October 14, 2009
Top Pakistan university to ban kissing
by Issam Ahmed
The Christian Science Monitor
When an unsuspecting female student at Lahore University of Management Sciences turned to peck her boyfriend on the cheek during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan last month, she probably thought her private moment would remain just that.
Instead the kiss – which a fellow student witnessed, documented, and then blasted in an email to the entire university as part of her "dossier" on campus PDAs (public displays of affection) – has sparked a passionate, headline-grabbing debate about how conservative Pakistani society should be.
The vigilant student, Tajwar Tashfin Awan, sent the mass email in an effort to generate support from students and the administration, which has since promised to "see any PDA go the route of the dodo." Instead, in the past several weeks it has generated hundreds of replies invoking anger, humor, and famous philosophers on what is normally a quiet listserv.
The brouhaha at LUMS, Pakistan's premier educational institution, points to the drastically different ideological directions in which youths across the country are being pulled, says Asif Akthar, the Lahore-based blogger who first reported the story and is now a research assistant at the university.
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