Adil Najam
Found this very interesting older PTV documentary on Swat (3 parts) from only a few years ago (maybe 3 or 4). Ordinarily it would not have been noteworthy. Slightly slow moving in typical PTV style. But view it today – knowing what is happening in Swat today – and tears swell up in your eyes and rage rises in you veins. This is the Swat that was. The Swat we knew. The Swat that is being destroyed.
Here are just a few highlights from the documentary that would have sounded mundane only a couple of years ago, but in light of today’s reality which seem like they were spoken in another life, another century.
Part III: “Miandam ki khaas baat yahan ka sakoon hai. Jitna sakoon, peace, tranquility mein nay Miandam may daikha hai shayed hi kaheen hou!” (“Miandam’s special trait is its tranquility. The amount of peace and tranquility that you see here, it is difficult to imagine anywhere else”).
Part I: “Mingora shehr kaafi ba-ronaq aur rawaN dawaN shehr hai. Yahan kay loug khush o khurram, friendly aur baRRay mehman nawaz haiN.” (“Mingora city is very lively and bustling with activity. People here are very happy, friendly and hospitable.”)
Part I: Note the description of the Swat Museum, including talk of the “priceless” treasures and also of art and sculpture.
Part II: Note the description of the giant Buddhas of Jehanabad; since defaced by the Taliban.
And just in case you have been on a different planet recently and missed what is happening in Swat today, here is a more recent documentary from Dawn TV:
Well, no coincidence perhaps, but the ingredients had been there long before the arrival of the Americans… if not the Americans, something else would have proved to be the fuse… Pakistan maturing enough to move away from our hired thugs (one can dream!), India losing patience with our Kashmiri misadventures, Afghans rising up against the Taliban, China, Russia or Iran flexing some regional muscle could all have caused the cleavage (of sorts) that exists to an extent between the state and these lunatics…
They are hardly the sort of people who would, in the long run, have been content with playing second fiddle (I’m sure they abhor fiddles anyway)… they were always bound to turn their guns on us, but we had our heads buried in the sand…
In a way, it would be good if the current upheavals serve to bring the honeymoon to an end… they need killing, and the sooner we realize it the better… wishing that the Americans hadn’t arrived, or waiting for them to leave before we win those parts back won’t do… our state had a big role to play in catapulting these people on to the stage, so the onus is on us to finish them off too…
@wasiq
Swat’s links to Afghanistan begin earnestly in the Afghan Jihad. The same militants who fought there later came to Swat to find shelter and were welcomed by the Swatis. Their first insurgency in the 1990’s were put down by FC, and it was inspired by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Since 9/11 happened, it is useless to argue if the Americans had “not invaded” Afghanistan. It happened, and I think regardless of what happens in Afghanistan, Pakistani security is in Pakistani hands. If we control our territory, and not allow groups to recruit and grow, we will not face the sort of hell we are facing right now.
Face it, FATA essentially was a free for all, where you could do absolutely anything as long as you bribed the political agent and some local bigwigs. It was part of Pakistan only in name, and this huge weakness was fully exploited by criminals, local militants and foreign militants. Then the disease from FATA spread outward.
Nostalgic: The timing of Swat’s upheaval, the breakdown of all civil order in NWFP and Baluchistan, and open warfare in FATA coincide too closely with the American invasion of Afghanistan to be a simple coincidence. This and the fact that all these regions are near the Afghan border, I would argue, link the the American invasion as the prime cause for the breakdown of order on Pakistan’s Western flank. If what you say is true than, the situation we have today would have occurred even if the Americans had not invaded Afghanistan and removed the Taliban — that, I think, is a difficult position to sustain.
But Wasiq, the Taliban in Swat are indigenous and weren’t forced into Pakistan from Afghanistan… and FATA was never ever a slice of paradise…
The lesson to be learnt from history is that you cannot export lunatics across your borders, rule by proxy over a neighboring country and brainwash entire generations of your people and not expect to reap the bitter harvest that follows…
The American invasion in Afghanistan and the removal of the Taliban forced them over the border first into FATA and now into what was considered Pakistan proper. What is happening to Pakistan now is identical to what happened to Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam War — remember the Khmer Rouge came to power on the coattails of American carpet bombing and more munitions were dropped on Laos than on the entirety of Europe during the Second World War. The older I get, the more convinced I, to repeat a truism, become of the need to study and understand history in order to avoid repeating its mistakes. Swat was a slice of paradise, so were large swaths of Baluchistan, FATA, and NWFP, but these regions, like Cambodia and Laos, will only recover and return to Pakistan once American troops have left Afghanistan which I am increasingly convinced will become Obama’s Vietnam and could very well result in our nation’s dismemberment.