Fata to get first IT university
PM's announcement shows realisation that education is key to eliminating radicalisation.
ISLAMABAD:
Ignored for decades and plunged into a complicated web of al Qaeda-inspired violence, Pakistan’s lawless tribal regions are now attracting some attention from Islamabad.
This was what emanated from an announcement made by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani that his government will establish the first-ever Information Technology (IT) university exclusively for students from areas known as terrorists’ safe heavens.
Though it remains to be seen whether the prevailing security situation in the seven Federally Administered Tribal Area (Fata) agencies would allow the authorities to go for such an initiative, the announcement itself indicates officials in Islamabad have started realising that education holds the key to eliminating radicalisation from regions bordering Afghanistan.
The educational institutions — schools and colleges — have been one of the prime targets of militants as al Qaeda-led homegrown terror outfits continue to tighten their hold in one tribal agency after the other, starting from South Waziristan back in 2004 to an hitherto ongoing struggle for the control of Shia-dominant Kurram.
Hundreds of schools, especially for girls, were blown up by affiliates of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Swat, Dir, Mohmand, Bajaur and Orakzai.
In South and North Waziristan, however, Taliban occupied school and college buildings to use them as hideouts instead of destroying them.
Gilani’s announcement came at a meeting with parliamentarians from Fata on Thursday.
The elected representatives from these areas will mutually decide later which place could be the best suited for establishing the university.
MNA Sajid Hussain Turi from Kurram tribal region told The Express Tribune that he believed the initiative would go a long way in keeping tribal youths from having affiliation.
“If they (tribal youngsters) see better opportunities coming to them…they will definitely abandon the ideology they are forced to believe in by the circumstances surrounding them,” Sajid hoped.
Reviving social fabrics
Gilani also sanctioned 2, 000 Lunges (Turbans) for all the agencies of Fata.
Lunges are meant to make an individual tribal chieftain or Malik for a specific area or of a particular offshoot of a certain tribe.
The move appears to be an attempt to revive the centuries-old tribal social system of the collective responsibility in the area, after suffering destruction from the rise of Taliban.
Militants belonging to various groups have killed hundreds of tribal chieftains, particularly in South Waziristan and frightened others into fleeing the area.
The phenomenon eroded the conventional Maliki system of tribal areas to create a vacuum that was subsequently filled by jihadis associated to al Qaeda and local clerics to turn a ‘moderate’ Pukhtun society into a ‘highly radicalised’ one.
Sajid Turi insisted the revival of the true social fabric of tribal areas could be a significant step to help fight al-Qaeda both militarily and, more importantly, ideologically. Gilani also announced Rs1 billion grants for gas supply to some regions in Fata.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 3rd, 2010.
Ignored for decades and plunged into a complicated web of al Qaeda-inspired violence, Pakistan’s lawless tribal regions are now attracting some attention from Islamabad.
This was what emanated from an announcement made by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani that his government will establish the first-ever Information Technology (IT) university exclusively for students from areas known as terrorists’ safe heavens.
Though it remains to be seen whether the prevailing security situation in the seven Federally Administered Tribal Area (Fata) agencies would allow the authorities to go for such an initiative, the announcement itself indicates officials in Islamabad have started realising that education holds the key to eliminating radicalisation from regions bordering Afghanistan.
The educational institutions — schools and colleges — have been one of the prime targets of militants as al Qaeda-led homegrown terror outfits continue to tighten their hold in one tribal agency after the other, starting from South Waziristan back in 2004 to an hitherto ongoing struggle for the control of Shia-dominant Kurram.
Hundreds of schools, especially for girls, were blown up by affiliates of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Swat, Dir, Mohmand, Bajaur and Orakzai.
In South and North Waziristan, however, Taliban occupied school and college buildings to use them as hideouts instead of destroying them.
Gilani’s announcement came at a meeting with parliamentarians from Fata on Thursday.
The elected representatives from these areas will mutually decide later which place could be the best suited for establishing the university.
MNA Sajid Hussain Turi from Kurram tribal region told The Express Tribune that he believed the initiative would go a long way in keeping tribal youths from having affiliation.
“If they (tribal youngsters) see better opportunities coming to them…they will definitely abandon the ideology they are forced to believe in by the circumstances surrounding them,” Sajid hoped.
Reviving social fabrics
Gilani also sanctioned 2, 000 Lunges (Turbans) for all the agencies of Fata.
Lunges are meant to make an individual tribal chieftain or Malik for a specific area or of a particular offshoot of a certain tribe.
The move appears to be an attempt to revive the centuries-old tribal social system of the collective responsibility in the area, after suffering destruction from the rise of Taliban.
Militants belonging to various groups have killed hundreds of tribal chieftains, particularly in South Waziristan and frightened others into fleeing the area.
The phenomenon eroded the conventional Maliki system of tribal areas to create a vacuum that was subsequently filled by jihadis associated to al Qaeda and local clerics to turn a ‘moderate’ Pukhtun society into a ‘highly radicalised’ one.
Sajid Turi insisted the revival of the true social fabric of tribal areas could be a significant step to help fight al-Qaeda both militarily and, more importantly, ideologically. Gilani also announced Rs1 billion grants for gas supply to some regions in Fata.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 3rd, 2010.