As Heaven turns to Hell
May 8, 2009 12:41 PM   Subscribe

The Swat Valley In NW Pakistan has been inhabited for over 2,500 years. Alexander the Great defeated Persia, thenceforth, he entered Swat via Kunar in 326 BC. In those days it was Buddhist. Described by many as Heaven on Earth; and as a land of story tellers it is now rapidly heading towards Hell on Earth. The Northern Areas of Pakistan must rate among some of the most beautiful in the world
posted by adamvasco (36 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
Swat valley, where God set colour saturation to 100%
(sorry)
posted by slater at 12:45 PM on May 8, 2009 [2 favorites]


No doubt the moderate elements in Pakistani society, backed by a secular military and supported by mainstream religious leaders, will rise together to confront and defeat this retrograde sexist anti-humanist death cult posing as a religion.

What?
posted by mrstrotsky at 12:48 PM on May 8, 2009 [3 favorites]


Highly recommended, although out of date: "Political Leadership among Swat Pathans" by Fredrik Barth.
posted by dunkadunc at 12:51 PM on May 8, 2009


Wow, it reminds me of Montana, except with, y'know, raging Taliban insurgents.
posted by desjardins at 12:56 PM on May 8, 2009 [1 favorite]


Funny, as I was looking at the most beautiful pictures, a story came on the radio about the "full scale" military campaign launched today, and suddenly I was envisioning airplanes and tanks bombing the shit out of this idyllic scenery...
posted by slogger at 1:10 PM on May 8, 2009


I saw a pretty incredible exhibition of Buddhist art from Bamiyan and Bactria last year at an art gallery in a small provincial town in Japan. It was amazing - I could have touched this stuff if I wanted to (but I didn't).
posted by KokuRyu at 1:13 PM on May 8, 2009


"some of the most beautiful in the world" is bold talk... but the pictures delivered.
posted by Joe Beese at 1:14 PM on May 8, 2009


Salmann Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown also focussed on this dichotomy of stunning beauty and violence in the region. And the "Hell" link is just heartbreaking.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 1:18 PM on May 8, 2009


No wonder American cable companies resist carrying Al-Jazeera. Their reporting is so vastly superior to ours as to be embarrassing.
posted by Joe Beese at 1:19 PM on May 8, 2009 [6 favorites]




First comment on the pix in the Most Beautiful link: If earth is so beautiful then imagine how beautiful will be the heaven. And there, folks, is the crux of the problem.
posted by stargell at 1:26 PM on May 8, 2009 [3 favorites]


Those pictures remind me of the Rocky Mountains in BC.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 1:39 PM on May 8, 2009




Way to go propping these fuckers up, Pakistani military intelligence, but at least you got to have some swipes at India.
posted by Artw at 1:46 PM on May 8, 2009 [1 favorite]


mrstrotsky: "No doubt the moderate elements in Pakistani society, backed by a secular military and supported by mainstream religious leaders, will rise together to confront and defeat this retrograde sexist anti-humanist death cult posing as a religion."

My guess is that Joe Sixbhatt in the Valley would prefer the Pakistani government's form of tyranny to the Taliban's form of tyranny... but it's not a preference he would pursue at the cost of having his children blown up.

And make no mistake. The launch orders for the Pakistani jets derive, ultimately, from the desk of Barack Obama.
posted by Joe Beese at 1:48 PM on May 8, 2009




Joe Beese : "some of the most beautiful in the world" is bold talk... but the pictures delivered.

Yeah, totally. I kind of spaced out as I was looking at them, thinking "Wow, gorgeous. I bet there is some great camping and hiking there; their tourism must be just absolutely through the roof..."

And then I snapped back and remembered; Oh... right. Maybe not.
posted by quin at 1:50 PM on May 8, 2009 [1 favorite]


The Akond of Swat.
posted by Dr.Pill at 2:03 PM on May 8, 2009


I saw a pretty incredible exhibition of Buddhist art from Bamiyan and Bactria last year at an art gallery in a small provincial town in Japan. It was amazing - I could have touched this stuff if I wanted to (but I didn't).

