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Anti-Taliban groups in Pakistan resist cultural crackdown
Radio Australia - August 24, 2009
Much of Afghanistan's Pashtun dominated south and east have been tense during for the country's presidential elections, but just over the border in Pakistan, outside Peshawar, the battle rages for cultural control of the community. There, the Taliban are trying to outlaw traditional poetry and dance, which they consider un-Islamic.
Presenter: Mustafa Qadri in Pakistan
Speaker: Fazal Maula, non-government organisation, Peshawar
Qadri: Following my travels through northwestern Pakistan where millions fled the war against the Taliban, I met members of an anti-Taliban lashkar or army in the tribal district of Badaber. To describe Badaber as an outpost would be something of an understatement. Both the Taliban and government security forces have wrestled for control of this vitally strategic tribal region. Fazal Maula from a local non-government organisation explains.
Fazal Maula: You know it is on one side the door to Peshawar and on the other side it locates Dera Adam Khel which is a tribal area. And on our right side it is Barha [Khyber] agency that is still a tribal area. And this place... hardly a six to seven kilometre area... in other words, protects the whole Peshawar from militancy and terrorism.
Qadri: So, it's like the gateway into Peshawar.
Maula: It is the gateway into Peshawar.
Qadri: But this battle is not merely being waged with guns and bombs. Along with challenging the writ of the government, the Taliban and other militant groups that champion a strict interpretation of Islam have also challenged traditional Pashtun culture. Especially endangered is the rich heritage of poetry and dance which often delights in worldly pleasures – like sex and alcohol – considered un-Islamic by religious conservatives. In the Swat valley prior to its recapture by the Pakistan Army, for example, the Taliban murdered several dancers and soothsayers they deemed immoral.
Qadri: At a community rest house in Badaber, a man recites a poem from the celebrated Pashto poet Ghani Khan. Many of the great Pashto poets like Khan have been largely unmentioned in recent times as people fear reprisals by the Taliban and other ultra orthodox religious groups.
Translator: (Poetry recital) God, O beloved God, make this world a heaven for me; it would take just three things; all I need is my beloved, my youth and a cup of wine; give the promises of eternal bliss to the Mullah after my death; could dreams of nymphs in the afterlife ever satisfy the poor? Give me here just one nymph, smart, exalted and mesmerizing; O God, if you do not do this then keep your heavenly bounties; I need them neither here nor in the afterlife.
Qadri: Poetry such as this, which outdates the Taliban by around a century, paints a very different picture of the Pashtun peoples who have more recently become associated with extremism. Yet even now, as government authorities push the Taliban out of the tribal frontier, local communities are forming networks across religious, gender and political lines to preserve their culture and protect their society. Here is Fazal Maula again.
Maula: The people of Badaber area constituted different committees on the grassroots level to become united and to face this terrorism in the area. In this mobilisation process mullah were also involved.
Qadri: It is one of several grassroots attempts to foster peace in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. But with so many decades of radicalisation to contend with it will take some time for the great poets to fully re-emerge.
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