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Lifting
the veil from Pak ramps
Neelam Noorani
has only one real bathing suit. It's a floral purple
number
that her mother saved after her daughter stopped wearing
it at age seven.
Now 20, Neelam needs another swimsuit. Born in Pakistan,
she follows the
Muslim faith and some of its rules of modest dress.
For swimming, she wears
an abbreviated wet suit that covers her from neck
to knees.
But she plans
to enter the international Miss Earth beauty pageant
this
fall, for which she must wear something more revealing
during the swimsuit
segment. Neelam, a striking woman who stands 5'6''
and weighs about 110
pounds, won the Miss Pakistan Earth contest in Karachi
in January without
going through the bathing-suit parade that pageant
organisers didn't hold.
Instead, judges
were told to guess if contestants had ''nice healthy
bodies'' beneath their roomy tunic-and-trouser shalwar
kameez costumes, says Muhammed Usman, the contest's
chief organiser.
Along with the
Muslim world's larger worries in recent years has
come a
small but growing pressure to hold beauty pageants.
Neelam finds herself
caught between cultures. Her family moved to Virginia
when she was three,
and she holds both US and Pakistani passports. She
danced hip-hop and played basketball at Annandale
High School. But she doesn't date, wear short skirts
or expect anything other than an arranged marriage.
A student of
computer engineering at Northern Virginia Community
College, she is preparing for a conventional career.
An uncle is a film star in
Pakistan's Lollywood. Her mother was a recording artist
who specialised in
Islamic hymns. Looking to beauty pageants as a steppingstone,
Neelam won the first one she entered, Miss Pakistan
Earth.
Usman, the contest's
main organiser, hopes to put Pakistani beauty on the
world map. The 22-year-old undergraduate at Griffith
College, Karachi, a
Pakistan branch of the Dublin college, has been dreaming
since 1994 about a Pakistani contest that could lead
to international recognition. That was the year beauty
queens from India swept the Miss World and Miss Universe
crowns. Both countries ''have nuclear weapons,'' Usman
says. ''Why not beauty queens?''
Last year, he
roped in relatives, friends and his old high school
to help
fund Miss Pakistan Earth. Usman warned the contestants
that the winner would automatically be entered in
the Western-style Miss Earth pageant and would have
to wear a swimsuit. The Miss Earth contest, which
originated last year in the Philippines, has a ''green''
theme. Contestants are called ''beauties
for a cause.''
Usman also is
organising two male beauty pageants, Mr Earth Quest
and Mr
Pakistan Manhunt. He says ''men in Speedos'' are far
easier for Muslims to
accept than females in swimsuits. ''In Pakistan, if
you take part in beauty
contests,'' Neelam says, ''everyone thinks you're
a slut.''
Currently back
in the country on a promotional tour, she asked her
actor
uncle to hire a bodyguard for her - not to fend off
fans, she says, but to
protect her from Islamic extremists.
In countries
where Islamic fundamentalism has flourished, beauty
pageants
have been forced to adhere to strict rules or have
been forbidden by
religious edicts. Egypt's Grand Mufti Nasser Farid
Wassel issued such a
fatwa last year, saying beauty pageants with swimsuit
segments contravened Islamic law - although Egypt
continued to send a contestant to the Miss Universe
contest last year. The grand mufti also proposed staging
a Miss Morality contest that would showcase ''the
woman who adheres to righteous principles best,''
according to Islam OnLine (www.islam-online.net),
a website with headquarters in Doha, Qatar.
Indonesia, which
has the world's largest Muslim population, allowed
its
citizens to participate in overseas contests during
the 1960s, but it now
bans the activity. Even in Malaysia, where the government
is secular and the Muslim practice moderate, mullahs
ordered the arrest of three Muslims in a Miss Malaysia
Petite pageant in 1997.
Zohra Yusof
Daoud would like to see the stigma removed. Now 48,
and an
activist for women's rights who lives in Malibu, Calif.,
she was Miss
Afghanistan in a 1972 contest. There wasn't a swimsuit
segment, and Zohra,
who fled the country after the Soviet invasion, liked
it that way. She would
like to bring beauty contests back to Afghanistan.
These days,
Neelam is gearing up for October's Miss Earth pageant,
in
Manila. She says she still isn't comfortable with
the idea of wearing a
Western-style swimsuit in public. ''The world has
not seen much of my
legs,'' she says. But she likes the idea of showing
off her beauty. ''We are
Allah's creation,'' she says. ''We have a right to
come out and represent
womanhood.''
Back in America,
her friends don't always understand why she can't
go
club-hopping or drink alcohol. She and her mother
cut down on trips to the
shopping mall after Sept 11, fearing an anti-Muslim
backlash. ''Don't
laugh,'' Neelam says, ''but I really want world peace.''
Source : The
Wall Street Journal / Pictures : www.globalbeauties.com
Neelam
won Miss Earth 2002.
Miss
Dominican Republic won Miss Universe 2003
Miss
World 2003 will be held in December in China, Ami
Vashi represents Miss India this year
Miss
Venezuala won Miss International 2003,
Shonali Nagrani represented
Miss India
Miss
Earth 2003 will be held on November 9th 2003, Vida
Samadzai will be representing Miss Afghanistan, Swetha
Vijay will be representing Miss India
Miss
Afghanistan
Miss
India
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