Opinion: Brian Cloughley
Next time you hear a Westerners condescending or condemnatory comment about FATA, it would be well to remind them that there are other places in the world that are far from being havens of peace and understanding
Most of us are accustomed to tut-tutting westerners being critical of Pakistans Federally Administered Tribal Areas and referring patronisingly to the backwardness so evident in the region. It is a fact that most of the inhabitants of FATA have resisted attempts to bring it into mainstream modern life, and it is regrettable that a combination of factors has worked against success in establishing, for example, more widely available education and health facilities.
The present violent chaos in FATA and elsewhere in the north-west has been caused in part by the gradual and then fast-spiralling erosion of the authority of tribal leaders and Political Agents, which led to increased influence on the part of religious leaders. These ignorant mullahs, bigoted to the eyeballs and intolerant of anything they cannot understand which is almost everything want to drag Pakistan into the 14th century and ensure that their brand of moronic demagoguery brings gloom and destitution to the streets of every city.
But they are not alone in the world of bigotry. In the British Tribal Area of Northern Ireland, there are barbarians who could give lessons in savagery to FATAs most demented goons.
It is now forgotten by many people that Northern Ireland has seen some of the worst violence the western world has known outside of general war. Fanatical killers of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and its equally ferocious major adversary, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), shot and bombed for years, killing over 3,000 people. (There are other terrorist organisations, such as the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Red Hand Commando.)
The Catholic-backed IRA were possibly worse than the Protestant UDA, but both were examples of religious and tribal fanaticism, with the IRA wanting the country to belong to Ireland and the UDA being opposed to any such move. The IRA caused the deaths of many British soldiers and other citizens because it was amply funded, with much of the money and weapons coming from the United States. IRA killers were given pride of place in St Patricks Day marches and festivities. Those who planned Irish tribal atrocities had their bloodied hands shaken by many a jovial politician, including the New York Republican Congressman Peter King, who declared that We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry.
But surely they were terrorists, these murderous Northern Irish scum? Well, not altogether; because they werent terrorising America. Had one of them gunned down a New York policemen or blown up a Thanksgiving celebration, that might have been another matter. But they were only murdering Brits, and they werent looked on as terrorists until very late in the piece. Even then their treatment was not exactly harsh. Being banned from a Paddys Day parade can hardly be regarded as the equivalent of being tortured in the concentration camps at Bagram or Guantanamo Bay.
So violence thrived in the Tribal Area until the British government and the terrorists came to an agreement to call the whole thing off, with Washington facilitating the negotiations. (Did not someone voice disapproval of the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan for suggesting dialogue with representatives of the Taliban?)
But even after the sectarian gangs halted their vicious war against authority, and each other, the tradition of malevolent intolerance did not disappear. Hatred is so intense that it erupts in barbarism, as it did last month when a howling mob of Protestants murdered a Catholic man after Rangers a Protestant football club beat Celtic a Catholic club.
While Northern Ireland doesnt exactly make South Waziristan look a model of benevolent broad-mindedness, it is important to remember that this mob-killing took place in the twenty-first century in the United Kingdom, a supposedly advanced country.
Mr Kevin McDaid was a Catholic but not a bigoted member of that faith and, most unusually, had a Protestant wife. He was only a few metres from his house in the all-Catholic housing estate in which he lived when the mob arrived and beat him to death. The photographs of his widow, showing her bloodied head after she, too, was attacked, are truly stomach-churning.
The tribal Irish are notable exponents of sectarian savagery. Most Catholics and Protestants dont just hate each other, they hate pretty well everyone else outside their tribal system. A bit like Waziris and Mehsuds, really.
Take the recent case of what the Economist calls the Ulster thugs, crowds of whom stoned the houses of Romanian immigrants, driving over a hundred of them from their homes. Gangs of subhuman ruffians smashed windows and damaged cars.
The victims of this atrocious racism were given refuge in a church hall (there is no record of whether it was a Catholic or Protestant building) and most have decided to flee the country because their lives are in danger from rabid extremists who could teach the Taliban a thing or two about intolerance.
In FATA there is a grave lack of education, and girls schools are burned down. In Northern Ireland they dont quite have that level of trouble, because education is segregated. Ninety-five per cent of children in Britains Tribal Area attend either a Protestant or a Catholic school. Mixed religious schools are far and few between. Even little children cant be trusted to sit together.
The Israelis arent the only ones to have constructed concrete barriers to divide communities. In Northern Ireland the Catholics and Protestants cant live side by side, and their segregated housing estates are divided by wire-topped concrete walls so that they cant get at each other.
So next time you hear a Westerners condescending or condemnatory comment about FATA, it would be well to remind them that there are other places in the world that are far from being havens of peace and understanding. Britains tribal area is still in the Dark Ages.
