Ten Years of Meltdown

Another bomb explosion in Peshawar yesterday claimed yet more lives. Like the explosion in the Khyber tribal district not long back, this happened whilst people waited for a bus. Sadly, this comes less than a week after sectarian violence in Parachinar and today gunmen stormed a police station, again in Peshawar, leading to yet more killing. I can't help but think that right now, it doesn't really matter any more what the faith denomination, ethnic background or political slant of an individual is, in Pakistan - something is seriously malfunctioning. Whilst ultimately violence is indiscriminate; Peshawar, Khyber, Swat, Parachinar, Waziristan, Bajaur and much more, is Pashtoon land and when we turn our violence upon each other, I feel hurt and confusion. At times it feels that we are going down like flies. And I continue to ask why.

Ahmed Rashid, writing for the BBC describes the past ten years perfectly when he says that Pakistan is in Meltdown.  He writes that ten years after becoming embroiled in the US "War on Terror", Pakistan, mired in scandal, may have to face some kind of unilateral US action. This has long been conjecture, but let's face it, when the US enters Pakistani airspace with its drones, this results in civilians being killed. The Raymond Davis shoot-out saw Pakistan bowing to US pressure - thus effectively creating an immunity for American intelligence to kill on Pakistani soil, seemingly without impunity and of course, most infamously Osama bin Laden was hunted down and killed in Abbotabad, whilst Pakistan was asleep. All of these represent US action against Pakistan, whether anyone cares to admit it or not.

But of Pakistan itself - why is it headed towards meltdown? I have a theory. Rather simplistically much of Pakistan's past, present and future woes stem from its schizophrenic relationship with India and how this is dealt with. And yes, there is mass poverty, economic ruin, natural disasters, ethnic unrest and wide-scale political corruption at home. Everything in Pakistan is negatively over politicised - the intelligence services, militant groups, the judiciary, redrawing of provincial boundaries, college campuses, religion, the media, municipality services, the ordinary man on the street and of course, the military. 

Notice there that even whilst discussing this, I didn't even get to politicians. They of course, knowingly sit there in Pakistan temporarily or in exile to escape criminal or corruption charges, watching as everything melts before them.

 

 Cartoon by Satish Acharya

Zarteef Afridi Khan

Just a few kilometers from the municipal limits of Peshawar, Jamrud lies in the Khyber Agency tribal territory where the law of Pakistan does not hold. Here the Pashtoon code of conduct holds sway. Display of weapons is a matter of pride in a land where education has taken a back seat for most. On 8 December 2011, human rights defender Mr Zarteef Afridi Khan was shot dead by unknown gunmen in Ghundai area near Jamrud Bazaar while he was on his way to work at a local government-run school where he served as headmaster.

Prior to his murder, Zarteef Afridi had been active as the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan's core group coordinator in the area. Apart from his role in HRCP, Zarteef Afridi had been active with a number of peace groups in campaigning for the release of dozens of prisoners under the Frontiers Crimes Regulation.

He was known for his pacifism and his commitment to the cause of education he began his teaching career in 1983 when he was prevented by his mother from from going to Soviet Russia for a degree in engineering. His commitment to the cause of human rights meant that he became a vocal advocate of equal rights for minorities, women and children and his campaign for the release of people jailed under the Frontier Crimes Regulations won him the respect of the people of Jamrud. In the mid 90s Zarteef Afridi coupled his teaching with activism through the platform of Democratic Commission for Human Development.

It is reported that Zarteef Afridi had been receiving death threats from local militants for his work in organising a congregation of tribal elders.

Teacher, Human Rights Activist, Social Worker.
Killed December 2011

Ahmad Shah Bābā احمد شاه بابا

Ahmad Shah Durrani احمد شاه درانی (born in 1722 either in Herat or Multan; died in 1773, Kandahar), also known as Ahmad Shāh Abdālī احمد شاه ابدالي was the founder of the Durrani Afghan Empire is regarded by many to be the founder of the modern state of Afghanistan when he united the land in 1747.

Born as Ahmad Khan, Ahmad Shah rose quickly to become a commander of four thousand Abdali (later known as Durrani) Pashtoon soldiers following his enlistment in the military of the Afsharid kingdom. In June 1747 following the death of Nader Shah Afshar of Persia, Ahmad Shah became the the Emir of Khorasan. Able to mobilise the Pashtoon tribes and allies, he pushed east towards the Mughal and the Maratha Empire of India as well as west towards the disintegrating Afsharid Empire of Persia and north toward the Khanate of Bukhara.

