Law and order is one of the major concerns in Pakistani society after 9/11. Tribal areas are the most effected than the other parts of the country. Present study was conducted to find out the causes and consequences of law and order situation in Khyber Agency. Data for the study were collected from 120 respondents of the four selected villages in Khyber Agency through a pre-tested interview schedule. The results stated that Islamic extremism (32%), poor government policies (17%), illiteracy (15%), weak political and malik system (15%) have been reported as the major causes of deterioted law and order situation in the area. All these especially government policies and presence of insurgents resulted drone attacks, bomb blasts, kidnapping, youth conversion into insurgents, fear and harassments, closure of business and schools and migration to safe areas etc. Regarding the effects and consequences of law and order situation in local community the sampled respondents as a whole reported that besides human deaths and injuries drone attacks destroyed/damaged homes (55%), shops (68%) and livestock (54%) which generated hate (36%), sadness (37%) and sentiments of revenge (33%) in the community. They especially targeted youth who joined insurgents to get guns and power (31%), lead a glorious life (28%) and sacrifice their life for Islam (20%). According to pro-government (95%) and common man (64%) groups, most of the anti government persons/insurgents are doing this due to ignorance and illiteracy in the study area where they were trapped on the basis of religion, culture and foreign intervention (9%). All such activities generate fear and harassment in the area. Besides this, the insurgents attacked on schools (38%), threatened students (20%), teachers (28%) and business men (100%). Furthermore, war culture (89%) in the area where there was war between insurgents and government (54%) or sectarian clashes (46%). The study recommends that law and order situation can be improved through peace in the area by using jirga and talks with all the stack holders.

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An Investigation into the Causes and Consequences of Law and Order Situation in Khyber Agency, Pakistan

In December 1998, an official notice was placed in a local Herat newspaper in western Afghanistan. It reported that a 'number of unlawful instruments and goods' had been seized by the local authorities and burned. These items included televisions, cassette players, VCRS and thousands of tapes. It also included 'musical instruments and accessories'. In February 2001 reports first came in of the Taliban leadership's policy of destroying the Buddhist statues at Bamiyan, as part of a wider destruction of the pre-Islamic cultural heritage of Afghanistan. Mir Ghulam Navi, a curator in the National Museum of Afghanistan recalls how, in March 2001, 'They (the Taliban) came with 10 men with hammers and began smashing the sculptures of human forms. We couldn't stop them--they said they would kill us if we tried. It was miserable to watch' (Anon 29/11/01). It is clear that the rule of the Taliban was not germane to cultural freedom and expression. However, this simple recognition does not take us very far in understandi ng why these events took place. How and why did such policies geared towards cultural repression and the destruction of pre-Islamic culture come about? How do we begin to understand the logic of such policies? A 'dialectic of the local and the global' (Giddens 1991) suggests that global processes have local implications and affect the way people live and act. In trying to understand the cultural universe that designated musical instrument and the like as 'unlawful instruments and goods' we can apply three levels of analysis for such a dialectical account. Firstly, the general political, economic and cultural context within which (often global) agencies act and conflicts are played out. Secondly, the specific cultural policy content that is maintained by the various governments and cultural agencies locally. Thirdly, we can point to the actions of communities in these specific locales, in terms of the texture of peoples' everyday lives. Context The widest and most general contextual features are the economic, political and cultural processes of globalization. These include the globalized nature of political relations between nation states, the increased global nature of social, political and economic processes, the distribution of global wealth, and the cultural expansionism of the West and resistances within certain regions! locales. The combination of these features bring new dynamics and a new politico-cultural universe or 'constitutions' (Hardt and Negri 2000). The economic and political consequences of these global processes for Afghanistan are well known. Economically, Afghanistan has not benefited from global processes. Politically, Afghanistan has been relatively isolated until the recent fall of the Taliban. Culturally, Afghans resist Western expansionism in various ways before, during and since the Taliban's rule. To explain these processes in greater depth is beyond the scope of this paper. However, the argument developed below can be see n as a case study in exploring the specific local impact of these global contextual features. For instance, Western criticisms of the cultural repression perpetrated by the Taliban were seen as hypocrisy by the some Afghans. They asked, why does the West care so much about some statues, but care nothing about the misery of the Afghan people. This was at a time when the country was in the grip of its worst drought for 30 years, 12m people were said to be affected, 3m were said to be on the brink of starvation and UN sanctions were still in place (Harding 3/3/01). Global markets have encouraged the illicit trade in cultural artifacts out of Afghanistan over the past 20 years to both official western cultural institutions and private collectors. The Western market for cultural artifacts and the unofficial local supply is but one emanation of the major contextual factors that affects Afghan cultural heritage. Peshawar in northern Pakistan is described as a 'centre of underground trafficking in Afghan antiquities' (Miles and McLennan 2001). …

Jim Shorthose

Papers

Unlawful Instruments and Goods: Afghanistan, Culture and the Taliban. (Behind the News)