A story makes us judgmental about reality. It breeds division instead of unity. Any social reality cannot be reduced into a single story Last weekend, I watched an interesting TED talk, “Danger of a single story”, by Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie. In the talk, the novelist unfolds the concept of ‘danger of a single story’ by castigating colonisers for morphing Africa’s plurality into singularity in colonial constructed history of Africa through an exploitative use of power. And thus robbing Africans of their organic past and befooling the West with their own constructed history of Africa by keeping it oblivious to what Africa really was before the colonial spree. She says that people are indoctrinated with a ‘single story’, “Show people as one thing, as only one thing over and over again, and that is what they become.” The crux — to turn plurality into singularity — resonated with me as I could not stop thinking about all those single stories against which Pakistan has been pitted against historically by colonisers, and which my native land, Pakistan, tried to formulate at different points in its history. The case in point in the former case is how the colonial history has robbed our part of the world from its organic past, and in the latter case, how a major chunk of citizenship in Pakistan in its definition has been overshadowed by one’s religious identity. As of now, I wish to highlight another single story. This is the story of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) as I wish to unscramble how FATA’s pluralistic cultural fabric has been pitted against a single story. FATA is a semi-autonomous tribal region in northwestern Pakistan. During colonial times, FATA was kept off the mainstream through a draconian act known as the Frontier Crimes Regulations Act (FCR), which is, unfortunately, still in force. The colonisers governed the area through the act because the act, in its essence, retains tribal culture that they wished to maintain for their vested interests. FATA was a non-recruited army of the colonisers, and it has been alluded to in the judgment of the State versus Dosso case (1958), a strategy to thwart any threat from Afghanistan History is evident to the fact that FATA’s lot has always made headlines in a particular context: for its war culture. Unfortunately, FATA’s identity did not change even after it became a part of Pakistan, as rather its early identity was reinforced. Time and again, people of FATA were used as a non-recruited army for state’s interests just as they had been during colonial powers. Cases in point here: FATA people-led incursions into Kashmir in 1948, wars with India, and Zia-ul-Haq’s era in which youth from FATA was indoctrinated to fight a so-called holy war against Soviets in Afghanistan. FATA’s history of being embroiled in conflicts and its portrayal by media in only that context has not let any outside policy maker or layman to understand the rich tribal culture that the region has embodied for centuries, or to understand its issues in the light of all that it embodies instead of approaching them with a battle-centric context. Danger of a single story is that it does not let us engage with reality in an inclusive way, thus leading to poor understanding of the problem at hand. Post-9/11, identity of FATA with militancy has been reinforced. FATA’s only significance, post-9/11, has been in the context of the War on Terror. At present, many people of FATA are living as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), as the state decided to rid the region of the Taliban, and the operation Zarb-e-Azb was started. This is those war-battered people’s sole identity now. Interestingly, their close proximity with Taliban in 1980s has made them ‘untrustworthy’ in other parts of Pakistan where they go as IDPs. There is a suspicion that they may be in collusion with the Taliban, or have a militant mindset. I have personally observed during my four-five year academic stay in Lahore in my interaction with my friends from FATA that showing a national identity card from FATA can get you entangled in an unreasonable interrogation, suspicion or delay. Because of war-centric context of FATA in the mainstream consciousness, issues of FATA are, unfortunately, being heeded to solely in a military-centric approach, which is reflective from gains made in the operation Zarb-e-Azb and government lagging behind in improving governance infrastructure through the National Action Plan. The major issues like the FCR are not coming to the mainstream, and FCR’s role is not discussed for morphing the region into hotbed of extremism. Moreover, because of this war-centric context and solution, rich culture of FATA is at stake, culture that embodies some very unique features. For example, some might consider the region as averse to pluralism, but a friend from South Waziristan told me that they had a custom of a dance, bragai attan, in which males and females danced together, validating that the region has a pluralistic fabric in its culture. The custom vanished after the region came under the influence of the Taliban. Majority of people across Pakistan might have this idea that people of FATA are parochial and conservative who do not believe in women empowerment. Once I thought that too, some of my class fellows from FATA in Government College University, Lahore, pursued their final year’s dissertation on women empowerment in FATA. Not only they believed in modern ideas for an academic pursuit, but they also faith in the reforms that would come about with the implementation of the same. Their discussions exuded modernity at every point. Had I not come across these people from FATA, I might have still believed in that single story that the state had so far fed me with about FATA. Chimamanda, in her Ted talk says, “Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanise. Stories can break the dignity of people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity. To engage properly with a place or person is impossible without engaging with all the stories of the place or the person. The consequence of a single story is that it robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of equal humanity difficult. It emphasises how we are different rather than how we are similar.” A story makes us judgmental about reality. It breeds division instead of unity. Any social reality cannot be reduced into a single story; otherwise, such tunnel vision approach can rob us of our natural instinct of empathy. FATA’s discourse constructed so far in a single story really needs an overhaul. A holistic approach should be applied to FATA’s identity in the mainstream. Now is the time that issues of FATA are handled in a dovish approach instead of a hawkish one. FATA’s people are to be viewed as peace loving citizens like in any other part of Pakistan through giving a platform to FATA’a talented youth who wish to align the region with modernity. FATA’s endangered culture must be given media coverage, and FATA be owned by the state with its organic outlook so that people there may have a chance to live according to their culture, and can claim that Pakistan owns them for who they are. The writer can be reached at uinam39@gmail.com