Sunday, April 17, 2011

Pashtunwali as an Orientalist Category?

Someone on my FormSpring made a very interesting comment. It reads: "I feel like this whole Pashtunwali thing is a orientalist category."

I find this idea very interesting, and I think it has some potential. However, I don't know what the questioner meant by it! ('Cause Pashtunwali, according to us Pashtuns, is a thousands-year-old honor code, whereas the concept of (and the term) "orientalism" is hardly a few decades old.) I'd like the questioner to elaborate on it so I can respond to it accordingly or look into its potential merit. 

Thank you in advance! :)

1 comment:

  1. Well, at times Pukhto or Pakhtunwali seems to be an orientalist 'thing'. Notions such as 'gherat' and 'Melmastya' have been manipulated/misused by the British and later by the Pakistanis. I donot mean that gherat and Melmastya didnot exist before British raj but they gave such notions a 'codified' and 'static' shape which is haunting the pakhtuns for long.

    ReplyDelete

Dare to opine :)

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