by Aalia

Created on: June 26, 2009   Last Updated: June 29, 2009

This is the climate of war: Man, woman and child in the throes of relentless political hegemony. There are no modalities in this war, just powerful people-let each one do the math - wearing the dark garb of authority of some kind, with manifold agendas, myriad of disputable, conflicting interests and decree. Indeed, it is quite the complex conundrum. They are the ones truly displaced in their mental faculties, their sense of vision and justice.

On the other end of the ominous dangling rope are the downtrodden oppressed masses, children homeless and uprooted, impoverished and displaced in the very sense of their being. There you have it: the quintessential "making front-page news" hard-core ground realities in the valleys of Pakistan. There is no picture accurate enough than the one your very own heart will draw, when the conscionable mind begins to assimilate news and reports from the media and the modern world of information.

I have grown up in the post-independence era listening to my grandmothers' tales of migration during the 1947 India-Pakistan partition, of broken ties, siblings separated, unfathomable personal losses, and personal traumas that linger long and steadfast. The present crisis of two million refugees from Mingora, Buner, Dir, Mardan districts is indisputably the regions' greatest after the 1947 partition which brought about the migration of over ten million people. With the crisis come the mounting challenges of a multi-lingual plural society, their sense of personal identity and socio-economic status. This however, pales in comparison to the montage of problems, pain and agony the violence has caused.

The militant insurgency extends from the districts of NW Frontier Province including the Swat Valley, led by Taliban local leader Maulana Fazlullah to FATA of North and South Waziristan. The rugged wild mountains of South Waziristan is the stronghold of the Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud of Tehreek-e-Taliban, and other rival groups of the Ahmedzai Wazir tribe, namely the warlord Maulvi Nazir. The vast array of names and their modus operandi is harrowing and defies any speck of morality. Their rules taunt the very functionality of Islam.

Yet the Pakistani government succumbed to pressures hoping to curb their advances and restore security and endorsed the imposition of the Shari'a law by militants in Malakand. Ironically, militants established bases around the provincial capital of Peshawar to raid and torment people and bomb targets.

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