Changes in Peshawar: Modern Middle East Digital Media Project

By: Amber Zaki

As seen in this picture, women

I grew up listening to stories my mother would tell me about her carefree and lighthearted childhood in her hometown of Peshawar, Pakistan. She would tell me about how, as a child, she would enjoy wearing the dresses her father would bring her from America and listening to American musicians such as Elvis and the Bee Gees. I have been visiting Pakistan, including Peshawar, somewhat regularly since I was born but on my more recent trips I began noticing that there were distinct differences between the Peshawar my mother lovingly remembers from her childhood and the Peshawar that exists today. For this reason, I decided to interview my mother with the intention of figuring out why the atmosphere of the city has changed so noticeably since her childhood.

A picture of a landscape in Peshawar, Pakistan.

While music shops and cinemas would not be an extraordinary sight in the Peshawar of the early 1970’s, such shops are now very limited and many have been destroyed or vandalized in some way. Even though Peshawar, when compared to other cities in Pakistan, was still definitely on the more conservative side, there was still a sufficient degree of tolerance that existed. Women were expected to wear scarves and modest clothing when they were outside of the house and around men with whom they had no relation, but such clothing was never strictly enforced, and women were not punished or harassed if they did not conform to the standard. Another aspect of society that was impacted around this time was how people viewed women attaining an education. While my mother and her four other sisters were never faced with opposition when it came to getting an education, I now have female cousins in Peshawar who, at times, put their lives at risk just by getting on the bus that takes them to their colleges and universities. The late 1970’s and 1980’s marked a turning point in Peshawar, a time when many things started changing.

Typical clothing women wear when they visit Peshawar.

As a result of the Soviet-Afghan War, which began in 1979, many Afghan refugees came into Pakistan along with others who fleed and were able to make it over the border, and the vast majority of them settled in Peshawar and other parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (the province that Peshawar is in). The majority of Peshawar’s open spaces were turned into refugee camps, and the influx of Afghans also strained Peshawar’s economy. The Afghans started opening up small businesses such as food carts and started working in the city’s transportation, which took jobs away from the locals. Many of the Afghans who were now living in Pakistan were also more conservative in their views than the native Pakistanis they were surrounded with, and this caused some problems. First of all, wearing the veil went from being something preferred in society to something that was necessary to avoid confrontation. Covering up in veils was traditionally more enforced in the Afghan culture, and this aspect of their culture was brought over and enacted in Peshawar starting in the late 70’s. Some of the refugees also had strong feelings against things like music and movies. They started burning down music shops and cinemas to get their point across, and as a result even today music and movies have a stigma around them in the city. They were also against women getting educated, and as a result there were attacks on women’s colleges and universities. One example of this that was widely popularized in international media was when the Taliban, which started becoming present in Peshawar around this time, shot Malala Yousafzai because she refused to give up on getting an education. Malala was from a city named Swat, which was also similarly impacted in the way Peshawar was by the effects of the Soviet-Afghan War.

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Visiting Qissa Khwani, a historical market in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Overall, the atmosphere in Peshawar has changed to an extent as a result of the events that played out in the late 1970’s and 1980’s. While the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is now far more regulated and these issues have been dealt with to some degree, there are still long lasting ramifications that exist. Crime rates have gone up and the city has, in a sense, become somewhat destabilized in the process of acclimating and accommodating the people living inside of it and their differing views and opinions.