Home » Crisis as White Noise

Anthropology

Crisis as White Noise

admin

June 2, 2025

0 Views 0

SaveSavedRemoved 0

How Pakistan’s Perpetual State of Emergency is Challenged by Displaced Pashtun Women

“I used to be a loud child—singing, dancing, making noise wherever I went. But after the operation, everything changed.”

Sonia’s childhood home was never silent, but her voice disappeared into the chaos. When 30 distant relatives arrived from Waziristan, Pakistan, fleeing the violence of military operations, her family’s small two-bedroom home in Peshawar became unbearably full. The living room—once a place of play—became her new bedroom shared with her many cousins. Her old room now housed a family of six. The roof, once open to the sky, was crowded with tents. The hum of ceaseless conversation, the cries of restless children, the reiterated anxieties of exhausted men and women filled the air. But Sonia learned that her own voice had no place in this frequency. She was instructed to be quiet, to not disturb and to not draw any attention to herself. 

“I was 11 years old then. Even now I feel like I am still being asked to stay quiet.”

Now twenty years old, Sonia is an undergraduate student  at the University of Peshawar. The displacement that shaped her childhood was not an isolated tragedy, but part of a broader disruption in the region caused by Operation Zarb-e-Azb—a 2014 Pakistani military offensive aimed at eliminating militant groups embedded in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)—an extrajudicial tribal region bordering Afghanistan. The operation, like many others in the past, was presented as a necessary intervention demanding swift military action against terrorist factions taking refuge in the area. But for over one million displaced Pashtuns families (with official numbers still underreported) the emergency never ended. Sonia’s father, a provincial civil servant, was able to move his immediate family before the worst of the crisis in 2010, but her extended family, like countless others, was forced to flee on foot, arriving in host cities like Bannu and Peshawar with little more than the clothes on their backs.

The noise of crisis has long defined FATA’s place in the world. For centuries, the region has existed as an echo chamber of external anxieties—a lawless periphery, a site of insurgency, an ungovernable frontier. Under British rule, it was instrumentalized as a “buffer to the buffer zone” to barricade the boundaries of the empire. In the 1980s, the region became a strategic hub for internationally supported Mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan conflict. After 9/11, it was further securitized, made synonymous to Taliban strongholds, drone warfare, and counterterrorism operations. More than a place, it became a metaphor—a territory outside ‘modernity,’ outside law, outside history, existing only as an example of chronic crisis.

In 2018, Pakistan’s government merged FATA with the neighboring province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), claiming to end its extrajudicial governance under the draconian Frontier Crimes Regulation, established by the British in 1901. The merger was framed as a signal of  national integration, promising access to education, employment, and legal rights. Yet, for displaced Pashtun women, these promises have not materialized. The legal framework may have shifted, but the dominant frequency remains unchanged—a deafening drone of counterterrorism rhetoric and security discourse that continues to dictate how the region is understood, discussed, and governed.

Crisis is still the loudest signal coming from FATA. Local and international media and academic discourse overwhelmingly frame it as a place trapped in perpetual emergency. For women like Sonia, the noise of crisis is both deafening and silencing. Their stories rarely make it past the static of security concerns, their struggles dismissed as secondary to the larger geopolitical stage. Yet, amid this interference, Pashtun women are carving out alternative ways to be heard. Whether through formal education, social media activism, or community organizing, they are disrupting the dominant narrative—not by shouting over the noise, but by shifting the frequency altogether.

Crisis as White Noise: What Gets Drowned Out?

Anthropologists Janet Roitman and Joseph Masco show how “crisis talk” shapes political realities by producing a permanent sense of emergency that demands moral urgency while obscuring structural harm. In Pakistan, this logic defines the state’s relationship to its borderlands, prioritizing survival over any revolutionary possibilities. FATA is not treated as a region affected by crisis—it is imagined as a space that contains crisis from the rest of the country. This framing justifies militarized governance and exceptional measures, while displacing the need for long-term reform in education, freedom of expression and bodily autonomy, especially for Pashtun women are marginalized at the intersection of their ethnicity and gender identity.

But what happens when crisis is not an event but a narrative strategy? What happens when a place is trapped in an endless state of emergency, where only certain voices are considered worth listening to? For Pashtun women, it means living in a reality where their daily struggles such as education, mobility, and dignity are dismissed as background noise. The true crisis, then, is not just the violence of war, but their systemic silencing. 

Silence as Survival: Pashtun Women’s Self-Surveillance in Higher Education

I met Sonia during my fieldwork in a semester seminar at the University of Peshawar. The classroom was nearly 40 percent female, yet as the discussion unfolded, it became clear that the space did not belong to them. Men dominated every debate, interrupting freely and engaging directly with the professor, while the women sat quietly, avoiding eye contact, their presence marked only by their silence.

It was not a lack of knowledge that kept them quiet. In conversations with professors, I learned that female students consistently outperformed their male counterparts in written exams and assignments. Their silence in class was not about capability or confidence—it was about survival.

“If a girl talks too much in class or hangs out with boys, she’s considered too ‘bold’—even shameless,” said Tania, a second-year student. “The male students gossip about us. If a girl is outspoken, they harass her—asking for her number, secretly taking photos, even posting them online.”

For Pashtun women, the silence imposed on them is not new, but it has been normalized even within so-called progressive spaces. While public education is presented as a moral good and even an opportunity arising from displacement to urban centers, universities do not promise equality of self-expression. Many women come here knowing they will be unheard, yet they value their education enough to endure these challenges. “We’re not silent because we don’t care. We’re silent because we know what happens when we are not,” added Sonia.

