Shame



Shame is a documentary about Mukhtaran Mai, a Pakistani woman publicly gang-raped by order of a tribal council, in retribution for an alleged relationship between her 12-year-old brother and a girl from a prominent family in the village of Meerwala. This is a common occurrence in her village, but she was the first woman to take her case all the way to the Supreme Court. As her story became known throughout the world, donations starting pouring in. Yet she refused to leave her village and instead put up, first, a girls' school, and then later on, a boys' school. Even when the money stopped coming, she continued to support the schools and her village, and continued to speak out against inhumane practices by her society. The government, which initially supported her, tried to keep her quiet by refusing to give her a visa to leave the country. There is an almost comical scene in the film where Mukhtaran Mai and a government official are holding a press conference together, and they are simulataneously stating contradictions: the official that Mukhtaran Mai was never kidnapped, and Mukhtaran Mai that she was, in fact, being held against her will. The film was very inspiring, and after the screening, which was part of the Tribeca Film Festival, Mukhtaran Mai herself answered questions from the audience. I was captivated by her quiet strength and self-assurance and lack of self-promotion. The director, Mohammed Naqvi, aptly concluded the meet-and-greet by explaining that he called the film "Shame", because of the many connotations of the word - the shame felt by Mukhtaran Mai and her brother, the shame inflicted by the tribal council and the rapists, the shame that the Pakistani government felt Mukhtaran Mai brought to her country, and so on.