Pashtun refugees from north-western Pakistan are rediscovering traditional verse, which was banned when the Taliban took over North Waziristan.<\/p>\n
For more than 1,000 years, Pashtun poets have recited verses, drawing on the mountainous scenery, local culture and love as their inspiration. But when the Taliban arrived in 2001, poets were warned that their verses must only carry jihadist messages about war, violence and martyrdom.<\/p>\n
The refugees have been temporarily displaced while the army attempts to clear the area of militants. But while many are enduring difficult living conditions \u2013 staying with relatives or sleeping in schools in neighbouring provinces \u2013 traditional poetry has seen a revival.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so horrible for me, like a nightmare, when they approached me for the first time to make words about slaughtering innocent people part of my poetry,\u201d 38-year-old Saleem Khan told The<\/i> Washington Pos<\/i>t.<\/p>\n
Khan is now composing poetry about his life as a refugee.<\/p>\n
Army leaders say that the drive to remove the Taliban is progressing well,\u00a0 with the Pakistani government hoping that the refugees will be able to return home in the autumn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pashtun refugees from north-western Pakistan are rediscovering traditional verse, which was banned when the Taliban took over North Waziristan. For more than 1,000 years, Pashtun poets have recited verses, drawing on the mountainous scenery, local culture and love as their inspiration. But when the Taliban arrived in 2001, poets were warned that their verses must […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1587,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[182,42,150],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10506"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1587"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10507,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10506\/revisions\/10507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}