The writer can be found on the web at Brian Cloughley
Next time you hear a Westerners condescending or condemnatory comment about FATA, it would be well to remind them that there are other places in the world that are far from being havens of peace and understanding
Most of us are accustomed to tut-tutting westerners being critical of Pakistans Federally Administered Tribal Areas and referring patronisingly to the backwardness so evident in the region. It is a fact that most of the inhabitants of FATA have resisted attempts to bring it into mainstream modern life, and it is regrettable that a combination of factors has worked against success in establishing, for example, more widely available education and health facilities.
The present violent chaos in FATA and elsewhere in the north-west has been caused in part by the gradual and then fast-spiralling erosion of the authority of tribal leaders and Political Agents, which led to increased influence on the part of religious leaders. These ignorant mullahs, bigoted to the eyeballs and intolerant of anything they cannot understand which is almost everything want to drag Pakistan into the 14th century and ensure that their brand of moronic demagoguery brings gloom and destitution to the streets of every city.
But they are not alone in the world of bigotry. In the British Tribal Area of Northern Ireland, there are barbarians who could give lessons in savagery to FATAs most demented goons.
It is now forgotten by many people that Northern Ireland has seen some of the worst violence the western world has known outside of general war. Fanatical killers of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and its equally ferocious major adversary, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), shot and bombed for years, killing over 3,000 people. (There are other terrorist organisations, such as the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Red Hand Commando.)
The Catholic-backed IRA were possibly worse than the Protestant UDA, but both were examples of religious and tribal fanaticism, with the IRA wanting the country to belong to Ireland and the UDA being opposed to any such move. The IRA caused the deaths of many British soldiers and other citizens because it was amply funded, with much of the money and weapons coming from the United States. IRA killers were given pride of place in St Patricks Day marches and festivities. Those who planned Irish tribal atrocities had their bloodied hands shaken by many a jovial politician, including the New York Republican Congressman Peter King, who declared that We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry.
But surely they were terrorists, these murderous Northern Irish scum? Well, not altogether; because they werent terrorising America. Had one of them gunned down a New York policemen or blown up a Thanksgiving celebration, that might have been another matter. But they were only murdering Brits, and they werent looked on as terrorists until very late in the piece. Even then their treatment was not exactly harsh. Being banned from a Paddys Day parade can hardly be regarded as the equivalent of being tortured in the concentration camps at Bagram or Guantanamo Bay.
So violence thrived in the Tribal Area until the British government and the terrorists came to an agreement to call the whole thing off, with Washington facilitating the negotiations. (Did not someone voice disapproval of the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan for suggesting dialogue with representatives of the Taliban?)
But even after the sectarian gangs halted their vicious war against authority, and each other, the tradition of malevolent intolerance did not disappear. Hatred is so intense that it erupts in barbarism, as it did last month when a howling mob of Protestants murdered a Catholic man after Rangers a Protestant football club beat Celtic a Catholic club.
While Northern Ireland doesnt exactly make South Waziristan look a model of benevolent broad-mindedness, it is important to remember that this mob-killing took place in the twenty-first century in the United Kingdom, a supposedly advanced country.
Mr Kevin McDaid was a Catholic but not a bigoted member of that faith and, most unusually, had a Protestant wife. He was only a few metres from his house in the all-Catholic housing estate in which he lived when the mob arrived and beat him to death. The photographs of his widow, showing her bloodied head after she, too, was attacked, are truly stomach-churning.
The tribal Irish are notable exponents of sectarian savagery. Most Catholics and Protestants dont just hate each other, they hate pretty well everyone else outside their tribal system. A bit like Waziris and Mehsuds, really.
Take the recent case of what the Economist calls the Ulster thugs, crowds of whom stoned the houses of Romanian immigrants, driving over a hundred of them from their homes. Gangs of subhuman ruffians smashed windows and damaged cars.
The victims of this atrocious racism were given refuge in a church hall (there is no record of whether it was a Catholic or Protestant building) and most have decided to flee the country because their lives are in danger from rabid extremists who could teach the Taliban a thing or two about intolerance.
In FATA there is a grave lack of education, and girls schools are burned down. In Northern Ireland they dont quite have that level of trouble, because education is segregated. Ninety-five per cent of children in Britains Tribal Area attend either a Protestant or a Catholic school. Mixed religious schools are far and few between. Even little children cant be trusted to sit together.
The Israelis arent the only ones to have constructed concrete barriers to divide communities. In Northern Ireland the Catholics and Protestants cant live side by side, and their segregated housing estates are divided by wire-topped concrete walls so that they cant get at each other.
So next time you hear a Westerners condescending or condemnatory comment about FATA, it would be well to remind them that there are other places in the world that are far from being havens of peace and understanding. Britains tribal area is still in the Dark Ages.
The writer can be found on the web at Brian Cloughley
