Yet there is still pathetically little public recognition for those who do that job so brilliantly.

Look at Prince William and Prince Harry. They were the light of their mother’s brief life and Diana’s love shines on in them.

On duty in Afghanistan, Harry was sent a letter from his older brother saying how proud their mum would be of him.

Ten years on, the thought of their mother still steadies and nourishes her boys.

And that matters to an adult’s sense of self-worth more than we ever acknowledge.

Although I am now in my 40s with a family of my own, my mum will still ring me up and nag: “Did you get the doctor to check that mole on your arm?”

There is not another person who thinks about my needs first, as she still does.

Recently, I was asking a friend about her late mum, whom I sadly never met.

“It will be ten years since she…” my friend began, and started to cry.

What she meant to say was that she’d had ten years without her mum looking out for her.

I don’t know what job Anne’s mum did, or whether she even had a career.

But one thing’s for sure: any human being whose memory can inspire their lovely grown-up child to shed tears of loss like that is not, and never was, “low status”, as motherhood is all too often described.

The problem for many new mums today is the lack of sensible, inspiring examples.

We need role models, not supermodels and movie stars who make motherhood look like something you can have FedExed to you in a box with a big bow on top.

The Smugeratti tell magazines they don’t believe in nannies or other types of childcare.

So who do you suppose is looking after little Ezekiel Elvis while mummy is on the Milan catwalk or doing seven hours of Pilates a day to get back into her size four jeans within six weeks of giving birth?

The battalion of staff paid to keep mum, that’s who.

More than two-thirds of mothers admit they feel celebrity “yummy mummies” like Victoria Beckham put them under pressure to live up to an “unrealistic ideal”.

Women, who are forever doomed to measure themselves against other women, inevitably feel like failures.

It’s hardly surprising. At one extreme we have Angelina Jolie assembling a family of adopted and biological children like some New Seeker’s dream of teaching the world to sing in purr-fect harmony.

At the other, there are the TV nannies – with no children themselves, naturally! – telling us we’re doing it all wrong, making us lose confidence in our instincts.

Enough already. The hopeful thing as we approach this Mother’s Day is that mums are fighting back.

When the Government first came to power it was hell-bent on getting mums back into the workforce as soon as they left the Delivery Suite.

Remember that notorious report which complained about women who wanted to stay at home to look after their children when they should be out helping the economy?

Today, with small children turning up in primary school unable to speak or use a knife and fork, is there anyone who seriously thinks that being a great mum doesn’t help the economy?

Flexible working, which is what most mums say they want, used to be considered a joke and a nuisance but is now the policy of any political party that wants the women’s vote.

Last week, I was one of the judges of American Express’s Britain’s Best Boss competition.

All the companies boasted about how mums are among their most prized employees.

YES, much has been achieved. But there’s still a long way to go.

And for that to happen we need to change the attitude not only of politicians and employers towards motherhood, but of women everywhere.

When I was writing this article, my son came running in to show me the Mother’s Day card he made at school.

As usual, he has drawn me on the front in green crayon. I look like the Incredible Hulk’s mad auntie.

“Shhh…” he said, putting his finger to his lips, “‘it’s a secret.”

So it is. Motherhood is a secret, or the best bits are. Our struggles are public, but our joys are private. That should change.

Tomorrow, let all mums celebrate themselves for attempting that toughest, yet most rewarding, of unpaid jobs.

And let us remember that wise woman who said: “I meant to be the ideal mother, but I was too busy trying to bring up my children.”

After reading this i thought as if almost all my thoughts are very nicely written by someone and at that moment i felt all mothers in this world , weather they are in east or west share a lot….

Technorati Tags: ideal mother, Kids, mom, mother's day, motherhood, unpaid job

‘Since you were so kind as to greet us in London at Downing Street last month, the President would like to return the favour,” announces Major-General Rashid Qureshi, President Pervez Musharraf’s PR man over the phone. Only in Pakistan could the government’s head of spin be a retired major-general. He is referring to my last encounter with the President on 28 January – when, along with a 2,000-strong, placard-waving, slogan-jeering mob, I protested on the main road outside 10 Downing Street while Musharraf discussed democracy with Gordon Brown over lunch inside. On the way in he waved at us. Clearly he’s a man who is not afraid of confrontation. Much to the justifiable fury of every journalist in Islamabad, he has now granted me an exclusive half-hour interview despite or perhaps because of the fact that I have recently described him as one of the most repressive dictators Pakistan has ever known.

On the way to the Camp Office in Rawalpindi, I cross the bridge and pass the petrol station, which mark the spots of two recent attempts on the life of the now deeply unpopular President. I have a horrible fear that, bamboozled under the spotlight of his renowned charm, I may start to simper. My ex-husband, one of the President’s most vocal critics, has already told me he thinks this is all a terrible idea. “It will be misinterpreted in Pakistan. Besides, you’ll be too soft on him,” he said.

