Leading up to holy Ramadan, we experienced more violence and chaos in the valley. On August 23, 2008, a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a police station in Charbagh Tehsil in Swat valley, killing twenty people. It was the second largest suicide attack in the valley to date, both in the course of this one sad year alone. In a daze I circled Barikot bazaar watching the injured bodies being carted to hospital in Peshawar. Ramadan began on the second of September while the ineffectual operation to control the brutality of the militants was still being waged. The first days of observance passed without incident and we prayed it would continue. Then, when the power went out in the early morning hours of September 22 and did not return after load shedding, I attempted without success to call the Swat Grid Station. My calls to customer service went unanswered as well. The news reached us later in the day that the station had been blown up after militants had broken in and handcuffed the staff shortly after midnight. That this should happen during Holy Ramadan and right beneath the noses of those sworn to control the situation was astounding and questionable. Conspiracy theories abounded that the links between our government and extremist religious groups were tighter than we imagined, but concrete evidence was not forthcoming. The novel degree of boredom I shared with the power-dependent propelled us to Mingora City. The power station was beyond repair. I was one of many shuffling, shocked and resigned past yet another example of blanket injustice on Swat soil. The smoking hull was symbolic of our own ineffectiveness and our faces already reflected minds in survival mode. It seemed the militants could do anything, and soon underscored their control by blowing up the city’s main gas supply line, too, throwing us inarguably back to the Stone Age. When I reached Mingora, I found a generator-backed internet café charging double the usual prices. Standing on queue for two hours for thirty minutes access, I overheard the salesman ordering more generators, attempting to make the most of the indeterminate period of dependency. Need-driven capitalism thrived in the wake of the extremists’ tactics, ironically, as we willingly paid the price for access beyond our darkened streets. Without the blessing of electricity, our water pumps useless, we were forced to bathe primitively. It was the first time in nine years that I had dipped my head into the river Swat and I emerged feeling lighter and cleaner than I had in my life. Eventually everyone congregated there; women washing, children playing, the old resting, while the gunship helicopters hovered over our heads before turning toward upper Swat for another round of shelling on militant strongholds.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Mar 2014 02:52:45 +0000
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