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An alternative suggestion: https://www.scribd.com/document/91535583/Pakistan-a-Personal-History https://www.scribd.com/document/91535583/Pakistan-a-Personal...
by baybal2 5y ago
An alternative suggestion:
https://www.scribd.com/document/91535583/Pakistan-a-Personal-History https://www.scribd.com/document/91535583/Pakistan-a-Personal...
After the 1971, the establishment went into the deepest crisis, and went on a route of soul searching.
Yahya booted, Bhutto hanged, Zia crashed — basically, 20 years have gone to waste.
Taliban has not yet been called that way. Siachen misadventure made military even more unpopular. First genuine heavyweight civilian politicians came into power.
The military establishment truly fought for its survival, and a new raison d'etre. And here, conveniently, the FATA experiment lets to know of itself again.
Just like Pakistan itself, FATA started as a kind of semi-useful colonial appendage, and an experiment. Imprisoned by geography and damned by history, as the cliche says.
Just like a runaway lab experiment, Taliban really took off outside of its FATA petri dish — behind the Durand line.
For some time it looked that the future of the country was still hanging in balance. Military was big, but its influence on retreat, yet the new era civilian politicians were not yet fully in power, despite doing big strides.
It's been less than a decade since Zia died, but two newly minted civilian fractions of power were already at each others' neck. Then, 14th amendment happened, and it was that chink in the armour which the old establishment has seized on.
Musharaf period. Musharaf's putsch was truly the Swan's Song of the old regime, and the last desperate attempt at return to power after the Kargil fiasco. 9.11 been truly a blessing to both Musharaf, and then Zardari, and prolonged this interregnum by at least a decade.
This interregnum has nevertheless ended, and the military has since never been able to intervene into politics directly. Since then, there been few abducted journalists here, and there, few bribed MPs, but so far nothing really signifying a direct challenge to the civilian government. Most of officers who seen Zia's era are close to retirement now, or already died.
- wavefunction 5y agoI can obviously research some of the points you've raised but it would be helpful to readers for you to provide some context. I don't know what FATA refers to for example, and it's not mentioned in the article you linked either.
- baybal2 5y agoFATA - federally administered tribal areas, aka no rights zone, aka Pakistan's own Pakistan. It used to be a special zone in place of what is the current Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, in the north of the country, bordering Afghanistan.
- IMAYousaf 5y agoI'm not so sure "no rights zone" is an appropriate framing here. A more appropriate comparison, good and bad, are like Native American Nations inside the US. But we're not talking about small pockets here like reservations. We're talking entire massive, massive areas.
- selimthegrim 5y agoSurely it had the name “ilaqa-ghair” (no man’s land) for a reason
- trhway 5y agoas Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is mentioned it reminded about "Kesari" - a movie about Battle of Saragarhi i watched recently (it is on Amazon Prime for example)
- IMAYousaf 5y agoDo you remember the fraud that Greg Mortenson (of 3 Cups of Tea infamy) perpetuated regarding people in Pakistan? Many of those areas were FATA areas. Part of the Taliban's origin stories over there have to be contextualized into those people's worldview and their culture. For Westerners reading this, if someone over there declares you as a "friend", which can even happen with an innocuous casual meeting, it quite literally means that that person, their family, and all whom they consider as friends will die trying to save you or defend your honor etc. That same extreme commitment to hospitality is cynically weaponized by terrorist groups to get volunteers en masse through political and religious means, whether that's framed as fighting Russian/American invaders or enemies of Islam. It's quite a beautiful thing outside of that, but it only shows up in foreign media as populist support of bad actors.
- iudqnolq 5y agoWhat fraud are you talking about?
- IMAYousaf 5y agoI would look at these two links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Mortenson#60_Minutes_and_Jon_Krakauer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Mortenson#60_Minutes_and_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Cups_of_Deceit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Cups_of_Deceit