The Camp Office turns out to be an old colonial building which used to be the HQ of the northern command under the British. With its delicately carved, wooden, double-height ceilings, sweeping central staircase, marble floors and ornate carpets, it’s not hard to see why the President chose this as his private office in Rawalpindi. His residence is just up the driveway.

A dozen straight-backed men in uniform – red waistcoats over starched cream kurtas – are ready to greet me outside. The President, I’m informed, is not quite ready so I am led to the staff office for a “tea break” with a group of army officers who make up his presidential office team. Musharraf’s personal assistant, a dashing, grey-haired, light-eyed naval commander, and a jovial head of security, also a young army officer, joke that the delay is just an excuse for them to do a little preparatory brainwashing.
My ex-husband,
Imran
Khan told
me “It will
be misinterpreted
in Pakistan. Besides,
you’ll be too soft
on him,”
A bright yellow cake, some intimidating-looking chicken vol-au-vents and chai (milky tea) are wheeled in. Major Qureshi, Musharraf’s Alastair Campbell, tucks in happily and regales me for an hour with stories about Soviet-era Pakistani military triumphs and the magnanimity and general excellence of his boss. “Any country in the world would like to have this person as their leader,” he tells us proudly.

After an hour I am shown into a huge sitting room, divided in the middle by a latticed wood screen to segregate ladies from men at more formal functions. Musharraf enters. The last time I saw him in the flesh he was in his full army regalia. Somehow his civilian clothes have diminished him. I find his brown business suit and dainty penny loafers which have replaced the sturdy army boots almost unsettling. He seems to have lost both height and swagger. And his body language seems just a touch defensive. The immaculate hair also troubles me. Boot-polish black, artfully grey at the temples, it shows signs of some work.

I start the interview on an unfortunate note. “Given that the last time you saw me, I was protesting outside No 10, I’m grateful that you’ve granted me this opportunity. It’s quite a coup.” Bad word. There’s a moment’s silence while it hangs in the air.

The President, it turns out, is very disappointed in me. For a moment I think I have been called to his office for a sound ticking-off. “I was disappointed. Very disappointed,” he says. “I was disappointed because you ought to be knowing our environment … what Pakistanis are like … what is our society. Well, it’s acceptable if a person has never visited Pakistan and doesn’t know Pakistan to have ideal views [presumably, he means idealistic views]. But I thought you ought to be knowing what Pakistan is … This is not an ideal society.”

He goes on. Mindful that I have only limited time and that there’s a man in uniform sitting at the back of the room already checking his watch before I’ve even asked my first question, I politely interrupt. I remind him that when I first met him he too was an idealist. There is strange symmetry to this visit. I last met Musharraf three days before the last elections in 2002. And now here I am, five and a half years on, three days before elections on Monday. Back then, especially when Musharraf first came to power, I was a somewhat naive supporter. Selfishly, I was relieved when he succeeded came to power by military coup on 12 October 1999. Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister he deposed, had tried to have me jailed on trumped-up, politically motivated charges of smuggling – a non-bailable offence in Pakistan.

I suspect it was to intimidate my ex-husband, who at that time was a noisy critic. I had scarpered to London before I could be arrested and was able to return with my two children to Pakistan six months later only after Musharraf seized power and the charges against me were duly dropped. More importantly, though, Musharraf took over with the express aim of cleaning up Pakistani politics. He despised the corrupt politicians as much as anyone. He immediately set up his own national accountability bureau and declared that his mission was to hold the corrupt accountable.

I’m also disappointed, I tell him. The corrupt got off scot-free. And now it looks as though he will shortly be doing business with the very same politicians he wanted to get rid of.

Disarmingly he agrees – something he does a lot of. And I sense it’s genuine rather than appeasement. He argues that he had no other choice but to deal with the existing leaders of the main parties. This is a little disingenuous. The national reconciliation ordinance which he passed in October 2007 effectively guaranteed lifelong immunity from prosecution to corrupt politicians such as Benazir Bhutto, her husband Zardari and others, and enabled her to return to Pakistan to contest elections. He asks if he is being recorded. I say yes. He hesitates, then answers tellingly, “Yes, I agree with you [that charges should not have been dropped]. But then Benazir has good contacts abroad in your country, who thought she was the future of the country.”

I press him further. Surely even in spite of pressure from outside, given his feelings about the effects of corruption on Pakistani politics, those charges should never have been dropped. There should have been a proper judicial process.

I put this to him. “No,” he replies, “because they would have all joined and then I would have been out.” At this point he looks a bit wild eyed. He quickly adds that, of course, being in power has never been his ultimate goal. How much easier it would be, he adds wistfully and a touch unconvincingly, if he’d just resigned to play golf.

