What is it to Maria B?

make no mistake, business interests and the politics of bigotry go hand in hand

who has anything less than tired to say about where the country is headed? it’s a dark time for all of us, but all the more important for some of us to remember that we are just now seeing the kind of violence and surveillance that most Pakistanis have been subject to for years. In truth the tide turned a long long time ago. A group that has repeatedly forewarned us of this is the trans community. Now, as ordinary people are being tried in military courts, these interlocking grids of oppression have further sanctioned the erasure of transpeople through the Federal Shariat Court. As of May 19th, three sections of the 2018 act have been struck down by the court which has claimed that gender identity, the right to self perceived gender identity as well as the right to inheritance for transgender people do not conform with Islamic principles.

some reflection on the motivations of those who are actively drumming up horrible propaganda against a marginalized group of people, in particular someone who is directly responsible for bringing criticisms of the progressive Transgender Act of 2018 into most of our homes, is overdue. For months we’ve watched her videos on IG, bedecked in floral prints, sitting in her palatial house with her cronies, and insisting on the eradication of the trans community. Over the last few months, Maria baji has repeatedly called trans a ‘western’ term, laughed at the prospect of one day becoming a man just because she ‘feels’ like it, seized the opportunity to platform a member of the transgender community who has agreed to nod along to her narrative, and gone on talk shows to warn people about the dangers of transgender people. You have to wonder what she’s doing all this for. Why is Maria B, owner of 25 retail stores across 12 cities, investing so much time and effort into this campaign?

Let’s backtrack a bit before we really get into it. Who is Maria B? According to her website, a famous (yet unnamed) magazine once labelled her the Coco Chanel of Pakistan. Which makes complete sense because, like Maria B, Coco Chanel was also a huge fascist. A fair skinned, light haired cis woman, Maria B has built one of the most successful retail brands in Pakistan. She is also married to a businessman. A couple of years ago, they became the best meme on the internet after outing themselves for sending their cook home on a public bus even tho he had covid. On some level this might have been the moment that galvanised Maria B because since then she has become somewhat a public figure who loves to hate on the ‘woke’ crowd.

I wanna do some good old fashioned close reading of some of the videos she’s been filming over the past few months. One of her earlier videos discusses language.

My dear friends, do you guys hear this a lot nowadays? “OMG you’re such a transphobe!” or, “OMG you’re such a homophobe!” Do you know that there is no such term as transphobe or homophobe in Islam? There is no word for it even in Urdu. This is a term of the West. Because being a transgender is unacceptable in Islam. So the next time someone says this to you, say thank you, AH I am a Muslim and I am blessed to follow the Quran and the Sunnah.

ok so, as for many people, her first recourse is to look to the past in order to justify violence in the present moment. If there is no term for transgender in Urdu, and if there is no word alluding to transphobia in the Quran then it is the West’s corrupting influence (and money) that has planted this evil seed here. Maria b is aware of what gets people worked up in Pakistan, referring to some abstract past in her invocation of language and text - eerily similar to IK’s Riyaasat -e Medina - is a complete power play. you were never here, she says to Pakistan’s trans community, you never existed. you are a western import, here to destroy our cultural values. we are good muslims, our line goes back to here, in the language. here, in the text. don’t corrupt us with your impure existence. you are an obstacle in our return to our glorious past.

of course the idea that Maria B is a true defender of the East is totally farcical. If this is the case then why ever mention the comparison to Coco Chanel? Why applaud herself for integrating Swarovski crystals into her formals? Why are so many of her campaigns shot abroad? On the flip side, any MB stan will bring up her 2021 ‘uniting cultures’ campaign where she featured a Turkish model in some of her designs. To which I have to say this was not because Maria B is some pan Islamist, but because Ertugrul fandom was at its peak around this time. Let’s not be fooled by all the pretense. The only thing Maria baji believes in is money, how to make it and how to keep it.

In her latest video, Maria b wears a huge smile on her face and a Chanel necklace as she says:

“Jummah Mubarak everybody! today i am extremely happy. for some months you must have seen that we have been speaking to you constantly about the transgender act. today the Shariat court has given its final ruling and AH everything that we have been saying for months has been included in the ruling. basically what we have been saying is that Allah has made just two sexes, men and women. Aside from this there are intersex people, who do not have any rights and should be getting their rights. this transgender movement which has taken over the world and is destroying children and families, according to which if today I feel like a man I can go and become a man, all of this the Shariat court has pronounced as against Islam, meaning against the principles of Islam. We have just heard the announcement and I just want to say Mubarak to the whole country because this will protect our family system, our Islamic principles. please everyone pray two nafl in thanks, thank you Shariat court and everyone who has been fighting for this ruling. Congratulations Pakistan!”

