Mustafa Qadri
Last Updated: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:24:00 +1000
People in a Pakistani frontier region threatened by the Taliban are trying to preserve a culture rich in poetry and dance from religious extremism.
The culture of the ethnic Pashtun peoples often delights in worldly pleasures - like sex and alcohol - considered un-Islamic by religious conservatives.
Tags: Badaber · freedom of speech · Ghani Khan · Islam · Pakistan · Pashtun culture · poetry · Swat valley · Taliban
In 2000, then education minister Yossi Sarid suggested including some of Darwish’s poems in the Israeli high school curriculum, but then prime minister Ehud Barak overruled him, saying Israel was not ready yet for his ideas in the school system.
Tags: Ehud Barak · Fatah-Hamas war · Mahmoud Darwish · non-violent resistance · Occupation · Palestine · poetry · Yossi Sarid