This was especially clear in my conversations with Maimoona, a quiet but determined student from Waziristan, now studying electrical engineering at Punjab University in Lahore. Her father had moved to Lahore decades earlier, hoping for a better future. But higher education came at a cost.

“My entire extended family boycotted my father for allowing his daughters to study and work,” she told me. “They say we have dishonored the family. My father tells me not to listen, but I know he feels the weight of their judgment.”

The Cost of Political Participation

Pashtun women’s self-surveillance is not a sign of passivity but a strategy for survival in a world that has not yet made room for their voices. However, beyond academic spaces, the boundaries of silence tighten even further. Pashtun women’s participation in political movements is often framed as secondary. Even within progressive Pashtun nationalist and leftist movements, the assumption persists that politics belongs to men, while women should support from the sidelines.

For those who attempt to step beyond these margins, the cost is steep. Attending a protest, speaking at a rally, or even being present in political spaces invites scrutiny from their families. The reasoning is always the same—not prohibition, but protection. Men insist that in overwhelmingly male-dominated protests, a woman’s safety cannot be guaranteed. Yet, this protective stance functions as a gatekeeping mechanism, ensuring that women are systematically excluded from political discourse altogether.

This fear is not unfounded; there have been targeted attacks against Pashtun women who are politically active, including gendered intimidation tactics such as heightened surveillance, threats of detention, and public shaming to discourage their presence. 

For many Pashtun women, the price of visibility is exile. Those who dare to speak out often find themselves without a place to call home. Some have been forced to flee the country, their activism making them targets of repression, also extended towards their families, exemplifying the threat of collective punishment. 

Shifting the Frequency: Online Activism and Everyday Defiance

In such a stifling environment, one of the most significant spaces of resistance is the digital sphere. While traditional political platforms remain inaccessible to many women, social media has become their arena of choice for advocacy, storytelling, and solidarity. Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp allow displaced Pashtun women to document their realities, amplify their voices, and connect with broader feminist and political movements whilst remaining relatively anonymous

An example of this is Waak Tehreek—meaning Movement for “Control or Empowerment” in Pashto. This grassroots women’s rights movement advocates for political, economic, and legal rights for Pashtun women across Pakistan. Rejecting the crisis narrative, Waak Tehreek refuses to see Pashtun women as victims or security threats. Instead, it foregrounds their roles as political actors, community organizers, and economic contributors.

Through online discussions about inheritance rights, economic independence, and mobility, the movement challenges both state policies that marginalize Pashtun women and internal cultural restrictions that confine them to the domestic sphere. By fostering digital and on-ground solidarity, Waak Tehreek has become a counter-narrative to mainstream portrayals of Pashtun women as voiceless or oppressed.

Moreover, despite the restrictions on their mobility and visibility, Pashtun women have found ways to actively participate in the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM)—a civil rights movement demanding an end to enforced disappearances, military excesses, and systemic discrimination against Pashtuns. While many women are unable to attend protests due to societal and security constraints, they play a crucial role in mobilizing support online, amplifying PTM’s demands through digital activism, and documenting human rights abuses on social media. Some women, particularly those who have lost family members to enforced disappearances, have taken on visible leadership roles, speaking at rallies and challenging the state’s crisis narrative. 

Beyond Crisis: Living, Laughing, and Thriving Online

Even as Pashtun women increasingly use social media for advocacy and activism, their online presence remains constrained by persistent fears of surveillance, retaliation, and social repercussions, forcing them to carefully curate anonymity as a shield. But online spaces are not just for activism. Pashtun women are using digital platforms for more than survival—they are using them to build community, express themselves, and carve out joy.

Snapchat has emerged as a particularly beloved platform among young Pashtun women, not just because of its privacy settings but because of its ephemeral nature. Unlike Twitter or Facebook, where posts can be archived, shared, and scrutinized, Snapchat’s disappearing messages create a fleeting, low-risk space for self-expression. It allows them to vent, joke, share snippets of their lives, and connect with friends without leaving a permanent digital footprint.

Some use these platforms to form friendships across borders. Many Pashtun women in Peshawar, Lahore, and Karachi have online “pen pals” from the Pashtun diaspora, creating a sense of belonging that transcends national boundaries. 

Others have turned their online presence into an economic lifeline. Amna, for instance, leveraged digital platforms to start an online exercise program, attracting international clients to support herself through an MBA in Peshawar.

Conclusion: Breaking Through the Noise

Sonia never saw herself as an activist. She once believed that change came only from those who could march in street protests, speak on stages, or lead movements. But when she  stumbled upon Waak Tehreek, something shifted. Scrolling through posts highlighting Pashtun women’s efforts towards achieving economic independence, political participation, and gender rights, she saw women like her—displaced, silenced, but still fighting to be heard.

She started small: anonymous posts about her experience as a student, a displaced Pashtun woman navigating the noise of crisis and urbanity on her own. She began joining online discussions, reading about the legal rights she had never been taught in school. Eventually, she started mentoring younger Pashtun women arriving in Peshawar, forming a community. 

Sonia may never hold a megaphone at a protest, but in the corners of the internet, she is reshaping the frequency—turning whispered frustrations into collective resistance.

The Pakistani state, Western media, and academic discourse all dictate which struggles matter and which are relegated to background noise. Terrorism, counterinsurgency, and military strategies dominate the conversation, while economic disenfranchisement, gendered violence, and everyday survival are filtered out. But Sonia and thousands of women like her are refusing to be erased. Through formal education, digital activism, and grassroots organizing, they are proving that their voices—no matter how inconvenient or uncomfortable—are signals of change

The crisis machine may continue to drown them out. But they are speaking, writing, and organizing. And one way or another, the world will have to listen.

Note: All names have been changed for safety and anonymity purposes.

The post Crisis as White Noise appeared first on Anthropology News.