The Pakistani state, the direct inheritor of British colonial power in the lands bordering Afghanistan, has preserved many elements of the Raj view of Pashtuns. Its military continues to see Afghanistan as a country over which it has rightful influence – as it has proved with its enduring support for the Afghan Taliban and other Pashtun groups opposed to the government in Kabul. It still governs the Pashtun tribes living in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) through the colonial-era Frontier Crimes Regulation. Since the United States overthrew the Taliban in Kabul in 2001, Pakistan has also been able to rely on an orientalist description of “untameable” Pashtuns to explain resistance to the American presence in Afghanistan. This explanation also allows Pakistan to avoid its own active role in Afghanistan’s instability. Some years back, Pakistan’s military establishment, which runs foreign and security policy, even managed to convince many at home and in the West that the Pakistani Taliban were essentially wild tribals riled up by U.S. drone strikes in FATA. After the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack on the school in Peshawar this month, Pakistan’s attention has again been primarily focused on the northwest.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 22:59:00 +0000
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