In this month’s issue of FHM India, a racy men’s magazine, a saucy Pakistani actress, Veena Malik, rocked the Indian subcontinent with a topless cover photo, wearing only an ammo belt, a crossed arm over her cleavage, a grenade in her teeth, and a bold tattoo on her left bicep, “ISI,” for Pakistani’s nefarious intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate.

The cover has been explosive. But while the West has viewed the furor with mild confusion or amusement, many Pakistanis have taken a much more serious stance—with some calling on the actress to be thrown in jail, or worse. The blogs and listservs have lit up with angry, vituperative comments and threats. Notions of shame and honor come up time and again.

“Sharm karo veena,” one person wrote on a fan site for the actress (“Be ashamed, Veena,” in Urdu).

“Shame unto you VEENA. A disgrace to pakistan and islam,” another person wrote on the BBC’s Facebook page.

“Don’t try 2 go back to Pakistan,” someone warned on another fan site, calling her “kutia,” the Urdu word for “bitch.”

The brigade also admires individuals such as Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani MIT graduate known as “Lady al Qaeda.” She was convicted last year in a U.S. court for attempting to shoot a U.S. soldier. The government of Pakistan paid for her defense, and there is a “Free Aafia” movement in Pakistan that regularly takes to the streets.

The topless photo of Malik might just seem like another titillating stunt, pun intended. But she used the pages of the magazine to do something important—to call on Pakistanis to hold themselves and their government accountable for the extremism that has become a part of the nation’s fabric. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Malik said she doesn’t expect to reach a lot of people resistant to reform. “I don’t know if they are ready to change. I don’t think they are ready to listen.”

The actress has come to underscore a deep battle that is playing out in Pakistani and Muslim communities.

On one end of the continuum is Malik, a bright, outspoken commentator on her country’s ills, brazenly critiquing corruption, nepotism, and militant extremism in Pakistan. Born in the winter of 1984, as the nascent nation of Pakistan was in the first years of an Islamist revolution led by its military dictator, Gen. Zia ul-Haq, she is the daughter of a homemaker and a father who served in the Pakistan Army and she has called her “ideal.” She is college graduate in psychology, sociology, and Persian. On her website, she declares her love for her four dogs, Timmy, Tommy, Katie, and Cutie.

On the other end of the continuum is the Times Square bomber Shahzad, who is just about five years older than Malik, born in Pakistan in 1979. His mug earns one newspaper headline “Made in Pakistan,” putting forth the image of Muslims and Pakistanis as scary extremists.

The ghairat, or honor, brigade, first set its sights on Malik last year, blasting her participation in an Indian reality show, Bigg Boss, as too racy. Malik catapulted to the world stage with a fiery response, defending herself in a TV debate with a mufti, a religious leader, named Mufti Abdul Qavi. The video went viral, rapidly making its way around the world.