Within a few years he had conquered all of today's Afghanistan and much of northeastern Iran. After a failed attempt to gain the Panjab in 1748, Ahmad Shah returned two years later and displaced Mir Mannu, the Mughal-heir apparent and governor of Panjab. His incursions into India roused the oppostion of the Sikhs and the Maratha rulers on several occasions leading to the defeat of the Marathas eight times, including the major victory at the 1761 Battle of Panipat which was fought north of Delhi.

Western advances of the Sikhs, better organised and disciplined in opposition led to Ahmad Shah returning to Panjab in 1764 and 1767 to defend Lahore, but the threat of internal strife and mutiny of his troops over pay, meant that on his retreat, Lahore was eventually taken followed by the Sikh advance further into Panjab. Ahmad Shah focused his efforts on retaining hold of Peshawar and the country west of Attock. Even today, for Afghans who oppose the British laid Durrand Line, these areas would still be included in a "Greater Afghanistan".  

Ahmad Shah's mausoleum is located in Kandahar, Afghanistan, adjacent to the famous Mosque of the Cloak of the Prophet Mohammed PBUH in the center of the city. Today he referred to as Ahmad Shah Bābā, احمد شاه بابا,  the Father of Afghanistan and the man who united the Pashtoons into one country.

Global War: Local Cause?

More than 100 dead; many more injured. 

There is a terrible inevitability about the twin bombings in Charsadda, yesterday morning. Little about it is different from previous bombings. There is the same vicious tactic of two devices - one designed to kill helpers moments after the first blast. There is the familiar target: recruits to the underpaid, under-equipped paramilitary frontier corps. There is a familiar culprit: the Pakistani Taliban, who claimed the attack.

The difference is that this strike comes after the death of Osama bin Laden. It is an attack, claimed in the name of al-Qaida, by Pakistanis on Pakistanis. I'm not the sympathiser, the analyst, nor the strategist here, but I do have a question.

Why?

Why is it that we live in a world where the region to which I owe my personal history continues to be caught up in a war without end? Why is it that Pakistan and the US continue with a delusional marriage that aggravates the suffering? Why is it that Pashtoons appear to be caught up in someone else's war? Why is it that Islam ("peace") has increasingly little to do with this? Why?

The story goes that Osama bin Laden is dead, killed in a secret raid that may/may not have had Pakistani involvement and one that continues to raise questions on the legitimacy - should the US have entered sovereign territory; should bin Laden have been captured and tried; what was the exact narrative of events? Many questions unanswered and perhaps for another time.

But for now I wish to understand the whys I raised earlier. Jason Burke, writes in The Guardian that Osama's "strategy, happily, was not always a successful one ... [many groups across the Middle East] ... rejected Bin Laden's advances, as did others throughout the Far East, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia."

Global War: Local Cause?

But of those that did sign up, there is a decidedly local dimension which appears first. The global brand of terrorism, such as the Tehrik-e-Taliban-Pakistan, who were responsible for an attempted bombing in New York last year have hitched their local cause to the broader one – against the "Crusader Zionist alliance" or their local hypocrite, infidel, apostate stooges (in this case the Pakistani government and military and all who work for them).

In his article, Burke makes the key point about the appeal for radical groups not being universal across the Muslim world, but points out that "the global language usually disguises local weakness. That of the Pakistani Taliban is that they are not a conservative traditional group battling to preserve age-old customs but a bunch of marginalised men from smaller tribes, without education, without positions in the social hierarchy and who would be nothing without the power of the gun."

... Above all, what the invocation of a dead Saudi-born terrorist's name is aimed at disguising is the truth about the various conflicts that have been conflated into the narrative, in Washington as much as in compounds in Abbottabad, of one single civilisational clash.

In fact, there is no single conflict, simply a nasty mesh of individual wars, most of which pitch countryman against countryman, in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in Pakistan."

Flood Story 2

Gul Hassan, 70, is no stranger to adversity. Back in the 1980s, fighting in his native Afghanistan forced him to flee along with his family to neighbouring Pakistan, where he started a new life in the refugee settlement of Hajizai, located on a riverbank in the northwestern part of the country.

But over the past week, the most severe flooding in over 70 years inundated his old home and forced him to flee for a second time. For six days, he and his sons have been living in the open on the pavement of a roadway, while his wife and daughters are sleeping with friends.