Aside from these artifacts being available in Peshawar, I met this young Japanese girl in Afghanistan who was paid $200,000 by a Japanese collector to 'procure' a piece from the Kabul Museum for him. She paid the Taliban $6000 for it. More info here.
posted by gman at 2:05 PM on May 8, 2009


well after the bomb craters are filled in and the corpses scraped away, i can definitely see possibilities for american investment here.
posted by kitchenrat at 2:06 PM on May 8, 2009


A while back, in a lull in the fighting in Kashmir, I was helping some people set up a website for a business they were setting up for tourist trips to Kashmir, and spent some time looking through some fantastic photographs they had of an incredibly beautiful land. Then the fighting started up again, and that project kind of disappeared. I get the impression that tourism and fighting waxes and wanes there.
posted by Artw at 2:24 PM on May 8, 2009


I get the impression that tourism and fighting waxes and wanes there.

Kinda. There was fighting going on when I was there. It tends to keep foreign tourists away, but the Indians still flock.
posted by gman at 2:26 PM on May 8, 2009


Western Pakistan, on the other hand, I mainly know of (asides from through the news) through the stories of a friend who used to go there to visit family, and had to wear the hijab and all of that. The main conclusion I drew from this was Never Visit Western Pakistan. I’m probably being terribly western but it just sounds horrible and backwards in every way.
posted by Artw at 2:35 PM on May 8, 2009


I’m probably being terribly western but it just sounds horrible and backwards in every way.

Different experience for a foreign woman. My girlfriend hated the restrictions as well. Me? I fuckin' looooove the place.
posted by gman at 2:40 PM on May 8, 2009


One of the reasons that I posted this was that it's an area I have always wanted to visit and never got it together to do so on my many travels.
Now that dream seems lost as what is happening will not be resolved in a couple of years. With up to half a million refugees expected; two hundred thousand people already displaced, the idyll is smashed - gone forever. I don't want to see the beautiful views from a bombed out village with crippled orphaned urchins pulling on my sleeve for a couple of pyce. And by the time this is resolved I will probably be too old. So if anyone reading this has a yearning to visit some wonderful far off place, I urge you to do it now before some fucker blows it away.
posted by adamvasco at 2:56 PM on May 8, 2009 [5 favorites]


Meanwhile, the other tentacles of the imperial war machine do not remain idle...

Afghans riot over air-strike atrocity

US Military: Reports of Afghan Civilian Deaths 'Exaggerated'
posted by Joe Beese at 3:07 PM on May 8, 2009


Yeah, no one could really have foreseen getting involved in a war in central Asia going badly.
posted by Artw at 3:23 PM on May 8, 2009 [1 favorite]


Time to send in the special forces...
posted by markkraft at 3:30 PM on May 8, 2009


The Sultan of Swat.
posted by atchafalaya at 5:18 PM on May 8, 2009


I thought Gandhara wasn't converted to Buddhism until the 1st Century BCE?
posted by 1adam12 at 5:26 PM on May 8, 2009



Yeah, no one could really have foreseen getting involved in a war in central Asia going badly


"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia..."
posted by mrmojoflying at 6:10 PM on May 8, 2009 [1 favorite]


All those beautiful Buddhist monuments: are the Taliban going to spend their firepower on destroying them, as they did on the Three Giant Buddhas in Afghanistan? Or on killing people? Either way: tragic. I would love to love religion, but it's hard, these days.

One of us (with more time than I have) could detail all the wonderful things Quakers, Muslims, Hindus, Methodists, Lutherans, (some) Catholics, Ba'ha'is, Sikhs, Episcopalians, Buddhists etc. are doing in the world.

But it is no wonder that so many are turning away from religion.
posted by kozad at 7:08 PM on May 8, 2009


They've probably run out of stinger missiles by now.
posted by Artw at 7:10 PM on May 8, 2009








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