KARACHI: Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has sparked outrage for calling a male opposition leader ‘sahiba,’ or miss, during a political rally on Wednesday, triggering an avalanche of criticism from politicians, journalists and users of social media site Twitter.
In 2016, new words unveiled on Dictionary.com included misgender, which means to inaccurately describe a person’s gender or gender identity. In many western countries, the practice is considered highly offensive.
During a rally in South Waziristan in northwestern Pakistan, Khan took a dig at the chairman of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, by adding the honorific ‘sahiba’ to his name.
“I have come forward after a lot of struggle unlike Bilawal Bhutto Sahiba (Ms Bilawal Bhutto) who took over his party (PPP) over a will (left by her dying mother),” the official Twitter account for the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party’s Punjab chapter said, quoting the prime minister.
Khan’s speech was also telecast live across TV channels in Pakistan, widely reported in newspapers and shared thousands of times on Twitter.
Journalists, analysts, politicians and the general public quickly denounced the comments by the cricketer-turned-politician. The PM’s adviser on information, Firdous Aashiq Awan, did not respond to calls seeking comment and several ruling party lawmakers declined comment.
“If Khan Sahab thinks passing a comment like this he is insulting anyone, he is only insulting himself,” Bhutto Zardari said to reporters outside parliament on Thursday. “He is this country’s prime minister and he should hold his tongue.”
“Imran Khan is no more the captain of a cricket team,” PPP lawmaker Nida Khuhro told Arab News. “He should be told he is prime minister of Pakistan and he is using very unethical and sexiest language.”
Editor Fahd Husain said the prime minister calling Zardari ‘sahiba’ was a “shocking admission of his own misogyny.”
Here is why I believe PM @ImranKhanPTI calling @BBhuttoZardari sahiba is a shocking admission of his own misogyny. He should apologise. pic.twitter.com/7OyFNagdXU
— Fahd Husain (@Fahdhusain) April 24, 2019
Pakistani anchor and journalist Asma Shirazi called the reference to ‘sahiba’ a “poor and misogynist statement by p.m. against @BBhuttoZardari.”
Twitter user Imaan Hazir said Khan had “only exposed his own deeply embedded misogyny in trying to insult Bilawal Bhutto ... as if being a woman should be used as an insult.”
“Disheartening when any person let alone the PM of a country uses gender bias to demean his opponents,” said Salman Sufi, the former head of the Punjab government’s Strategic Reforms Unit, which has a special focus on women’s issues. “What message is he trying to convey, that women are political bait?”
But many on Twitter also took to the social media website to defend Khan’s words, calling the reference a “slip of the tongue.”
Some supporters circulated an online video where Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s father, Asif Ali Zardari, the co-chairman of the PPP, had mistakenly called his son “Bilawal Sahiba” in a speech.
“For all the people having mini heart attacks on Imran Khan referring to Bilawal Bhtto as Sahiba, can be a slip of tongue, a few examples” Islamabad-based journalist Adeel Raja wrote, going on to a post a number of videos with politicians slipping up their words.
For all the people having mini heart attacks on Imran Khan reffering to Bilawal Bhtto as Sahiba, can be a slip of tongue, a few examples here: pic.twitter.com/fNRuwVoaJ4
— Adeel Raja (@adeelraja) April 24, 2019
Referring to the Zardari video, Khan’s Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari wrote in what was widely seen as a defense of his statement: “How convenient to accept some slip of tongues and not others!”
American comedian Jeremy McLellan who frequently comments on Pakistani politics since a visit to Islamabad for a show last year, changed his Twitter name to Jeremy McLellan Sahiba.
“‘Sahiba’ can also mean ‘Gentleman’,” he tweeted. “It’s a dialect of Urdu spoken only on the Japanese-German border,” he quipped, referring to an earlier gaffe by Khan where he had said in a press conference that Japan and Germany shared a border (they don’t.)
