Daily Times

The Pashtun Culture Day is celebrated on September 23 every year since 2015. This day was designated for promoting Pushtun culture during the World Pashto Conference held in Quetta that year. Since then, every year, a few hashtags, Facebook posts and isolated take place across Pakistan to mark the day.

There is no doubt that the Pushtun culture is under-represented in the mainstream media and other public spheres. Not just that, the Pushtoon community is stereotyped as violent, crude, lacking in any cultural heritage; and even dangerous. The proof is the recent ad campaign to warn people against sectarianism during Muharram. The campaign included images of Manzoor Pashteen. The video was rightly taken off the air, the Information Minister and Punjab government apologised and the ad agency responsible for it was blacklisted. But we must also accept that many Pakistanis wrongly blame the community for terrorism and even Taliban.

The question is whether ordinary Pakistanis are aware of the philosophy of Bacha Khan? How many Pakistanis have seen the Attan, Khattak or Waziri dance? Can they distinguish between a rabayi and a rubab? Are the great Pushto poets like Khushal Khan Khattak, Nazo Tokhi or Timur Shah Durrani easily accessible through translations?

This day will help the rest of the country understand this disregarded facet of Pakistan’s culture better but also help the Pushtun community itself.

Pashtuns infested by militancy, violence, and various other socio-economic problems will remind themselves of their rich culture and why it needs to be mainstreamed through educational institutes. As the film industry in the rest of Pakistan thrives, there is a need to spend more on Pushto films, theatre and TV dramas. These need to be widely available to non-Pushto speakers as well. This is important for the Pashtuns and will help their youth come out of the shadow of violence. Pashtun culture day should be given national recognition and hope it is celebrated with greater fervour next year.  *

Published in Daily Times, September 24^th 2018.