Pashtuns: Chowkidars or noble savages?

 A version of this post was published in the DAWN on the 1st of July 2011

Writer Akbar S Ahmad writes in Foreign Policy Magazine (Code of the Hill May 6 2011), writes about the death of Osama Bin Laden and talks about his time posted in the tribal agency of Waziristan,a part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). He writes somewhat glowingly about the people of the region preferred honour over a life of paying taxed. He cites the Pashto proverb  "Honor (nang) ate up the mountains, taxes (qalang) ate up the plains."

He describes the society of which he is a product off as one where “ people pay rents and taxes and live within the state system in hierarchal societies that are dominated by powerful feudal, political, or military authority”. Unlike in the mountain areas, leaders in qalang societies have their status bestowed on them by birth or through economic or political means. He then expands on this arbitrary distinction between societies of honour and societies of taxes by arguing that the Military establishment is a product of the “qalang” society. He then emphasises how societies of honour are freedom loving and the importance of honouring tribal identity when developing the region.

I write with respect for Akbar S Ahmads knowledge, personal ties to the region, long service in the tribal areas and Pashtun belt. However I believe his article misrepresented Pashtuns of Waziristan and the tribal belt.

He tries to justify the present situation by citing the Pashtun honour code of Pashtunwali, of “doing Pashto”as the cause for the regions backwardness. This centuries old code advocates living an honourable life which honours oneself, being hospitable to strangers, punishes ones enemies and does not dishonour others. While the code does exist today in many variations, to assume that it turns Pashtuns into people to whom the normal rules of human life do not apply is misleading. This is a classic stereotype of the “noble savage” that has been promoted for long about Pashtuns. During the time of the British Raj, the closer the British got to the Frontier the more savage the local Pashtuns got, conversely the further away the nobler Pashtuns were perceived.

In fact, within Pakistan this stereotype often co-exists with the cultural one of the “ignorant chowkidar”. The “ignorant chowkidar” is mocked for his poor grasp of Urdu, his lack of intelligence and lack of interest in the trappings of modern society. Neither of these simplistic generalisations are true, it is just an easy way out of understanding complex societal structures.

Traditionally, FATA was a part of the country where the Frontier Crimes Regulation applied. Under Article 1 of the Constitution, FATA is a part of Pakistan; that was governed by the Political agent as the government representative working through government backed Maliks and Jirgas.

 It exists in a anomalous situation , where locals are subject to collective punishment, arbitrary arrests and in its time, the FCR gave the political agents unbridled power. In fact as per Article 247 (7) of the constitution, the courts have no jurisdiction over the region.  Under these laws children as young as two years old have been convicted under the FCR. Jurists like the late Chief Justice A.R Cornelius in 1954  described the FCR as "obnoxious to all recognised modern principles governing the dispensation of justice".

The FCR, was brutally effective in ensuring state control of the region, if not its development. Things have since changed radically, the constant conflict in the region and deployment of the military, has shifted power away from the political agents to either the military or militant leaders. Most mahor decision making is now in the hands of the military the old system has collapsed.

The factors contributing to this collapse are not hard to see, a generation has been depoliticised and radicalised, large numbers of locals are working in the Middle East, the old Maliks have been killed and been forced to flee under the nose of the Army. Finally we have an international brigade of people from all over the world who have created an occupied emirate in Islams name using the locals as cannon fodder.

Akbar Ahmad argues “They should consult the elders and utilize the jirga in order to introduce schools and health schemes within their traditional systems so that the people of the nang areas have a sense of hope for the future.”

This would be possible if the old systems existed anymore, in fact they do not, with militant commanders ruling parts of the region. The socio-economic figures on the region are even more shocking, the literacy rate in Fata is about 17 per cent and only 3 per cent of the total women population. The most recent census report 2009-10 reported a school dropout rate of 63 per cent among boys and 77 per cent among girls, while 54 per cent children quit schools before completing secondary education. These are easily the highest   dropout ratio in the country. So how does one invest in structures that barely exist anymore?

