Churchill Revisited

During the election process, which has to take place within a two month period, a caretaker government with limited power has been appointed, replacing the previous one in order to guarantee free, fair and transparent elections. In this quite unique system politicians can be replaced by anyone, by judges or even writers, as it just happened in one of the provinces. Retired Justice Khan Khoso has become interim prime minister - giving hope for the first successful transition of power in the country, which has seen three military coups and four military rulers in its history.

The Election Commission of Pakistan has to make sure that all candidates conform with the Constitution. This means, apart from other criteria, that they have at least a bachelor degree approved by the Higher Education Commission - the deadline for the approvals runs out today and 101 former members of parliament were so far denied confirmation. Some of them have even been arrested and sent right away to jail for fake degrees. An unexpectedly dynamic commission that took many by surprise in their uncompromising and bold handling of the rules.

Former general and then president Pervez Musharraf has returned to Pakistan, heavily guarded and facing an avalanche of legal challenges, one of them being indicted for betraying the State of Pakistan under Art.6 of the Constitution, which can comprise death penalty. He prepares to fight in the elections on May 11th, but only few give him a chance, many are looking forward to see him fail instead by the peoples' verdict. He holds his first press conference and around thirty people are reported to have attended.

Imran Kahn holds another big rally in Lahore under onsetting downpours - a large crowd of tens of thousands of mainly young from Punjab weather the rainstorm and the predictions about his chances are as wide as the ocean.

The elections promise to mobilize an unprecedented number of voters to the ballot boxes - assuming that the security situation can be kept under control.

Hurray! The long awaited NOC (Non Objection Certificate), that had to pass through several desks of several ministries has arrived and I finally get to know how "Switzerland of Pakistan" (that is how the Swat Valley is often called by the locals) looks like! 

Climbing up the Malakand pass by car, the same route Winston Churchill took on horseback as a young officer in the British Army to fight an unexpected uprising by local tribes in 1895, I read in his book "The Story of the Malakand Field Force" a quote of Sir A. Lyall's  book "The Amir's Message": "Our paths are narrow and steep. The sun burns fierce in the valleys and the snow-fed streams run deep;.... So a stranger needs safe escort, and the oath of a valiant friend". We make it safely to the other side to Mingora, the "valiant friend" for us being the Pakistani army.

History can bear lasting truths: writing about the construction of the road to Chitral by the British in the late 19th century, which connects Peshawar, the Swat Valley and Upper Dir to Afghanistan, Winston Churchill remarks: "But a single class had viewed with quick intelligence and intense hostility the approach of the British power. The priesthood of the Afghan border instantly recognised the full meaning of the Chitral road. The cause of their antagonism is not hard to discern. Contact with civilisation assails ignorance, and credulity, on which the wealth and influence of the Mullah depend."

Schools in Swat suffered badly during the floods in 2010. Many of them were washed away and schooling had to continue for the last years in temporary tents provided by UNICEF. This comes now to an end as the Swiss Humanitarian Aid is about to finish the rebuilding and rehabilitating of schools for close to seven thousand children. The construction sites are constantly being overseen by experts from Switzerland and the schools are built with local material as disaster resilient buildings - they would fit equally well in the mountainous regions of Switzerland. The architectural pride and perfection of the young architect sends a strong message to the village and the families - the children deserve the best conditions for their education.

At a dinner in the garden of the serene Serena Hotel in Mingora I meet Dilshad Begum, the District Education Officer for girls schools of Swat with her daughter, who is a former classmate and girl friend of now famous Malala. They tell that her strength inspires all girls here and only reinforces their desire to go to school and assume that one day Malala will come back. Both speak an impeccable English without ever having been abroad. 

As we talk about the cultural differences of how men and women perceive each other, I jokingly suggest a change of roles for one day, men to stay at home and cook, decently covered with a head scarf and women to roam the streets freely, drinking tea at stops and riding motorbikes, a practical way to find out about the others' lives. She laughs and would tell all her friends about this rather exotic idea - opening a round of interesting discussions.

Later in the evening a music competition of local bands is mentioned, and how much fun that was, to bring different types of Swati music together. As I express my regret having missed the event, I learn that only men could attend and our male guests just now realize, that no women were invited, wondering why it did not even come to their mind to include them in this concert evening.

A noble Italian archaeologist has made the Amluk Dara Stupa and the ancient city of Barikot his place of heart and is tirelessly digging and unearthing stones, pottery and the few statues of Buddha who have been left undiscovered by illegal treasure hunters over the centuries. He is weathering stoically and with utter calmness all political and militant turmoil in the area - the Taliban came and went... - and spends since twenty six years half of his time in this valley. His goal and fight is to protect these important witnesses of the Buddhist past and old civilization and get Pakistan interested in protecting its heritage. The stupa goes back to the times of Herakles and Alexander the Great, lies at a spiritual site and mountain with many ancient believes, abandoned and subsequently left to looters in the 7th century.  But deep tunnels and missing artifacts cannot lessen the enthusiasm of this graceful professore that softly advises his local team and talks about wonderful and refreshing dives in the nearby spring in the heat of the summer and the solitude of the very end of the valley.

A final stop in the warm light of late afternoon at Takht-i-Bhai, which I was told would be a minor excavation site but turns out to be the most important ancient Buddhist monastery in Pakistan with the most complete remains of that period. Unearthed, partly restored and mostly preserved by the British before 1947, all funding by the Pakistani government for its future preservation has been stopped recently - we meet only a few local visitors.

Overwhelmed by the size of the structure - and the beauty of the scenery - we gladly accept the offer for a guide, as long as he would speak English, which he immediately confirms. Our question about the duration of the tour, as the shadows start getting longer, is answered quickly with "twenty years"! Well, that seems a bit too long for our understanding, as we did not plan to settle as monks and we ask again, the answer being this time "from eight to five"! Still too long - and approaching four o'clock we would have to stay overnight to be able to benefit of the full knowledge of this ambitious guide. Asking once more his reply this time is "four o'clock". Good to have a guide leading us along the panels on the way, the intellectual challenge to follow his tour easily manageable.