"It was midnight, when the water levels suddenly began to rise," says Hassan. His remaining belongings, those the family had managed to carry with them, lay heaped under plastic sheeting on the pavement. "There have been floods in the past too," he continues, but these were the worst in living memory. "This was devastating".

Flood waters are still flowing through the nearby settlement and it is raining again. Relief organizations are struggling to reach victims in areas that have been cut off by the flooding as roads and scores of bridges have been washed away whilst on a nearby bridge, a crowd of children has gathered to watch as the dark brown waters begin to rise again.

Hassan is one of the more than 1.5 million people displaced by the worst floods Pakistan has seen in a generation. Included in that number are some 700,000 people like Hassan, who have already been dispaced by conflicts-in Afghanistan or in Pakistan itself-and who therefore find themselves homeless for a second time. His family is among some 10,000 Afghan families living in four refugee villages destroyed by the flood waters.

UNHCR
(adapted from this report by Rabia Ali, Peshawar, August 2010)

700 Innocent Civilians in 2009

Ahmed Rashid, Lahore-based, journalist writing for the BBC:
Pakistan & Afghanistan Crisis: Pakistan

In 2010, Pakistan faces a triple crisis:

• Acute political instability - President Asif Ali Zardari may be forced to resign, which could trigger long-term political unrest
  
• An ever-worsening economic crisis that is creating vast armies of jobless youth who are being attracted to the message of extremism
• The army's success rate in dealing with its own indigenous Taliban problem

The latter has been partially successful, but consider the figures reported by the Dawn Media Group:

Peshawar: Of the 44 predator strikes carried out by US drones in the tribal areas of Pakistan over the past 12 months, only five were able to hit their actual targets, killing five key Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, but at the cost of over 700 innocent civilians. According to the statistics compiled by Pakistani authorities, the Afghanistan-based US drones killed 708 people in 44 predator attacks targeting the tribal areas between January 1 and December 31, 2009.

For each Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorist killed by US drones, 140 innocent people also had to die. Over 90 per cent of those killed in the deadly missile strikes were civilians, claim authorities. The success percentage for the drone hits during 2009 was hardly 11 per cent. On average, 58 civilians were killed in these attacks every month, 12 persons every week and almost two people every day.

Ahmed Rashid continues:
Pakistan & Afghanistan Crisis: Afghanistan

The Pakistan military, which effectively controls policy towards India and Afghanistan, shows no signs of giving up on the sanctuaries that the Afghan Taliban have acquired in Pakistan. US success in Afghanistan is unlikely without eliminating these sanctuaries or forcing the Afghan Taliban leadership into talks with Kabul.

For the moment the army is hedging its bets with the Afghan Taliban, as it is fearful about a potential power vacuum in Afghanistan once the Americans start to leave in 2011. Other neighbouring countries - India, Iran, Russia and the Central Asian republics - may start thinking along the same lines and prepare their own Afghan proxies to oppose the Afghan Taliban, which could result in a return to a brutal civil war similar to that of the 1990s.

Is History about to repeat itself?

I have one great desire ...

Bacha Khan

Peshawar, NWFP has been in the news for several weeks as it burns in the face of a continual onslaught of violent attacks. This is just one such story. Who is responsible? The militants? Covert government agencies? External or internal? To be honest, it matters less, when people are in fear - when stepping out to go about your daily business becomes a matter of taking the greatest of risks.

Here, I share an e-book from Google Books, Non-Violent Soldier of Islam by Eknath Easwaran on Bacha Khan's majestic struggle for justice. This is my candle for peace for all people affected by violence.

Tor_Khan تور خان

A Song For Peace

Pa Pekhawar Ke Parhar Ma Jorawa, La Da Kabul Parhar Warghaley Na De (Don’t Wound Peshawar as the Wound of Kabul Has Not Yet Healed)

In the face of the reality of the Pashtoon plight today, the song serves as both a lament and an appeal. When I sit and listen to the words, away from the distractions around me, the power of the message stirs me to the core.

The song is sung by Hashmat Sahar and penned by Subhan Abid, a Dubai-based driver who hails from Darga, Malakand Agency.

Tor_Khan تور خان

Exodus

"This is war", President Asif Ali Zardari, Washington, May 2009

I have family who have never been outside Swat their entire lives, I can't imagine the difficulty that they must be going through. Last night I heard that the situation in Swat has descended into panic. Family homes have been destroyed by military shelling, making even shelter in houses unsafe. During non-curfew reprieves, they have begun to leave - by car, bus, pick-up; even walking.

