The victims of cultural genocide
17/04/2007
Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur
In a world where the powerful are remorselessly and shamelessly predatory and unforgiving, it is a singularly unpardonable madness to be gullible, docile and acquiescent. Here the meek and the submissive are damned to cultural, economic and historical extinction. To survive it is essential to retain one?s dignity and culture and be cognisant of one?s rights. Without these qualities, nations are doomed.
Colonization, be it religious, cultural, political or economic, is a curse for the people. In this world of bigoted priesthoods and self-righteous rulers, the timid and the acquiescent are doomed from the word go. The dice is loaded in favour of those who do not shy away from the use of deceit and force to subjugate and destroy cultures, histories, rights and traditions to replace them with their supposedly superior systems. Cultural domination and economic exploitation are two inseparable evils.
Cultural genocide is the name of the game that is being played out wherever there are weak social and cultural orders or where there are powerful enough forces craving to impose their brands of culture and nationalism. This genocide is all the more vicious and unrelenting where the perpetrators smell hefty profits.
It is going on here, it is going on in our neighbourhood against the Adivasis and other minorities, and it is going on against the Tibetans. It is going on in Iraq, in Latin America, in Australia, in Africa and even in Europe; remember the Yugoslav ethnic cleansing. It is the dominant trend among those who consider themselves morally and racially superior to their victims. Though conveniently labelled as development or salvation of souls, these acts are entrenched in racist philosophies.
Let?s study an example closer to home. The once warrior-like Kalash people who ruled from near Kabul to the Lowari Pass are now found only in three valleys, Rumbur, Bumburet and Birir. They are one of the world?s endangered minority communities. The Kalash population steadily decreased due to forced conversions from 10,000 in 1951 to 3,700 in 1998; now it stands at 600.
According to some scholars, they are direct descendants of Alexander the Great?s soldiers. Others trace the history of the Kalash back to the Indo-Aryan migration/invasion in 1500 B.C. Some say that they migrated to Chitral from Afghanistan in the 2nd century B.C. and by the 10th century A.D, ruled a large part of present-day Chitral.
The Kalash practice ancient traditions. Their language is called Kalasha and has a rich tradition of folklore, epics, love songs and idioms demonstrating a high standard of indigenous wisdom and human experience. This knowledge is believed to be on the verge of extinction. The new generation of Kalash does not know much about their non-material culture and heritage. They do not have hereditary chiefs or hereditary priests.
The Kalash valleys are forested up to 2000 metres, in stark contrast to much of the surrounding Hindu Kush Mountains, which are mostly barren and desolate. For the Kalash, who have an animist cosmology, trees are very sacred. They grow corn, beans and potatoes. Walnuts, apricots, apples, pears and grapes also grow in the valleys and the Kalash make their own wine. The Kalash believe that nature does not belong to them. They must ask permission to use the land through prayer and sacrifices in their temples.
Their way of life remained practically unchanged for hundreds of years until bigoted rulers and profiteers learnt about their wealth in the form of water, land and forests. They had lived in blissful isolation in their inaccessible mountains away from the depredations and ravages of those who do not hesitate to maim or kill in the name of religion or progress, those who care not a whit for anything except their own warped beliefs.
In Afghanistan, they used to occupy a region called Kafiristan (land of the infidels). Kafiristan extended to several valleys in present-day Afghanistan, but in 1895 they were conquered and forcibly converted to Islam by Amir Abdul Rahman Khan and since then the region became known as Nuristan (land of the enlightened)! After their forcible conversion to Islam, only the tribes of the three valleys of Rumbur, Bumburet and Birir were left to carry on their centuries-old animistic culture.
About them Declan Walsh says, ?The construction of a rocky access road across the mountains in the 1970s ended centuries of isolation, but not all of the visitors have been welcome. Muslim immigrants now outnumber the Kalash by almost two to one. Eleven madrassas have been built. Two more are being built. Community leaders say madrassas offer money, clothes, land and educational scholarships in exchange for conversion.?
The Kalash people, deprived of their way of life, are in dire straits, struggling to survive on handouts from those who are interested in preserving them as a unique culture of bygone ages. The Greeks have been trying to preserve Kalash culture believing they are originally Greek.
The Kalash themselves after surviving religious, cultural and economic depredations and vicious onslaughts from their so-called benefactors and saviours, have become quite indifferent to their own fate. They seem to have given up resisting and simply want monetary benefits; this attitude is well illustrated by what a Kalash teacher said when asked if they were Greek. He said, ?If you give us money and say we we are Greek, then we are Greek.?
Tourism is also a major issue for the Kalash. Some see it as a blessing, a source of massive funding the likes of which has never been seen before in the valleys. With money they can afford security and betterment. Some consider it a bane. A social worker there believes a beggar?s mentality is developed when development does not come through the people.
