Born November 3, 1931 in the house of Kator Shah in Pabbi, DSZT is an authentic village intellectual in whose accounts the echoes of the distant past reverberate as robustly today as those from the present. Language fascinates him. Once in conversation he explained the origin of the early symbols of the ancient Egyptians, alif and beit. These characters eventually found their way into Arabic, and are still in use in Arabic to this day. He pointed out in English we use the term alphabet, the first two Middle Eastern characters thus linking East and West.

I share with DSZT a common interest in the life of the great Pukhtun and Muslim leader Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890-1988). I have been a guest in DSZT's home on two occasions now, first in 2001 and most recently in 2006. Our admiration for this truly remarkable man has led us to become friends.

DSZT has just finished translating the Pashto autobiography of Khan into English. Khan had two autobiographies, the earlier and less detailed of which is English. Unfortunately his more detailed autobiography was written late in life, when his memory was naturally not as strong as it once was. Furthermore he was not a great writer. Nevertheless the value of its translation should not be underestimated, as it will assist more people to become familiar with Khan's vision and practice of a vigorous, tolerant and spiritually grounded Islam, and his hitherto unique historical innovation in forming a disciplined, well-trained and highly organized nonviolent army.

Khan took on landlords, British imperialism, and ignorant local religious clergy with a powerful sense of honor and dignity that sprung from his total conviction that nonviolence would advance his people's lot. A practical visionary, in addition to his nonviolent army, the Khudai Khidmatgars (Servants of God), he founded schools, a journal and political organizations. He initiated a social revolution where formerly marginalized peoples achieved positions of respect and social power. He campaigned for the liberation of women. He did so in a complex, deeply stratified society where poverty and illiteracy were the norm. For his work he spent thirty years in prison yet never advocated revenge.

Khan did all this while working through his people's culture, using strong cultural traits such as a sense of honor and the value of keeping one's word to overcome elements of cultural decay. These included a fanatic fascination with revenge as well as more mundane characteristics that retarded their development, like their disdain for trades like shopkeeping.

While sitting over a cup of piping hot tea on an equally hot day in the dusty village of Pabbi it is easy to believe with total conviction the truth of DSZT’s assertion that for Pukhtuns, their culture is more vital than their religion of Islam. The religious clergy likes to see themselves as the arbitrators of religious life, but they know that should their religious preaching contradict local customs, they will be ignored. Besides this, their religious knowledge is weak and DSZT goes so far to refer to them as parasites.

One is tempted to relegate Islam to be of little force compared to local cultural norms. This would be wrong of course. Islam does exert considerable influence on the thinking of most Pukhtuns. Khan himself used Islam to advance the notion of nonviolence among Pukhtuns. Yet there are cultural norms so deeply held by a large number of Pukhtuns that one wonders what possible sway religious teachings could have in opposition to them. Take the issue of “honor killings” in which Pukhtuns who are perceived to have violated cultural norms are killed for their transgressions, including especially if they have broken taboos like sexual activity outside of marriage. Perpetrators are likely to be killed by their community or family if they get caught engaging in such behavior. Only those who are able to exploit their position of privilege and power, like landlords, are able to regularly get away with extra-marital heterosexual (and homosexual) behaviors.

DSZT and I had a passionate discussion about honor killings. He is a strong proponent of them, going so far as to refuse to call them honor killings. Couching his argument in terms of rights, DSZT believes that when an individual violates cultural norms, they have violated the rights of the community and must therefore be punished. I suggested that even if one was in total agreement that such behaviors were in violation of community rights, why did the perpetrator need to be killed? Could they not be punished in some other manner? He responded by saying that such people were no longer human, and therefore had to be killed. I pressed the issue further, saying that people can be led into such behaviors due to difficult circumstances over which they may have had little control, such as traumatic marriages devoid of love or childhoods in which they experienced sexual or emotional abuse. Furthermore, people make mistakes. Is not compassion therefore superior to community sanctioned murder? DSZT rejected this approach. He said that were these punishments not in place, society would break down and many people would naturally behave immorally. Killing wrongdoers is therefore essential to preserve decency.

The idea that people will behave badly should there not be a fear of punishment is not intrinsically wrong. There is an element of truth to it. Yet the idea that people must be killed to enforce limits on sexual behavior is predicated on the notion that people cannot be trusted. It indicates a fear of what people could do if they are free. In doing so, it shuts down the space for individual spiritual and moral growth by placing totalitarian faith in exacting adherence to community norms. The most prominent aim of honor killings is not the growth of individuals and their society, but the application of the most severe form of control over individual behavior possible--death--to enforce a vision of a good life which is clearly not shared by all people at every point of their life.

