Music Freedom Report no. 2: Pakistan • 3 March 2012 Bomb blast in Peshawar in September 2011, exiled Haroon Bacha, Nabila from Ningora in Swat, Naghma Pakistan: Taliban losing their ‘war on music’ Pakistan’s internal war between unarmed music lovers and religious militants who use deadly weapons and bombs to stop all music activity has entered a new phase in 2012, reports Javed Aziz Khan. The religious music ban based on terror continues, but it is increasingly isolated to tribal areas in the north of the country. The rest of the country’s 170 million people have gained new confidence in their right to listen to the music of their own cultures as well as of the West. By Javed Aziz Khan At a time when religious militants in South Waziristan were busy torching tape recorders, computers and cellular phones for ‘spreading obscenity’ because they were being used for listening to music, an audience of over 600 people at the Nishtar Hall in the provincial capital Peshawar were clapping for every verse and poem of the legendary Pashto poet, Rahman Baba, sung by Fayaz Kheshgi during a play on the life of the Sufi poet to portray to the world the soft image of Pashtuns. These people who live in the north of Pakistan, close to the border of Afghanistan, are historically known as ‘ethnic Afghans’, and form well over two- thirds of the population in the area. These contrasting incidents show Pakistan in a nutshell today. On one hand, the militants managed to destroy over 500 computers, cellular phones and other electronic gadgets in Wana, the headquarters of South Waziristan tribal agency for spreading music in the month of December 2011, and again, in another campaign in mid-January 2012, they destroyed even more. On the other hand, exactly at the time when the militants led by Maulvi Nazir blocked main Wana Road in South Waziristan and torched music appliances – on 16 January 2012 – the first ever theatre play on the life of Rahman Baba in over 350 years was receiving applauses from the Sufi music lovers throughout the Pashtun belt. Overwhelming response The play is directed by famous director and actor of Pakistan, Ajab Gul, and written by Abaseen Yousafzai to pay tribute to Rahman Baba and tell the new generation that their forefathers have always preached love and peace in their poems and ghazals (songs). The response to the play was overwhelming. According to the director, he has been approached by the Afghan and European Union authorities to stage the play in Kabul and Brussels. “The people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are in desperate need of positive entertainment and that is why the response to the first ever theatre play on the life of Rahman Baba is so overwhelming,” said Ajab Gul. The fact is that Pashtuns love music and entertainment. Khattak dance, Attanr, and many more versions of dances as well as the Tappa form of songs are the examples of the Pashtuns’ love for music. The mystic melodies or the Sufi music are famous all over Pakistan where people sing and dance to Sufi music at holy shrines and certain religious gatherings. The Qawwali form of Sufi music is being listened to by a sect of Muslims as part of the worship, in which the poems of Allama Mohammad Iqbal, Maulana Rumi and other spiritual leaders and poets are sung. But over the last decade, the people in most of the tribal areas in northern Pakistan and some part of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have been deprived of music with the imposition of a ban by the Taliban who believe playing and listening of music of any form is against the teachings of Islam. Bomb attacks on music shops and threats to musicians are less frequent today, but incidents still continue all over the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and its adjoining federally administered tribal areas, FATA. Who are the Taliban? “The Taliban are militants who have modeled their movement after the Afghan Taliban to justify their activities for ‘establishment of Islamic Sharia’ in Pakistan and to pretend that they are defending, or promoting, Islam. Their ultimate end goal seems to be capturing power in Pakistan, and they are using violence as a tool for that,” explained Delawar Jan, a senior journalist covering the war on terror in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for The News International, the largest English daily of Pakistan, and who is a Humphrey Fellow. In fact, the name ‘Taliban’ was first associated with those who are students of a school, especially seminaries, but with the passage of time and with the participation of these students in the armed fight against Russian and other foreign forces in Afghanistan, the name Taliban became synonymous to the fighters. Today, the Taliban are fighting against the government and foreign forces in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and they are often also referred to as ‘the militants’. 2 In Pakistan, there are different factions of the militants but they are all united under the umbrella of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which is led by Hakimullah Mahsud from the North Waziristan, a tribal area close to the border with Afghanistan. Most of the militants are based in tribal and semi-tribal areas of the country while some are hiding in Swat and other six districts of the Malakand division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. They carry out attacks all over Pakistan. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa comprises of 25 districts with an estimated population of about 21 million people, and also controls the six semi tribal areas called Frontier Regions or FRs. The federally administered tribal areas, FATA, comprises of seven tribal agencies administratively controlled by the federal government through a governor. The Taliban in Afghanistan are being led by former ruler of Afghanistan, Mullah Mohammad Omar. Military operations are in full swing against militants all over Pakistan while in Afghanistan the NATO forces are fighting to eliminate their network. Why this ‘war on music’? There are different versions about the status of music in Islam. Some religious scholars believe music is banned in Islam but that one is allowed to sing verses without drums. The Taliban believe there is no room for listening or playing music in Islam and that is why they first warn people to shun any music-related activity and when they don’t obey, they stop them by force. “Since a thumping majority of people don’t agree to the Taliban’s music ban, they use force to make them obey. But music lovers, not Taliban, are winning this war,” told Delawar Jan.. He referred to that the industry of music is flourishing all over Pakistan: “You can see the increasing number of music bands in Pashto and other languages, the rising number of new and educated people coming to the profession as well as the all time high number of music listeners all over Pakistan, especially Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. If the Taliban were winning, the number of musicians, singers and listeners would have decreased by now due to fear and threats.” A number of other religious scholars believe that there is enough room for music in Islam, and that is why the music genre Qawwali and other kind of Sufi music is considered part of religious rituals among some Pakistani sects in Islam. “The Sufi music is in fact a relation between the man and the God,” said an artist, Faizan Khwaja. The Coke Studio, Mystic Melodies, Heritage Revival and Arifana Kalam are among the popular music series at different tv-channels that have earned tens of thousands of audience and viewers all over Pakistan. Music as a prime victim Even though the militants are carrying out their anti-music terror attacks all over Pakistan, inhabited by over 170 million people, their war against music has primarily been concentrated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the tribal areas. During the last decade, music was one of the prime victims of violence there. 3 Hundreds of music shops were bombed, singers and dancers were killed and many were threatened to quit the profession. Scores of people from across the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and federally administered tribal areas had to switch over to other businesses, following an unending series of bomb attacks on music and movie centers, started right from early 2007 that continued till the end of 2011. Shabana, a popular dancer in Swat Valley of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was hanged in public in a busy square in 2008 to send a message to the rest of those females and males associated with the business. A report by Pakistan Press Foundation documented that as many as 13 men and one woman were killed by the militants, (this figure does not include musicians and singers killed by non- militants), five were kidnapped, and more than 121 were injured in different incidents of violence against music over the past decade. Some musical functions in rural and suburban areas were also attacked. Militants had hurled life threats and imposed bans on more than 13 musicians and musical bands. Apart from Shabana of Swat who was killed by religious militants, there are many singers and dancers who have been killed by incidents other than militancy. An emerging singer, Ayman Udas, was allegedly killed by her brothers in April 2009 in Peshawar for causing bad name to their family for being a singer while another female dancer was killed and two were wounded when attacked by robbers on their way back home from a dance party. Another dancer, Rubi, was killed by her father in the same Peshawar town. Pressure, threats and bans Also in Punjab and other areas of Pakistan, a number of steps have been taken against the freedom of expression for musicians and dancers.