Frontline, which is consistently impressive in its programming, is running a big segment tonight on tribal militancy in Pakistan—especially the valley of Swat, which has transitioned over the past year from a tourist haven to a hotbed of violent extremists. Plus, to satisfy those of you who are yearning for more Slavic/Turkic-oriented coverage here, they’re also doing a segment on Russia in time for the Presidential election everyone knows will be won by Dmitri Medvedev.
Check PBS listings, or watch it online. (Thoughts after the jump)
More than anything else I’ve read of it, this was an excellent—and heartbreaking—look at how a former tourist haven has been turned into a hotbed of violence and extremist. Two years ago, people left the craziness of Islamabad to relax and unwind in Swat, which is a truly beautiful place. As of last October, they were fleeing to places like Afghanistan because Maulana Fazlullah has made it so incredibly wretched.
It is worth reiterating that violence and extremism are not the sole domain of Pashtuns—despite the many frustrating ways in which it may seem endemic to their culture, it most assuredly is not. Local Pashtuns reject Fazlullah and his band of crazies, but they lack the means to resist… and in true form, Pervez Musharraf did the wrong things at the wrong time: He violently cracked down on the lawyers peacefully marching in the streets for the right to elect their own government. Why again should America trust him as the last bastion against violent extremists in his own country? He never seems to want to fight them.
The segment on Russia didn’t say anything new, unfortunately, though it did repeat a few myths about Russia today. Again and again, the assertion was repeated, sometimes by the reporter herself, that Russia was better and more prosperous under Putin, and that explained his popularity. She paid attention to the nouveau Young Pioneer/Nashi summer camp that is truly frightening.
But the idea that Russia is a better place under Putin is nothing short of a despicable lie. By every economic indicator we have—whether it be press freedom, political and speech freedom, NGOs, public safety, health, corruption, or the security of property rights—Russians are actually worse off today than they were a decade ago. And there is still no data that ties Putin’s policies, as opposed to skyrocketing oil prices, to Russia’s very concentrated growth in income.
So, despite the good airtime given Gary Kasparov, it was disappointing to see such deceptions unintentionally aired.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1771 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust