Ice cold waters and red hot killers

Watching the news last night my mind ran back a few years to wonderful days spent in the Swat Valley, Pakistan. I was there on business but you can hardly spend a week in Pakistan's "little Switzerland" without seeing something of the ice cold, torrential, rivers and wonderful mountains, and breathing the life-giving thin clear air. We also spent time wandering round ancient Buddhist temples, now neglected in a land ruled by Muslims. A paridise on earth! It is hard to believe that today 200,000 refugees have fled the valley whilst the Pakistan army engages in "full scale" conflict with Taliban forces infiltrating from Afghanistan.

Whether Pakistan will be able to "wipe out"' the Taliban through military action is an open question. Personally I very much doubt it. The Taliban may be a military force, but they are much more significantly a spiritual force, and if anyone is to engage with them creatively it will not only be militarily. Extremists they are, people with deep (and perhaps misguided) convictions, but they will not go away just because their fighters lie dead below the snow capped mountains of Swat. Military action may be necessary but much more urgent is the engagement of minds, philosophies, world-views, and spiritual sensibilities. Buddhists no longer pray beside the rushing rivers of Swat, Christians struggle to maintain a presence in the ragged towns, the Taliban have their mosques, but what of the future? What does or does not happen in Swat this month will have implications for us all as we struggle to live in a world of deeply held religious (and anti-religious) convictions.