What is really needed is radical reforms in the region, allowing political party’s to operate in the region, opening up existing roads in the region to the locals, investing in the IDP’s and investing in development like the, seemingly forgotten reconstruction opportunity zones. There are precedents that are worth studying close by, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provincial government has successfully merged the former provincial tribal agency of Kala Dhaka into the new district of Tor Ghar (literally black mountain). They did this by working through the remnants of the old jirga system and in exchanging offering large scale investments in as an incentive.

While we should not forget the past; we should not allow the memories of the past that Akbar Ahmed so deftly writes about, confuse traditionalism with a generation of radicalisation. Instead of Nang versus Qalang we should recall the poetry of the late Ajmal Khattak

Leave me alone if you will..
The modern (hypocritical) Aurangzebs haunt me still.
I am the Pashtun of my age

The truth is there is nothing noble about being radicalised or living a life of enforced deprovation and there is definitely nothing noble in being considered a noble savage.

Peshawar: The City Where Lives Don't Count

A version of this article has been published in the DAWN today

 I struggled with the title of this post for reasons I will explain at the end.

“Da guluno khaar da, bamuno khaar sho”

                                                               -Quoting Dr M Taqi

“It is the city of flowers, but now it is the city of bombs”

 On the 12^th of July, a suicide bomber on a motorbike blew himself up, killing over 34 and injuring 90 others, near the Khyber Supermarket shopping complex that rocked houses nearby. This attack near the heart of Peshawar cantonment was one of many that the unfortunate city has experienced over the last few years. In the classic manner of these well planned attacks, attempting cause maximum carnage, the attack was preceded by a minor explosion which attracted onlookers and emergency services before the second even more deadly attack.

What was frustrating about this episode was the stark contrast between media coverage of this attack and attacks elsewhere like Lahore or Karachi. Sadly this has been a recurring theme of coverage in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and when there is any commentary there is limited the analysis of the attacks. There are few stories of heroism, few interviews with grieving families shared, few discussions with local analysts at the devastating effect of the attack on everything from, victims, students to local businesses.

The reasons for this is obvious, there are perverse incentives at work: With the breaking of the PTV monopoly, there is no obligation for TV channels to have a presence in all provinces and all major languages like PTV does have. With private companies being driven by viewer figures and advertising, they have few incentives to cover news outside Karachi and the GT road belt. Conversely in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, not many writers will risk going into detail about militancy or the governments actions especially since what happened to the late Hayatullah Khan. With the exception of one talk show host, nobody else to my knowledge hails from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Those few that are invited to shows to discuss issues, will often be cautious in how they word things for fear of being targeted by the Tehrik-e-Taliban. Others that are willing to talk are often ex Army or ex bureaucrats who are invited to talk about national issues.

The unfortunate city of Peshawar, has to live through not just the relentless attacks, the lack of proper burns and trauma facilities, ignorance of the media, an exhausted and angry populace but also the chronic neglect it has suffered over the last 30 years with little development, few jobs and now those few that businesses that are based in the city are relocating because of the security situation.

So what are the alternatives? There has not been an influential Peshawar based English newspaper to advocate the city’s cause since the Frontier Post in its heyday, there are no Urdu channels based in Peshawar. The issuing of TV licenses for Pashto TV channels has been tightly controlled to prevent more liberal groups from setting up an alternative narrative.  The one Pashto channel that is operating in Pakistan is primarily based in Islamabad. Amidst all this, there is however a flicker of hope, a new generation of activists using social media sites to mobilise people locally. They are working through papers like the DAWN to get their voices heard. Whether these activists can connect with a national audience remains to be seen. 

Unfortunately for now, at least in places like Peshawar, deaths are counted, they just don’t matter.

 In a thematically similar post I would also recommend reading Shahid Saeeds article on Dir -The lives less worthy