Chapter 6 - Voices of Pain and Terror

Summary

This chapter contains my semi-structured interviews’ content and themes analysis. This qualitative research approach involved seven in-depth semi-structured interviews (life stories) of (one each) women from seven tehsils (sub-districts) of the District Swat because my main objective was to carry forward the actual terrifying painful voices of the Pukhtun women in terror and displacement. Due to the sensitivity of the research topic, most of the Swat inhabitants till date are not comfortable conversing about the Taliban and armed conflict. I reassured my sample women that the content of the research exercise would be confidential, and their identity would not be revealed. Therefore, I gave fake names to my sample women to identify them throughout the research process. For the sample women, I randomly selected students from the University of Swat because they were students of secondary and higher secondary education at the time of conflict. All the interviews took place in the university premises; however, they were in touch till the end of postdoctoral studies completion. Thus, the study scrutinises the actual role of women in peace, terror and displacement during 2007–11.

I classified my sample women's experiences into three broad sections: pre-conflict, during the conflict and post-conflict, which are further classified as follows:

• • Education under Peace, Patriarchy and Pukhtunwali

• • Education under Armed Conflict

• • Education under Displacement

• • Education under Burnt Ashes

It is worthwhile to mention here that a comprehensive Appendix of my seven sample women's biographies is added in this book to understand women's own sentiments and voices. The contents and themes analysis evolve around gender dynamic roles, patriarchy and educational provisions under armed conflict. Terror in the valley brought two behavioural stances in my sample women; complete isolation from education and an act of challenging radical courage, ‘I must continue my education by any means’ (Kashmala) by putting life in a dangerous situation.

Education under Peace, Patriarchy and Pukhtunwali

As mentioned earlier the princely Swat state (1917–69) was founded on a modern social structure. The wali (ruler) introduced multiple customary and Islamic laws to maintain peace among the native Pukhtun tribes (Rome, 2008) and developed communication, education and health institutions for boys and girls.