Fasi Zaka
Scarred in Swat by Fasi Zaka
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February 20th by Fasi Zaka.
A week ago I went to Peshawar to deliver a seminar at a business school. By the parking lot I had an undergraduate student waiting for me. He stopped me and said, “I read your columns, and I am disappointed. You don’t write about the slaughter in Swat.” We agreed to meet in an hour’s time so I could hear him out.
He arrived on time, and his mood was subdued. A tall and handsome young man, his face was blemished near the edge of his lips and eyes. I thought they were birthmarks of some kind; he told me it was from a bomb by the Taliban in his city. Shrapnel was lodged in his chest near his heart, and in his legs. His calm demeanor wouldn’t lead one to believe he was a survivor of something so tragic and violent.
Like some of the Swatis I had spoken to, he was desolate. He felt abandoned, and the most apt way to describe him would be to say he and his people were trapped in a crossfire between the Taliban and the army, both of whom they distrusted. Once a proud Pakistani, now the title felt like an identity badge, a titular title, no pomp, no authority, no recourse or empowerment.
This particular boy had an uncle who was killed. He could not go back to Swat because the Taliban had set up check points with long lists of names of people they would abduct, or do worse. He had been marked for death. Whenever he could, he would visit Swat to avoid the roads where the Taliban roamed. He said even in the idyll of the evenings the air was filled with terror.
Young children not old enough to be at a funeral had seen dead bodies in the streets. The slightest offenses mandated death. His gripe was the same refrain, he had never seen dead militants, every action whether by the Army or the Taliban seemed to result in the loss of life for civilians. The colour green had bled to red, the green chowk now known as the Khooni Chowk. His old school was gone, the entire middle class with enough money to do so had taken their daughters out of the city. Schools were either occupied by the Taliban or the forces, and those that weren’t had been destroyed. Those that remain face an uncertain future. He didn’t believe the government was serious at all in doing anything for them.
For him, and several others I had spoken to, it seemed like they were watching their memories being washed away in front of their eyes, the warmth of the place they called home now unrecognizable.
He asked me to put his name in my article; it was the only way to show his defiance. I told him I wouldn’t; he was too young to attract any more attention. But, at the time I was confident that things would change.
Rehman Malik, Asif Ali Zardari and Yousaf Raza Gilani had begun to give unequivocal statements to the country at large that they would no longer stand by the abandonment of Swat and the extinction of government writ in the area. They were going to conduct an operation that would end the mayhem once and for all.
And now we know. Their “swift and decisive” victory was a compromise of capitulating to the demands of the Taliban to enforce Sharia. By giving in, they have legitimized the Taliban.
I read Ansar Abassi and Rahimullah Yousafzai’s pieces on the development, citing it as favourable. I have a great deal of respect for both, especially in Ansar’s case, because their reporting is literally singlehandedly helping drive the national agenda in terms of highlighting the failures of the government. But I disagree.
Yes, the nuances they highlight are true. Swat always had a judicial system similar to the one proposed, yes Maulana Fazlullah and Sufi Mohammed are different in their approach, yes some of the people want a new judicial system that is more effective in solving their issues.
But, are the problems of the people of Swat with the judicial system truly different from that of the rest of the country? Everyone in Pakistan wants speedy justice. No one wants to wait ten years for a decision. So doesn’t that mean we should apply the solution to Swat’s problems to the rest of the country? If not, why not?
The government’s solution is insincere. If anything we need to make the whole country uniform in the writ of the law, and that includes the tribal areas. This “settlement” is basically a stop gap solution to ensure that the government has some breathing space rather than do what is truly necessary, bring to retributive justice those who indulged in the killing spree in Swat and restore order.
Yes, people point out that there have been peaceful marches for the new “judicial system”, but if a man like Sufi Mohammed can send thousands of people to fight in Afghanistan, surely he can manage a few rallies in his neighborhood? What of the other Swat, the people still afraid to come out of their homes, and those who have left their homes, is this what they want? This concern for the judicial system in Swat should also extend to the deposed Chief Justice, to the Farah Dogars of this world as well. The insincerity and incompetence with which this issue is now being resolved will not solve anything in the long run. Will Maulana Fazlullah now redeem all his arms and ammunition to the government? Will a Sharia that is of Malauna Fazlullah’s liking allow girls to go to school beyond the arbitrary cap of the fourth grade?
It’s best summarized by what one reader wrote to me. He said, “Please we cannot take this anymore, from the savagery of the Taliban to the indifference of the government. Please use atom bombs on us, it will end our misery.”
Forget Gaza, care about Swat by Fasi Zaka
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February 12th by Fasi Zaka.
I think it would be absolutely inhuman not to care about the massacre in Gaza, the flagrant violation and cruelty demonstrated by the Israelis. But after talking to an old friend of mine, I can see how someone would be unmoved by the plight of the Palestinians.
A friend of mine called recently from the UK to announce the birth of his son. He was with me in university in Peshawar, and is a most amiable fellow. He is from Swat, and I had a good number of friends from that place during my student years.
The people of Swat are an extremely good looking people, and of a much more demure nature than most Pakhtuns, who are known to be boisterous. Several years after the completion of my education I went to Swat on a research project for the first and only time looking into the value chain of apple growers for the export market. I met many farmers, intelligent family men who were seeing hard times in agriculture but were optimistic about the future. Despite their hardships, they conformed to the gentleman farmer mould. If you had asked me at the time what would be the main concerns of Swat several years into the future I would have said it was the decimation of the population of bees due to pollution that was affecting the pollination of fruit-bearing trees. How wrong I was.
My friend who just had a son is in the UK, working; his wife and newborn are still in Swat. When he called he told me he was going to a protest in London to urge for action in his city. Several of his extended family had been murdered by the Taliban, and others threatened. The beauty of the valley is now irrigated by the blood of its slain innocents.
He asked me with what conscience could Pakistanis protest Gaza and be vocal about the atrocities there while remaining silent on Swat. He is right, it is unconscionable. More than the trouble in the tribal areas and FATA, Swat is problematic because it is indigenous Taliban without the benefit of being close to Afghanistan. When Swat goes, only a matter of time before Peshawar, and ultimately Islamabad too, if not the rest of the country, if the government does not detain these people.
How hard is it to take out a radio station there that Fazlullah uses to terrorise the citizens every night, announcing the roster of targets in his bloody workweek? What are the army and government thinking on this? There is already a report in the press that one of the ministers in the NWFP took out an advertisement in the local papers of Swat asking the Taliban to forgive him. Why is he still in office. The government has been shameless in only lauding Afzal Khan Lala, an octogenarian, the only resistance there is in the valley. Why is the burden of Swat on this old man?
The press has been irresponsible. Many commentators have romanticised the movement. But what is the core of the demands of the Taliban, other than regression of progress? Despite the horrific violence of the Communists, at least they gave their people education and quality healthcare that eventually helped undo the totalitarianism. The only way to undo the Taliban if they ever take over will not be education because there will be none. We will hark back to the days of brutes, leading short violent lives. There will not even be a noble savage amongst us. The moral relativism needs to end. They are massacring the people of Swat; the people live in terror every day while the army and the government watch on.
The Taliban have already issued their hit list to the media of politicians from the once serene valley. How long before they become even more ambitious and issue death verdicts to members of the legal fraternity, human rights lawyers and media men? Expect that soon. Where we can negotiate we should, no need for loss of life, even if it is enemies of the state, we need to preserve the sanctity of what is living. But sadly, we have moved beyond that phase because of the inaction of the both Musharraf and the current government.
The killing machine that the Taliban have become has created a new theatre of blood lust. They exhume graves of people to put corpses on display, they publicly kill people for minor offences, they fear education and ostracise it, they cut off people’s noses and ears. What kind of humanity is that? It’s not Islam, that’s for sure. It is an aberration.
Of all the coverage I have seen, the best came from unexpected quarters and in a totally different setting. While Hamid Mir is often criticised for being sensationalist, his reporting from Gaza was an unbelievable tour de force of mature and thought-provoking reportage. While surveying the damage in Gaza, he looked at the schools that were destroyed by the Israelis and pondered about Swat and the same that the Taliban manage to do with impunity. Without thinking everyone will denounce Israel, but hesitate to denounce what is happening in Swat. Why?
Gaza has been covered well by the world media and for the first time from both the west and the east there is tandem consternation over Israel, concentrating on it and ignoring our own plight is not sensible. The tragedy of Gaza doesn’t need to be replicated in Pakistan. We need to heal Swat, for the people of the valley and as a duty to our fellow citizens. The next generation will not forgive us for our silence.
