Word: tribalism
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...called Zuma's "colorful life," which consists of "five wives, a love child with the daughter of one of his political allies, a criminal trial for alleged rape of an HIV-positive woman and corruption charges." Not stopping there, the paper reported that Zuma had paid "a sort of tribal deposit on a future bride." (See pictures of South Africa...
...Pakistani army has won itself some ground, scattering Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan and Swat, but the real challenge lies ahead: how to rebuild a fiercely independent tribal society that has been shredding apart since the 1980s, when the Soviet war in Afghanistan brought in legions of revolutionary preachers and militants - armed with guns, money and the austere Salafist doctrine of Islam - who never departed...
...with good reason. General Khan reckons that the Pakistani Taliban have killed over 500 tribal elders since 9/11 for supposedly collaborating with Islamabad and Washington. Even after assurances from the army chief, the Mehsud elders are still afraid to venture back to their lands. "The jihad has eliminated the old tribal system of maliks," says General Khan. "Now any crook with a cell phone can call up a gang of his militant friends for any kind of mischief, and everyone is too afraid to stop them." His former colleague, Brigadier Mahmoud Shah, formerly in charge of security for the Northwest...
...Many tribal maliks were an easy mark for the militants; many of them were rotten, using government funds allotted for schools, clinics and irrigation canals to line the pockets of their own baggy shalwar kameez trousers. Their sole connection to Islamabad was through the all-powerful and often corrupt political agent, a relic from the British colonial times, who decided which tribal elder should be favored or punished...
Quietly, U.S. diplomats, aid workers and military trainers have been working in the frontier tribal areas with the army and whatever brave tribal maliks they can find. The idea, say Pakistani military officials, is to identify fast projects - small dams or marble quarries, for example - and get them built and working under the protection of those tribes that will benefit directly. Only this way, say officials, can the tribes turn away from the militant-run enterprises - banditry and running guns and drugs - that earn them money...