Tribal Museum vs. Urban Slum Part-3 (Concluded)

Tribal Museum vs. Urban Slum Part-3

The Urban Slum:

People come and criticize the Tribal areas for the wrongs which the people of FATA have never committed. They would fill the pages of newspapers with solutions which the people of FATA have never heard of. They would boldly call it a “Tribal Museum” without caring for what abstract messages they have been conveying to the audience. What really is the point of calling FATA a “Tribal Museum”?

Have really those areas which border FATA like Peshawar, Charsadda, Kohat, Banu, Mardan or Dera Ismael Khan transformed in to modern urban centers? Have the settled areas have learned the very notions of urbanity? Have they got any social justice, the very pre-requisite for an urban society? Do the institutions in these areas are modern enough to present any successful model of social development? Do these areas have less numbers of bigots? Do they always settle their disputes in a court of justice and justice is never delayed? What level of poverty, humiliation, suppression, corruption and anarchy they are in? What distorted culture they profess and how cunning are they have ever been looked in to? Of what good the bulk of educational institutions are and what does a relatively better infrastructure contribute for the collective good of the people? Have they got ownership of their resources? Do they understand and practice their centuries old language of which they pretend to be proud of? Do any signs of a vibrant and tolerant Pashtun culture can be seen in these so-called settled areas? Can we fathom the abysmal depth of moral and cultural degradation in these settled areas where little girls are openly flogged before a crowd of savages and a big army, paramilitary forces and police cannot protect the places of worships from suicide bombers?

From a Pashtun’s perspective these so-called settled areas represent a bleak picture of civilization and cultural retrogression. The society is depoliticized at large and those on the helm of affairs are corrupt, conformists and cruel. People in these areas are living in a slum of a rotten and decaying Pashtun culture which is mostly acculturated with the concocted Pakistani-Arab identity and superficial Indian cum Western influences. The very purity, straightforwardness, wisdom and artistic taste of Pashtun is tainted with the dirt and filth of the state imposed bureaucratic and religious smudges. Does any constitutional reform would clean these Augean Stables? The answer is a big noooooooooo.

So why are we insisting upon FATA’s incorporation in to NWFP? Shouldn’t the “special status” of FATA be retained and reforms introduced in such a manner so that it will help the people of FATA to begin every institution from scratch?