FATA VIP Culture

Tauheed Ahmed from USA (NewsPost 10 March) seems to have cast away whatever little ghairat -‘shame’ – he might have had after living there now for 30 years. I am at a loss to find an appropriate word for ghairat in English probably there is none because they have none of it. He equates the honourable act of the FATA Senators of not subjecting themselves to the body scan at the US airport with their suffering from the VIP culture. Dear Tauheed, I wish you knew that there is no VIP culture amongst the tribesmen. They all treat each other as equals. Irrespective of the rich or the poor they all sit together and partake the same food. Only the guests are treated preferentially and shown more hospitality than others. Now why is the body scan (search) carried out? I know it as much as you do and so did the Senators, to ensure that no drugs, explosives or weapons are carried concealedly by the person.. In other words, you do not trust the person and think he/she may be carrying what he/she is not supposed to. Now, this kind of suspicion is what the tribesmen consider most humiliating and unbecoming. Fata Senators were invited by the US government. As such they were the guests in that far off land. They expected to be treated like guests. And in their culture one does not suspect the guest of betraying the trust of the host. Period.

But I suppose such cultural values of the ‘primitives’ are not commonly understood by the civilised of the West.

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)