Language of Resistance in Pashto Poetry during the War on Terror

Abstract

The paper explores the compelling nature of Pashto poetry as a weapon of resistance in the War on Terror, how it has been used to reveal Pashtun identity, political protest, and cultural strength. With military activities dismantling the Pashtun belt, poets came out as important figures, as they could use their poetry to question the foreign intrusion, oppression by the government, and the dispossession of their folk. Through a critical examination of the poetic writings of the notable Pashto poets in our time, this paper will underscore the influence of metaphors, nationalistic imagery, and the Pashtunwali code in the creation of the defiance and survival narratives of the poems. In the territory of the ongoing conflict, the Pashto poetry turns out to be not only an emotional release, but also a political movement that opposes the mainstream media discourse and demands Pashtun autonomy. The present paper highlights the overlap between the language, politics, and identity in creating the cultural landscape throughout one of the most unstable eras in South Asian history. In a critical discourse analysis of the work of poetry, we investigate the process in which language has been adopted as a weapon of resistance and a tool of social activism and gain some new understanding of the power of the cultural expression in wartimes.