In his classic work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire stated that freedom is “the indispensable condition for the quest of human completion.” Early last century, in his book Jnana Yoga Swami Vivekananda expressed the same idea even more forcefully:

[Y]ou must remember that freedom is the first condition of growth. What you do not make free, will never grow. The idea that you can make others grow and help their growth, that you can direct and guide them, always retaining for yourself the freedom of the teacher, is nonsense, a dangerous lie which has retarded the growth of millions and millions of human beings in this world. Let men have the light of liberty. That is the only condition of growth.

DSZT is a progressive Pukhtun man. His ideas on honor killings are likely representative of Pukhtun males of his generation, and probably a good number of Pukhtun females as well. Yet they are not representative of all Pukhtuns. Generational change may be taking place. One person who embodies such change is Samar Minallah, who is Executive Director of EthnoMedia and Development in Islamabad. She acts as media consultant to a range of organizations.

Samar is a Persian name meaning fruit. Minallah is Arabic, meaning from Allah.

Samar is a Pukhtun who is working to reform her culture, focusing on the rights of women. Samar says that the situation of women is very difficult to change in the NWFP. “It really is one of the close to untouchable aspects of Pukhtun life,” she says.

Samar has faced heavy criticism for this work by Pukhtuns who believe she is unpatriotic and embarrassing Pukhtuns. However, when she has spoken out, she has also received support from Pukhtuns who like what she says but feel powerless to say the same thing. Like DSZT, she believes that generally speaking, culture is more important to Pukhtuns than Islam. Being a worthy Pukhtun is more important than being a worthy Muslim. The honor of being a Pukhtun must be defended. Samar believes that aspects of Pukhtunwali--the ancient code of Pukhtun honor and custom--are good, even as there are other areas in need of reform.

I was interested to know how Samar developed the consciousness to work with women on the reformation of Pukhtun culture. She told me that she was encouraged by her father to develop friendships on an equal basis with Pukhtun women living in villages in rural areas, despite their lower socioeconomic class. As Samar grew older, she began to develop an awareness of the restrictions that these women faced in their lives, and which she did not face herself.

Interested in anthropology, Samar began documenting the cultural traditions associated with tribal Pukhtuns who were visiting shrines. She was interested in the particular customs of such visits. She noted that through folksongs, many of which are developed by women, women had a public forum in which they could air their problems in a culturally acceptable manner, somewhat anonymously but still publicly. The folksongs therefore contain a lot of meaning. Being a Pukhtun woman herself, Samar found that the tribal women accepted her and were very open to sharing their problems with her.

Samar points out that culture is never static. What is seen as a fixed cultural tradition today may have developed over time from an honorable tradition into a profoundly negative one. For instance, a current “traditional” method of dispute resolution involves the payment of a girl to a family that has been wronged. Samar has documented this practice in two districts in the settled areas (settled areas are parts of NWFP under formal government rule, as opposed to tribal areas which are largely autonomous). A similar practice occurs in other provinces of Pakistan, albeit with different names. Historically, Samar believes this tradition involved a girl from one family or village going to another family or village, and returning with gifts, signifying the respect of one family or village for the women of the other. However this practice decayed until it reached its present form. Samar is challenging this practice of dispute resolution in the Supreme Court, hoping to have it declared illegal.

There is the difference between the culture of the Pukhtuns living in the tribal areas, and Pukhtuns living in the settled areas. In the tribal areas, women work in the fields. Men are happy to introduce their wives to guests. In the settled areas, men will not do this. This may be because cultural traditions are more easily enforced when there is sufficient economic prosperity. In the tribal areas, women must work outside the home. Naturally they will meet outsiders from time to time. However, in the settled areas, it is not seen as necessary that women work outside the home.

As part of her work, Samar produced a talk show for a Pashto television channel, which she hosted. She invited some respectable guests. One of these guests was Dr Wiqar Ali Shah, a historian whose published works include research on Abdul Ghaffar Khan in the Khudai Khidmatgars (KKs). On the program, he defended the honor killing of women and said this is justified under Pukhtunwali. Samar was shocked that a professor from a prestigious university in Islamabad would advocate such a position. She temporarily forgot her role as talk-show host to challenge those statements of Dr Wiqar Ali Shah. She believes that due to his role as an academic, he is a role model to many young Pukhtun men.

In my opinion Samar is right. The primary role of an academic in society is to develop and pass on ideas to others. When these ideas include the killing of women for particular behaviors, then the person advocating them has one hand on the handle of the knife that is driven into the chest of the women being killed, and the other hand on the mouth that is smothered to stop the screams. Freedom is never merely an abstraction. (... To be continued ...)