With the loss of their cultural denotation, their essence is lost. They are facing cultural extinction. Soon the Kalash culture may only remain in anthropological records. They are slowly fading away into the fog of history, victims of cultural genocide like many other weak and submissive people before them.
A people, a culture, a way of life have been very nearly wiped out by those self-righteous people who think they cannot err in their actions or their judgement. The rulers here helped the Kalash fade away with their insensitive and aggressive attitudes.
Some time back Mr. Wazirzada, the president of the Save Kalash Culture Society, alleged that the rulers were exploiting the poor people of the Kalash Valley. He resented the sending of local girls to Islamabad and Peshawar for dancing. He said the wife of President Musharraf had called 19 girls to Islamabad in January, reportedly to dance at a function held for foreign guests. He also said President Musharraf enjoyed watching the Kalash dance but he never gave any funds for the development of the valley, where people remain deprived of basic amenities.
In Bumburet valley, the most attractive of the three valleys, things have deteriorated due to unbridled greed and disgusting insensitivity of the powerful. There is loss of agricultural land as it is sold out for hotels. PTDC was the first one to take away the meadows to build a hotel, which ignored the Kalash traditions as it was constructed right next to a Bashali house or bashaleni, the place where girls and women are sent to live in during their periods and pregancy, until they regain their ?purity?.
M.Alauddin, in his book Kalash ? The Paradise Lost, says ?We also met a group of Kalash, male and female, resting by the stream. They were going to Chitral town to give a dance performance, ordered by the government officials, on the occasion of a cultural festival. They were rather depressed by the warnings served on the way that if they did not get themselves converted soon, their women would be forcibly taken away from them.?
About fruit trees on which the Kalash survived, he says, ?These trees were appropriated mainly by settlers from outside or absentee landlords as gifts, or purchased at a token price. Many of them were bartered for ludicrously unequal exchange of one Chitrali cap each.? Such remorseless exploitation of the submissive and gullible Kalash is most shameful and reprehensible. The two-pronged religious and economic attack has brought them to the abyss of extinction. I wonder if ?enlightment? or progress is a good enough reason for pushing alien cultures, bigoted dogmas and practices down a people?s throat and destroying the lives they have lived for eons. Destroying cultures, histories and traditions in the name of religion or progress is a brutal, unjustified and unpardonable crime, a crime against humanity. No religious authority or state has the right to decide how the Kalash choose to live; the people and their way of life should be sacrosanct. Cultural genocide is tantamount to physical genocide.
The onslaught in the name of religion and progress has been so relentless and remorseless against the now nearly extinct Kalash that they have completely lost their sense of identity and dignity. They have stopped using the traditional names like Ghantor, Timuk, Shingraye, Ghomita, Yasing, etc, on the plea that these names have no connotation in their vocabulary, though these names must be grounded in culture. They have adopted ridiculous names like ?engineer? ?tehsildar? ?AC? ?DC? , many newborns even get the name of ?one-two?, ready-up? and ?thank-you?.
In fact it was this news item about the adoption of belittling names by the Kalash that prompted me to write about their plight because I think that if the powerful of the world have their way, they will not hesitate in making a lot of people suffer the fate of the Kalash, unless of course people wake up to the dangers facing them regarding their rights, culture and history.
It of paramount importance for all nationalities to realize that cultural genocide is neither painful nor swift. It is a long drawn out process but is quickened when the perpetrators feel threatened by the resistance offered. It envelops the nations imperceptibly and insidiously, it at times occurs so unnoticeably that the people realize it only after irreversible qualitative changes have occurred. It is therefore essential that all people remain on guard against this painless but equally mortal genre of genocide. Mostly it is too late for the victim, so ?Prevention is always better than cure?.
The viciousness and meaness of the religious and political saviours who destroy living cultures and histories in the name of saving souls and progress, those who build cantonments for oppressing people in the name of development, those who build Kalabagh Dams against the wishes of the people, who invade countries to ?save? them, is aptly described by a couplet from Ghalib?s Persian Divan:
Sharminda-e-Nawazish-e-Gardoon na manda eem
Gar Chaak Dookht Jamma ba Mazzad e Rafu Girift
(Need I be thankful to those viciously cruel benefactors
Who take my shirt (skin) in lieu of darning a tear in it.)
I do fervently hope that even if the worst comes to the worst, at no time in the history of this region comes the time when the Baloch and Sindhis meekly surrender their eons-old rights and cultures, be reduced to adopting the culturally and historically belitting names like ?thank-you? ?ready-up? ?one-two? or good-bye?, and submissively accept injustices. I sincerely believe that it would be more honourable and dignified for them to become physically extinct rather than go the unfortunate Kalash?s way.
The writer has been associated with the Baloch national struggle |
