On Oct 22.2013, I had the pleasure of briefly discussing the situation in Waziristan as well as the documentary:
On Oct 22.2013, I had the pleasure of briefly discussing the situation in Waziristan as well as the documentary:
Full article HERE. Oct 18.2013:
“I wasn’t scared of drones before,” Nabeela, an 8-year-old whose grandmother, Mamana Bibi, was killed by a 2012 drone strike, says in the report. “But now when they fly overhead I wonder, ‘Will I be next?'”
Nabeela is not alone.
A new documentary, “Wounds of Waziristan,” reveals the story of drones as told by the people who live under them.
I had the pleasure of sharing a panel with Sinan Antoon last Saturday at the Page Turner literary festival. Sinan noted at that panel the dense, suffocating weight of western constructions of other places and peoples so much so that it begins to seep into our sense of ourselves so that it now, for instance, not uncommon to find casual reference to Pakistan’s Tribal Areas as a kind of “wild west” frontier (or, alternatively, to hear about groupthink by classes of people as “tribalism”). The extension of that imagination –and therefore, implicitly of a network of related ideas: civilization, manifest destiny, noble savage– is both prelude and effect of the terror wars. I have been working on an article that touches on some of this.
Examples, in no particular order, of the use of the “wild west” trope in journalism writing and media about Pakistan:
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) is Pakistan’s impoverished, wild west region, bordering Afghanistan, where the Taliban and al Qaeda have established a stronghold to plan their attacks on Kabul, Islamabad, and New York City. —Foreign Policy, Nov 04, 2009
Dara, a dusty, Wild West-type town, crawls with intelligence agencies, drug smugglers and gun-toting Pathan tribesmen. —The Telegraph, Dec 02, 2005
Dealing with Pakistan’s Wild West —The Globalist, Jan 24, 2008
“It’s the wild west of the 18th century,” says Imtiaz Gul, Pakistani journalist and author of “The Most Dangerous Place: Pakistan’s Lawless Frontier.”
“People are like the old time Wild West, adventurous creatures who grew up with guns, who grew up with a lot of adventurism and who are pretty partially alien to the culture of United States, or for that matter even the culture of Islamabad. —PBS NewsHour Jun 15, 2010
Darra Adam Khel, a small burg in Pakistan’s tribal areas, is the quintessential frontier town. Picture Wyatt Earp sashaying down the streets of Tombstone in a turban, and you begin to get the idea. —Washington Post, Mar 30, 2008
Pakistan’s Wild West – A Photo Essay —TIME
Waziristan -Pakistan’s Wild West (Video) —FORA.TV on Dailymotion
There are more guns for him to choose from in Darra Adam Khel, the nearest thing Pakistan has to a Wild West town.
In fact, guns are about the only things made and sold in this dusty one-street town near Peshawar, capital of the country’s unruly Northwest Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan. —LA Times, Sept 27, 1987
A Wild Frontier – It will take more than American missiles to bring order to Pakistan’s north-western border region —The Economist, Sept 18, 2008
If Peshawar is the Wild West with electricity, then Lahore is Southern California in the 1950s without the beaches. —Rug Review, Feb 1989
Rudyard Kipling described this dusty frontier capital near the Khyber Pass as a “city of evil countenances.” Other cities lived, Peshawar lurked. Even the shadows here had shadows. —LATimes May 12, 1986
Pathans Rule the Wild West —The Independent, Jun 03, 1999
Wild West Pakistan —The Age, Jan 29, 1980
It is an economy and society evoking an image of the American Wild West —Christian Science Monitor, Dec 06, 1982
Wild West Alive, Well in Pakistan (also on Darra Adam Khel) —The Lewiston Daily Sun, Nov 21, 1973
These two provinces, called the “wild west” of Pakigtan (sic) —NYT, Mar 29, 1973
Asked why many of his opponents suddenly find themselves up for murder, Bhutto said it was all part of the “Wild West” atmosphere of Pakistan politics —Lewiston Evening Journal, Mar 12, 1973
“Shooting started last Thursday,” he continued, “and all hell let loose Friday. It was just like the Wild West.” East Pakistan Refugees Tell of Mass Executions, The Milwaukee Sentinel, Apr 07, 1971
BOOKS
Warrior Poets: Guns, Movie-Making and the Wild West of Pakistan 2008
I had ventured into Pakistan’s wild west and I had the scars to prove it. Muslim Cleavage 2011
Peshawar is the capital of Pakistan’s “wild west” Three Cups of Tea 2009
Peshawar Pakistan is the archetypal wild-west frontier town Force Valor – Revenge (Vol 1) 2013
For Special Forces, Afghanistan was the wild wild West, and the new Ranchers reveled in it. —The Hunt for Bin Laden: Task Force Dagger 2003
Here’s an interview with me about life under drones. I’ll be presenting on the same topic at the Drones and Aerial Robotics Conference this Friday at NYU.