Refugees

Latest report - most are headed to seek refuge in Peshawar, Swabi or are en route to Karachi. People arriving in camps are being held there - they need to be issued IDs because of escaping Taliban. The displacement has split up families, and the stories of Taliban atrocities are still seeping out of the valley. Again I cannot imagine the misery of what it must be like to abandon your home and flee for safety - but this is about individuals trying to hang on to their lives, and their families. I have never been in that situation, but that I have uncles, aunts and cousins who are on the move and that I get to hear this and their stories, makes me feel all the more responsible. My father called me up last night advising me not to travel this summer. The plans for a big family gathering in Swat are now in a state of confusion.

I am distraught. My wife was talking to family yesterday and there is a strong feeling that the situation was allowed to deteriorate - the common citation, as I've mentioned before, is that there has always been covert support directed towards the Taliban by government agencies and that a more sinister political game is being played out to the detriment of the Pashtoons.

Pashtoons have suffered so much, whether it has been the continuing war in Afghanistan, poverty, illiteracy, lack of adequate housing and health care and massive displacements of people. Ultimately the Swati Pashtoons are not the beneficiaries. Please pray for us and pray for peace in our Watan at this difficult time.

Tor_Khan تور خان

When Beauty Hurts

The troubles in the Swat Valley ring deep. It is a beautiful place, and with it, it's people. My connections to the valley through family and our shared history means that I have many aspirations for the place. I can dream on a grand scale, but for now I pray for a lasting return to normality and a future of peace and prosperity.

My life, as a Yorkshire-born son of migrants from Karachi, means that my contact with Swat has not been extensive. I speak, however, as someone who grew up knowing of my immediate family living in the valley. I also speak Pashto with a distinctly Swati dialect. Swat is a constant part of our family conversations, and this summer the valley draws my wife, our children and myself back. After all, this is who we are.

Swat - سوات - A Princely State

Swat was a wilaayat (princely state) long before Pakistan was carved out of India and is astonishingly breath-taking; an obvious tourist hub and the pride of the Yusufzai Pashtoons. The snow capped mountains, the gorges, the streams, the pine trees, are all reminiscent of those naturally beautiful places untouched by urban decay and pollution. I first went to Swat when I was toddling - I remember nothing of it of course - though had the opportunity to return and explore as an adult.

That was twelve years ago in the summer of 1996, one month before the Taliban took control of Kabul. Swat in 1996, was peaceful, rather under-developed and with even more power outages than places like Peshawar but where traditions - honour, virtue, kinship, Islam and Pashtunwali remained strong.

I knew little of the Taliban then and what I know now, the world knows too. Afghanistan has suffered much and today, Swat has been bleeding too. The disturbances at the present time have led to the killings of hundreds and the displacement of an estimated 800,000 people. Pashtoons, uprooted, seeking refuge from violence, once again. Officially, a peace has been brokered, but at a cost - girls education has been dismantled and the recent footage of the public flogging has left many of us disturbed.

President Obama, has recently referred to the Tribal Areas along the Afghan-Pakistan border regions as the "most dangerous place on Earth."

It is my intention, InshAllah, to travel there this summer. The occasion is a wedding - these moments of joy and optimism are what we need to help us heal. Please pray for us.

Tor_Khan تور خان

Ustad Awal Mir استاد اولمير

Ustad Awal Mir, استاد اولمیر, celebrated composer, musician, singer and poet continues to be a legendary figure in Pashto music. He was born in 1931 Peshawar, British India where studied music under Ustad Jafar in Peshawar and began to perform initially for radio broadcasts. His first song for Radio Peshawar was زړگى مې شو ټوټې ټوټې  Zrgee Me Sho Tttottai Ttottai (My Heart Has Broken Pieces).

At 18, he visited Kabul, Afghanistan to perform at the Independence Day concert where he remained until his death in 1982. The title, Ustad, was later conferred upon Awal Mir by the Ministry of Culture and Information, Afghanistan.

The clip shows him performing ستا د سترګو بلا واخلم Sta Da Stergo Bala Wakhlam (Let Me Take the Pain from Your Eyes) written by Amanullah Sailab Sapi and remains one of my all time favourites.

Tor_Khan تور خان