Impressions of
the Beijing moot

BY Attiya Dawood

In a tent a group of Bengali women were dancing to a song. I was unable to understand the lyrics but I stopped. One of the women held my hand and with smiling eyes bade me to join them. Inside black, white, Hindu and Muslim women were swaying hand in hand. They were unable to understand each other's language but they could understand one another's emotions and sensitivities. At that moment the world seemed simple and lovely to me. Where were all the disputes as the women swayed to the tune; all those ethnic, lingual and economic disputes. It seemed that the women were trampling on the very ruins of those conflicts. The world witnessed scenes that are bound to happen when women join forces. Perhaps that is why no nation has stationed women troops to overcome the opposition for if they do, then women will strum a love‑stained song to pacify the nations at odds. Truly the Beijing conference was a bond nurtured by the women of the world. The NGO conference in Manila in 1993 decided that the Fourth World Conference for Women will be held in Beijing and the theme will revolve around twelve points. The NG0s returned to their countries and made preparations. The venue was decided after much difficulty since the west opposed Beijing as a venue, while the Asian nations persisted that it was the continent's turn now.

        Two years was little time for a confer­ence as big as that. In Pakistan all the NG0s made preparations but since I was only associated with ASR, I can only com­ment on the planning of my own organisa­tion.

Many workshops were held during those two years and we were informed about the details of the previous conferences, their agendas, outcomes, the level of women participation and the forthcoming issues in Beijing. An important point was to create awareness among the women about the Beijing conference so that the eventual decision reflected the desires of a vast majority of women. For this purpose many workshops were held in small towns and villages.

   The conference was an event for Beijing but two years was a short duration to prepare for it. The Chinese had said that they could accommodate 20,000 par­ticipants, but the international platform of NG0s was so keen to make their pres­ence felt that they pleaded a larger turnout. China said 'OK, come all of you' and within two years they had erected thousands of six‑story flats. Only then was it possible to hold a 36,000 person conference.   

We arrived in Beijing on the 27th of August.
On the afternoon of the 30th we were invited for tea by the Pakistani embassy where the Pakistani women lamented about the poor conditions to the ambassador. It was embarrassing to hear such comments for one could not expect a fivestar hotel treatment at an 8‑dollar per day accommodation.

There were two more incidents which showed the Pakistani women in a poor light. One, when the PTV cameramen appeared, some delegates in the procession pushed ahead, shouting slogans like 'Jeevay Pakistan', which seemed uncalled for. Again at the NGO forum's inauguration ceremony some women waved the country flag. It went against the spirit of the moment as the women gathered there in thousands were lobbying without any government support.

The NG0s were placed at Huairou, 60 kilometres from Beijing. And from the 31st of August, they began their activities.

130 workshops were being held after every two hours, a thick book giving us all the schedules complete with maps.

The Plenary Programmes Hall had a capacity of 2,000 and in the evenings there were lecture programmes and cultural programmes of different continents taking place.

Since we could not attend all 130 workshops we would ask about the various workshops from our colleagues and shared each other's experiences.

In one of the participants workshops arranged by South Asia a Bengali girl narrated her story in her native tongue. She had been married off at 13 to a man who would beat and abuse her. Undeterred she started working for an NGO where she learnt sewing and weaving. She began to earn a living, divorced her abusive husband and now lives a life of respectability.

In this workshop, Anis Haroon discoursed on the politics of 'divide and rule'. In a similar workshop I recited my poems. The people of ASR also held a workshop called the 'Women's Movement.' In another seminar titled 'Women and Literature', I recited my poems and other feminist poetesses too recited their works.

The women from India held a seminar on sati. Through articles, a huge poster and songs they expounded the ritual of sati.

Apart from this, women took out processions on various issues and were joined by women from other countries. In one procession, a woman wore a mask which symbolised economic stability and she was hitting another with a stick made of dollar notes. The main idea was the chaining of women to the economic mill.

The women of Korea and Japan took out mournful processions denoting sexual harassment and imprisonment of women in the Second World War.

The Japanese women were also vocal about nuclear warfare and atom bombs. They had paper‑made skeletons in their hands.

Handicapped women were also present and paraded to voice their feelings and remind us that they did not need our sympathy but simply our understanding.

   We forgot all our restrictions during our visit. We joined processions of every con­tinent. The Korean and Japanese wom­en's exhibitions moved us and we heard ourselves echoing the African women's chant “leri, leri, leri.”

On the return in a PIA flight, Dr Nusrat's two‑and‑a‑half year daughter insisted on singing songs. Then the skies echoed with the voices of emancipated women. Azerbaijan women also joined us. A sweet‑voiced woman began singing a song and we joined the chorus which went like "Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan."

When the seven ‑and‑a-half -hour trip seemed to end in seven and a halfminute one, we landed home to the news that apparently we had spent our days in China in discomfort. The print media seemed to rave about the same thing and the general impression was that the 130 workshops and 36,000 women only discussed sexual matters. Most of them took perverse delight in the mere fact that there were 36,000 women in one place.

Published in DAWN, Tuesday Review, Oct 3 - 9, 1995