a take on taliban from the FATA - problematic too
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Farhat Taj <[email protected]>
Date: 2009/2/17
Subject: (SPN) Fantasising about FATA
To: socialist Pakistan <[email protected]>
*Fantasising about FATA* Tuesday, February 17, 2009, The News
Farhat Taj
In her article on Jan 28 Shireen Mazari argues that the people of FATA
support the militants because they see the Pakistani army as fighting
America's war. This is the most absurd thing I keep hearing from people who
clearly have little idea about the culture and people of FATA. My question
to them is a simple one: if the Taliban militants are so popular, how does
one explain the formation of so many anti-Taliban tribal armies all over
FATA?
The Taliban have target killed the leaders of those armies, which according
to the popular Pakhtun perception, was with the tacit consent of the
intelligence agencies. How could the people of FATA support those who have
assassinated their entire tribal leadership and have massacred so many young
men of the tribal armies?
How come the people of FATA support the Taliban who have replaced their
Pakhtunwali with a Taliban order? The residents of FATA are not ready to
surrender their Pakhtun way of life and therefore are bearing the brunt of
Taliban savagery.
Under the code of Pakhtunwali, an outsider may go to FATA wearing an culture
specific to his or her own culture without inviting any sanction from the
tribes. This is because members of the tribes will understand that the
outside is from a different culture and would hence respect the outsider for
what he or she is. However, under the Taliban, the same person, especially a
woman, venturing into FATA, without a burqa or similar attire would be
liable to be punished with lashes.
Also, it may come as a surprise to many readers that in FATA's culture the
drum and dance have always played an important role. However, since the
Taliban's occupation of the area, these two age-old traditions have been
banned. Hence, only outsiders who are not well-informed would think that the
local people would be supporting the occupiers who have replaced their
melodious Pashto music with jihadi anthems that are played loudly throughout
the region.
The common perception among all Pakhtuns, including those in FATA, is that
the Taliban are "strategic assets" of the military establishment and have
been given a free hand by the establishment to eliminate all those Pakhtuns
who dare to challenge them. Many Pakhtuns see what is happening between the
military and the Taliban in FATA as instances of "friendly fire." The belief
is that, by doing so, they both get what they want – the Taliban, a
terrorised population on whom they can implement their jihadi agenda and the
establishment gets to play its power games vis-a-vis regional and
international powers. From what one reads and hears, it seems that most
analysts in the media are either not aware of this reality, or deliberately
hide it from their readers/audience.
People believe that the army is perfectly capable of crushing the Taliban
but that the will is lacking. Many people in FATA and other parts of the
NWFP I have met in recent weeks and months as part of my ongoing research
have said that they don't see much difference between Baituallah Mehsud and
Fazllulah on the one hand and the senior and retired leadership of the
establishment.
To go back to Ms Mizari's article, she criticises the US drone attacks,
calling them a violation of our national dignity and sovereignty. However,
the matter is far more complex and not as black-and-white an issue as she is
making it out to be. Many people are of the view that many of the drone
attacks have hit precise targets and have succeeded in eliminating foreign
militants such as Arabs, Uzbeks, Tajiks and Afghans – as well as local
Taliban. There have also been some civilian deaths but most people seem more
concerned with the militants who die. In any case, if more terrorists are
killed than civilians, then most people seem satisfied with the attacks.
It may be very difficult for some people (read: our armchair analysts) to
belief this, but the fact of the matter is that most people of FATA are fed
up with the occupation of their homeland by the Taliban and Al Qaeda
terrorists and they are actually happy to see them killed – even if that
happens to be by US drones!
In any case, many of the residents of the region do not exactly see the
drone attacks as a violation of our national sovereignty. And their
reasoning is quite straightforward; they say that long before the drones
came, much of FATA had been ceded by the state to the militants. And they
say that when this was happening – engineered or otherwise – why wasn't much
fuss made about the loss of national sovereignty by anybody then? In this
context, the people see, for instance, drone attacks by the US on South
Waziristan as a matter not between Washington and Islamabad but between
Washington and Baitullah Mehsud. For Pakistan to have a say in it, the
territory must be retaken by it. Thus, the question of violation of the
national dignity and sovereignty of Pakistan does not even come up, as long
as the area is under the occupation of the Taliban.
The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender
Research, University of Oslo, and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional
Research and Advocacy. Email: [email protected]
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