Fashionistas Dress Down the Taliban – The Triple Assault
DEVELOPMENTS
On November 4th, 2009, Fashion Pakistan launched the country’s first Fashion Week. The four-day event, taking place during an army offensive in South Waziristan, was postponed twice due to security fears. The event was held in Karachi, where, according to Dawn Media Group, Islamic militants engage in crime and kidnapping to bankroll the insurgency in the northwest. It has been more than a month since the completion of Fashion week and since, the event was successful at casting a triple assault on the Taliban – an assault on the unstable security situation they have created, an assault on the economic structure they hope to impose, and an assault on the religious paradigm they seek to establish.
BACKGROUND
Despite death threats and warnings from the authorities, the organizers of Fashion Week were determined to host their show in the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan’s financial capital, Karachi. Other high profile attacks have taken place on similar “western” venues such as the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad. Nevertheless, the producers of Fashion Week decided to continue as planned. Police official Ahsan Zulfiqar told AFP that his forces had intensified security measures for the event.
Aside from an electricity outage – expected by most – the event went smoothly and there were no attacks or violent protests against the fashion show. According to the Times of India, war correspondents were pulled out of neighboring Afghanistan and sent to Karachi to report on Fashion Week. As a result, the event transferred media attention from the negative security situation in the region to the triumph of the show. The Taliban, seeking to frighten and destabilize security for western-influenced Pakistani businesses, were ineffective in deterring the organizers of the show. Thus, a safe and successful Fashion Week was an assault on the precarious security situation perpetuated by the Taliban.
Fashion Pakistan CEO Ayesha Tammy Haq called the event she organized a “gesture of defiance to the Taliban.” If it were up to Emir Hukmullah Mehsud, leader of the Tahrek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the business of creative fashion would indeed come to a halt in a TTP-led Pakistan. One of the two aims of the Taliban is for Pakistan to “abandon the company of America.” Many of the thirty-two designers of Fashion Week receive inspiration and cooperate with American designers. Even though no foreign designer or model participated in the event, the show resembled those held in New York or Paris. Designers say that the increase in sales of Pakistani clothes during this last month is a direct result of the audacity of the show. Fashion dovetails well with one of Pakistan’s strongest industries. Textiles constitute 60% of Pakistan’s exports, generating nearly $12 billion dollars annually. Due to the political unrest and violent extremism during the last few years, however, the clothing industry has failed to grow. Pakistan’s Fashion Week has proven to be an assault on the Taliban’s mission to economically fracture western-influenced companies in the country.
Additionally, the female designers of Fashion Week are entrepreneurs in their own right. The event put money and fame in the hands of women who would have not had the same business opportunities in a Taliban-led Pakistan where the division of labor is clear: women are the household producers, men are the wage earners.
The TTP’s second aim is to institute the Taliban’s version of Islamic Shariah in the Republic of Pakistan. According to the Taliban, women must be covered from head to toe, wearing modest clothing that deflects attention. The attractive designs displayed and sold at Fashion Week are deemed irreligious in the eyes of the Taliban. As such, Fashion Week was a form of feminist resistance against the conservative religious movement of the Taliban. The event was not meant to be secular as there were burqa-style designs and Islamic robes on the runway. The designers showed that Pakistani fashions, like the Pakistani people and the religions of Pakistan, are diverse, beautiful and attractive rather than monolithic, disciplined, and violent – an image created by the Taliban. Though there were male models and designers, male dress is not stringently regulated by the TTP. Thus, it was the women who confronted the image of the Taliban – showing that ladies in Pakistan are not chained to oppression but are agents for expression – in this case, the expression of fashion. Fashion Week was an assault on the religious display of women as envisioned by the Taliban.
ANALYSIS
U.S. President Barack Obama’s recent decision to send 35,000 more troops to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan begs the question: is that the only way to fight terrorism? When thinking about security, experts usually fall back on age-old military strategies and clandestine warfare to defeat entities such as the TTP. Fashion Week in Karachi was one example of how a sector of society can challenge the security, economic and religious conditions promulgated by an extremist group to de-legitimize terrorist institutions. More Pakistanis, should overcome their hesitations to follow suit – continue to show their diverse religious views, continue to improve the economic standing of industries which may not be liked by the Taliban, continue to ignore the security threats of the Taliban by creating controversial events, and continue to show the Taliban that they cannot incite fear in the hearts and minds of the Pakistani people. Through such resistance movements, it may be possible to imagine a Pakistan not plagued by TTP influence.
Salmah Y. Rizvi is a graduate student in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, concentrating on international security of South Asia and the Middle East.