A uniformed bearer offers fruit juice and warm roasted almonds. I down my juice in one gulp, then worry it may have looked unseemly. In the past four years I’d forgotten that Pakistani women are expected to overplay their femininity. I’m lounging like a bloke and downing pomegranate juice like lager.

Often he fails to see the irony in his own words, which can be unintentionally comic. Several times I have to suppress a smile. When confronted with the suggestion, for example, that he will have to work with a coalition government consisting of some the most infamous crooks in Pakistan, he responds with great sincerity, “I’m not running a martial law here. What can I do?” He adds, “My role as a president is simply the checks and balances – the seatbelts … a sort of father figure to the Prime Minister but I won’t have to see him for weeks.”

The image he paints of himself as a benign, legitimised dictator is at odds with the recent Human Rights Watch report that accuses his regime of hundreds of enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, harassment, intimidation and extrajudicial killings

Later when I point out that his old opponent Nawaz Sharif, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), has vowed that if elected he will reinstate the judges who were unconstitutionally deposed by Musharraf, he retorts incredulously, “It is not a dictatorship here! How can you reinstate judges if you become prime minister? How?” This rhetorical question comes from a man who on 3 November dismissed 60 per cent of the superior court judges, including three chief justices, in anticipation of their ruling against his re-election as President while still head of the army. Many remain under house arrest.

He seems to be someone who feels painfully let down and misunderstood. This is particularly the case when he talks about my ex-husband, Imran. “You know, I liked him. But he is the most unrealistic person. I wanted to support him.” He mentions him a few times in the interview. And the strange thing is, I detect hurt. President Musharraf, dictator, despot, guardian of the West against al-Qa’ida – and all I can see are the wounded eyes of a betrayed lover when he talks about my ex. Under his regime, in the past year, Imran has been held under house arrest, jailed, then released and has had his movements restricted. Hell hath no fury like a general scorned.

I change the subject. Last time I visited him here in Rawalpindi he gave me a spookily accurate prediction of the imminent election results, which suggested information more than insight. Who will win this election? His answer is definitive. The PML-Q (the party otherwise known as the King’s Party, assembled by President Musharraf himself six years ago to legitimise his “managed” democracy) allied with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement will “certainly have the majority. Whether they’ll be able to form a government is a question mark.” This contradicts all the recent opinion polls, which have shown that the popularity of his favoured party is right down, at just 12 per cent. I point out this out to him.

He dismisses the polls. They are biased, conducted by local organisations that are against him. “They have been abusing me right from the beginning and you will never get good results from them.”

He seems increasingly paranoid. “The media have let me down … The NGOs are against me. I don’t know why. I think I have been the strongest proponent of human rights …” In fact, the only people who are not against him, according to him, are the Western leaders who he says are “absolutely supportive” and “express total solidarity”.

I don’t doubt Musharraf’s bravery or even his initial good intentions. Nor is anyone underestimating the scale of the problems that Pakistan faces today.
“It will be the saddest day for Pakistan if Benazir’s crooked widower is in power by Monday,”
I say. Musharraf reponds “At least we part on agreement.”
If anything, the impression is one of amateurishness and of a naivety that would be endearing if it had not been so profoundly damaging to his country. And in recent months he has become belligerent with local journalists. In London last month a respected Pakistani editor was castigated for asking about Rashid Rauf, the escaped terror suspect, and the fact that many believe he was deliberately freed by the police. Such impertinent journalists “should be roughed up”, he was alleged to have told the assembled crowds in response.

When I ask about the deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, who is still under house arrest, he denounces him as “the scum of the earth – a third-rate man – a corrupt man”. And the lawyers’ movement? The lawyers have vowed to continue protesting on the streets and boycotting the courts until the deposed judges are reinstated and the constitution is restored to its pre-3 November status. “With hindsight,” he replies solemnly, “it was my personal error that I allowed them to go and express their views in the street… We should have controlled them in the beginning before it got out of control.” To those more used to seeing beards and white robes at protests, the images of suited, bookish-looking lawyers fighting off police batons were a memorable spectacle.

Musharraf mentions democracy a great deal. He seems sincere. He is genuinely likeable. But it seems he just can’t help himself. You can take the general out of the army but not the army out of the general. It reminds me of the Aesop fable about the scorpion and the frog. The frog gives the scorpion, who cannot swim, a lift across the river. Halfway across, the scorpion stings him. “Why did you do that?” asks the frog. “Now we’ll both die.” “I’m a scorpion; it’s my nature.”

As I leave he presents me with a clock inscribed “from the President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan”. It seems an inauspicious gift from a man whose time may be up. He shakes my hand. “It will be the saddest day for Pakistan if Benazir’s crooked widower is in power by Monday,” I say. As the President walks away, he looks back. “At least we part on agreement.”
 

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