Let’s think about these institutions that she names in her video; family and state. As a shrewd businesswoman, Maria B is completely aware that the nexus of state, family and capital must all sit perfectly comfortable amongst one another. It is compliance to the other two that gives her legitimacy as a third. She must protect the family and the state, so that the family and the state in turn protects her. But I believe it is all much more insidious than this. After all this is not just a question of protecting her own interests, but of actively producing violence and bigotry. Maria B believes that the destruction of ‘children and families’ will also destroy her business, and so she has purposefully questioned the Islamic principles of the Islamic Republic, aware that the state will capitulate in order to keep people like her, people who own capital, happy.

But why? Why can’t Maria B just let transpeople be? She could feature a couple of them in her next lawn campaign for optics, and maybe a few of them could even become her customers. Is she really going to let bigotry get in the way of business? But Maria B is not a short term thinker. She’s got the long game in mind. It’s one thing to sell clothes, it’s another thing to sell a system.

The fact is that Maria B believes that the ‘destruction’ of children and families will also destroy her business because she is keenly aware of her role as an essential collaborator in the construction of Pakistani womanhood. Being an authority on the ‘essence’ of womanhood is how she gets all her coin! Maria B says to women, you suffer because of your bodies and the proof of your womanhood lies in your suffering. Let me show you how to fully realize your womanhood, let me sell you the clothes that will teach you how to embrace your position in society. She profits off a certain kind of subjugation. After all, this oppressive family system is what she has built her entire business on. The dutiful feminine wife, the husband who buys his wife a Maria B jora every few months, two three sweet children (preferably wearing Mkids) The existence of transpeople directly questions this system, lays bare its shaky foundations. And, along with the questioning of this family system, the questioning of kitty parties, lawn season, spending thousands of rupees on clothes to mitigate the emptiness and alienation that many women in this country feel because their agency is limited to the purchase of a three piece suit in a colour they like, will necessarily follow.

The stakes are right there for us to see. Multiple stores, multiple brands, pret, formals, lawn, linen, fragrance, jewelry. What will happen to my authority and the coin that is bears, Maria B probably wondered as she lay awake at night, scared to death, if anyone can just get up one day and decide to be a woman?

But I think we can all agree that nobody becomes that rich or successful without exploiting masses of people anyway. Even if Maria B directly employs everyone who works for her, and even if she pays them fairly - all a huge if - according to a recent report by Sahar H Ghazi for BBC Radio’s Climate Hour, cotton pickers in Sindh - of which an overwhelming majority are women - get PKR 280 for their daily labour and PKR 500 for picking 40 kg of cotton. Even if Maria B Cares (her CSR initiative) ensures that all customers get their purchases in a cute little cloth bag, that does not take away from the fact that producing on the level the brand does means they are contributing to the environmental degradation of the country. According to an interview she gave just a few months ago, the company launches five collections every month. I’ll let you do the math.

and so, in that case, what is a little more exploitation then to Maria B? so what if striking down sections of the 2018 Act gives people license to act violently towards an incredibly vulnerable community? so what if now people who have an X card are in legal limbo, unsure of what their future in this country looks like? so what if state methods to assess whether someone is ‘intersex’ or not are going to be invasive, to say the least?

It all means nothing to Maria B, who knows that the foundations of her success are shaky, and that the stakes are very very high.

a quick note on the fashion industry. the silence of the fashion community about the bigotry of Maria B has been eye opening to say the least. it’s time for us all to become vigilant about who is supporting the narrative she is peddling by continuing to work with her, wear her clothes, post her brand on IG, and turn a blind eye to her in general. I say this not because I harbor any delusions about what the fashion industry is, as outlined above, or even about its potential to be progressive (extremely limited) but because it’s time for us to know who our allies truly are. There are many people in the fashion world who feel they can make fashion money and spout progressive / feminist politics at the same time, and yet a lot of these people become tellingly silent whenever one of their colleagues starts to act like a horror show.

finally, the transgender community is going to appeal the FSC judgement. Please watch this video in which Bindiya Rana delivers a haunting speech on the judgement, support the appeal and follow the case. Till next time.