Last week I had the pleasure of presenting along side Sinan Antoon and Amitava Kumar at the PageTurner literary festival. I think an audio or video of that event will be available at some point.
Full Interview here. Oct 04.2013:
PG: Is there a political solution possible in Waziristan?
MT: The U.S. has to leave, but they also have to stop funding the Pakistani establishment, and they have to start taking the Pakistan civilian government seriously. The tribal areas also need to be incorporated into Pakistan. How this is done is up to them, but the services of the state need to be extended to that area. There is a whole range of socio-political issues, which need to be resolved. They will require money and also will among political leaders, but this is impossible as long as the United States continues its meddling, occupation, and funding of the Pakistani political establishment.
PG: What do Americans most need to understand about the drones in Pakistan?
From the archives – while researching for Wounds, we came across this Reagan dedication of the space shuttle, Columbia, to the Afghan resistance. Enjoy!
So, what is this business about haunting? WOUNDS is a film that reflects on what it means to be haunted. In his address on May 23rd this year, President Obama claimed that he is “haunted” by the loss of civilian life from the drone attacks and wars carried out on his orders.
Let’s take this seriously. What is haunting?
This film focuses on the people who live in Waziristan and who live among loss. Material conditions, whether it’s the rubble after a drone attack or the grave of one’s kin, persist in reminding the living what they have lost.
***
In their essay “On the Theory of Ghosts,” the German intellectuals Adorno and Horkheimer wrote:
Only the conscious horror of destruction creates the correct relationship with the dead: unity with them because we, like them, are the victims of the same condition and the same disappointed hope.
Only the conscious horror of destruction creates the correct relationship with the dead.
I’ve been writing and speaking for some time about the limitations of international law as a language through which to think and speak about drone attacks. International law is slow. Missiles are fast. International law is caught up in constructing the proper order of violence. In other words, it doesn’t reject drone attacks or imperial power as such; it only raises objections when it finds that the violence has become excessive. This is not to deride legal work, but to point out what it constitutively is: a method to regulate the status quo.
It’s not so much lawyers, but journalists actually, who have popularized legal language as the only frame through which we can talk about drone attacks and moral standards. Journalists regularly fail to look beyond the usual “experts” in policy and legal circles to other fields that may have an alternative to offer. We are becoming vulgar empiricists who seem to think that a truth not attached to a number (say, the number of “militants” vs. “civilians” killed), or a legal rule (for example: whether an action does/does not violate international law) is no truth at all.
We forget that our categories are also an ideological construct. (All categories are.)
So, what is an alternative language to use to think about drone attacks? I think haunting is one frame through which one can re-direct the conversation from issues of legal standards to the lives lived and lives lost under the drones in Waziristan and elsewhere. The questions then turn on the material conditions and the loss suffered–not as evidence for legal arguments but as queries about what it does to a person to live in such conditions. The question is not, ‘Do I stick him in the “militant” or “civilian” column?’ but instead, who survives him? How do they deal with that loss? What is it like to live among the rubble?
It isn’t through legal standards but though trying to understand the horror of the destruction that we create the correct relationship — with the dead, yes — but with the living, too.
If our task as journalists — not the MSM who get paid a lot to shill for power — but the rest of us, in fact most of us: if our task is not to establish the humanity of others, then we might as well stop writing.
Aug 17.2013
With Wounds of Waziristan, Tahir tries to foreground the people who materially experience loss and absence — not as abstract body counts, but as the absence of a brother or a niece or a wife. “Haunting is the insistence by the dead that they be acknowledged, that the social conditions that brought about their demise be made known and rectified. So, haunting is about unfinished business. And, it’s thoroughly social and political. This film focuses on the people who live in Waziristan and who live among loss. Material conditions, whether it’s the rubble after a drone attack or the grave of one’s kin, persist in reminding the living of what they have lost,” she explains.
Full piece here.