Islamabad, welcome to FATA

As someone who alternately lives in both the tribal areas and the federal capital, I am forced to compare both.

Until the recent past, it seemed that land reforms and the abolition of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) were the only problems faced by Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata). But drastic changes in the strategic dynamics and political attitudes saw, among other things, construction of dozens of seminaries in every agency and similarly through the rest of the tribal belt.

Gradually, those who had the charisma to gather people around them started getting murdered and eventually, slogans for the implementation of Sharia law started echoing all around Fata. At the time, extremists started filling the gap of the slain chieftains and seemingly waiting for the right moment, broke a sea of terrorist elements, both foreign and domestic; after the first drone strike on Damadola.

Suddenly, jirgas were replaced by courts run by militants, levies by heavily armed militants, cricket grounds by militant training camps and folk music by synthesised vocal music of its own kind — with the lyrics rooted in jihadist war songs. One could not share his thoughts even with his kinsfolk, for every gathering was overrun with spies.

As someone who alternately lives in both, the tribal areas and the federal capital, I am forced to compare the current situation of the latter to that of the former.

After Islamabad’s equivalent of a drone attack in the form of the Lal Masjid incident, illegal buildings have sprouted on the green belts. Many died in blasts and target killings. The Margallas have been sprinkled with commandos and towering concrete walls have risen outside every notable building, in Islamabad.

At a time when this country needs unity from its public representatives, PML-N and PPP workers are fighting over a day’s life of Zamarrud Khan and the century-long life of Rana Sanaullah. Imran Khan and Maulana Fazl are busy catching ‘Yahudi agents’ and burying Goldsmith’s agenda. Samiul Haq and Munawar Hassan are of the opinion that we should break bread with those who have the blood of more than 40,000 Pakistanis on their hands. In the meanwhile, the police urgently needs a stun gun and a dart gun to be added to its armoury.

The federal capital is now truly representing a huge chunk of Pakistan which comes under its sole jurisdiction. Islamabad, welcome to Fata.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 31^st, 2013.