Word: tribalization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...underscored late last month, with news of concerns for the safety of an Afghan child actor in the upcoming movie of the best-selling novel The Kite Runner. The family of Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada, whose character is raped, fear the film will expose them to reprisals. In Afghan tribal society, sexual violation - even its portrayal in a fictional movie - can lead to dishonor, ostracism, or worse. Mahmidzada's father told the BBC that members of his tribe "may cut my throat, they may kill me, they may torture me." The filmmakers, he says, didn't mention the rape scene would...
...about her childhood sexual abuse, she became a goddess in a society convinced that it's good to talk. While thousands of courageous Muslims regularly speak out on taboo subjects, the reception is often not so warm. Five years ago, Mukhtar Mai, a Pakistani gang-rape victim, defied tribal custom by taking her rapists to court. In the West, she won plaudits and prizes, but in Pakistan the verdict was subsequently overturned and she was widely denounced as having shamed her country abroad. Of course it was bad, what those men did to her, I remember a Punjabi school headmistress...
...Still, the heartland in Sindh remains a solid base of support. Despite the socialist platform of both Bhutto and her father, both are beneficiaries of an almost feudal system in Sindh, where landlords and tribal leaders dictate how their people vote. In keeping with this tradition, many of these voters don't question Benazir's judgment in cutting deals with Musharraf, or anything else. "If Benazir got a horse, and told people to vote for the horse," says 27-year-old Larkana shopkeeper Muhammad Ali Sheikh, "we would line up to vote for the horse...
...waged wars and insurgencies against the central government for decades. Politicians, the generals asserted, represented feuding ethnic interests. In Burma's last election - back in 1990 - as many as 20 ethnically based political parties contested the polls. Who better than the military to keep peace between all these fractious tribal groups...
...Laden's declaration that Musharraf is an infidel who has spilled Muslim blood further cements his illegitimacy in the eyes of the militants leading an insurgency in the mountainous tribal areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan. They may care little for the intricate political maneuverings of courts and lawyers far away in the capital, but if martial law were to be established, it wouldn't just be war against Musharraf, but jihad against the entire government. And if the Pakistani state found itself at war with a significant section of its own people, its effectiveness as an ally...