![]() ![]() ![]() Give these young men a job, the story went, enough to meet their basic needs, and they would no longer support violent extremists.Īs I kept digging, though, a more complex story emerged: Many of Fazlullah’s most ardent supporters were young, upwardly mobile, landless Pashtuns. As I spoke with tribal elders and political leaders in the district capital of Mingora, at first I got the same answer I always get: Young, impoverished, ignorant Pashtuns had joined his movement because they were easily misled by Fazlullah’s fiery rhetoric and could be bought for a little cash. I went to try to understand why Maulana Fazlullah - now head of the Pakistani Taliban - had attracted such widespread support among the region’s youth. In early 2010, I visited the Swat Valley in Pakistan’s mountainous north, shortly after the Pakistani army retook control of the district from Taliban fighters. They want to change the world, to fight injustice, to earn respect, and, maybe most of all, to challenge the status quo. Many of the teenagers who fill the ranks of the Islamic State, al-Shabab, and the Pakistani Taliban today want, broadly speaking, the same thing as the ones who surged into Egypt's Tahrir Square and occupied Wall Street: to tell an older generation that they have had enough. Too often, programs designed to steer young people away from violence don't fully come to terms with what many militant groups seem to offer: the chance to overturn systems that are holding them back, and to explore what life has to offer beyond what an oppressive state or entrenched elites tell them they can have. He saw their potential and treated them with respect. ![]() He used their full names, with honorifics, and mentioned their hometowns. And when they did, he praised them on his radio shows. Fazlullah invited these young people to contribute to their communities - to give support to a madrasa or a mosque, or to provide charity to those in need. But they ran headfirst into rigid feudal barriers that only allow landed elites to have a meaningful economic or political life. Unable to earn a living in Swat, many had gone to the Gulf and come home with money in their pockets and dreams of making a difference. Give these young men a job, the story went, enough to meet their basic needs, and they would no longer support violent extremists.Īs I kept digging, though, a more complex story emerged: Many of Fazlullah's most ardent supporters were young, upwardly mobile, landless Pashtuns. As I spoke with tribal elders and political leaders in the district capital of Mingora, at first I got the same answer I always get: Young, impoverished, ignorant Pashtuns had joined his movement because they were easily misled by Fazlullah's fiery rhetoric and could be bought for a little cash. I went to try to understand why Maulana Fazlullah - now head of the Pakistani Taliban - had attracted such widespread support among the region's youth. In early 2010, I visited the Swat Valley in Pakistan's mountainous north, shortly after the Pakistani army retook control of the district from Taliban fighters. ![]()
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