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| In this picture taken on Dec. 5, 2012, Shayla Cram, a US public diplomacy officer assigned to Peshawar, sings a Pashto song on her guitar in Islamabad. (AFP Photo/Aamir Qureshi) |
Shayla
Cram, a public diplomacy officer assigned to Peshawar, the gateway to Al-Qaeda
and Taliban strongholds in the northwestern tribal belt, has not only learnt
Pashto but has penned her own Pashto-style song.
“Jenaiy,”
which means “girl,” is a tribute to Malala Yousafzai, the teenager who was shot
in the head by the Taliban for promoting education for girls.
It features
Cram on guitar and vocals and a Pakistani musician on the rabab — a traditional
stringed instrument — and urges girls to have hope for the future and pursue
their dreams.
“There’s
definitely need in Pakistan to encourage young girls and females in their
education and leadership, to make them young leaders, and that’s the basic
message of my song,” Cram told AFP.
Women in
Pakistan, particularly in northwestern rural areas, are frequently treated as
second-class citizens, subjected to horrific violence in the name of family
“honor,” and denied education.
Nationwide,
fewer than half of women can read and write and militants are violently opposed
to girls going to school — as showed by the October attack on Malala, now
recovering in Britain.
Despite the
anti-American feeling, Cram says the song has had a good response so far. She
now plans to work with local musicians to record a whole album in other
Pakistani languages.
“I would
say 97 percent has been overwhelmingly positive and the other few people who
have said that [given negative reactions], for example on our embassy Facebook
page, are always our harshest critics no matter what we do,” she said.
Pakistan-US
relations are on the rebound from a series of crises in 2011 that saw a CIA
operative held for double murder, Osama bin Laden killed by US troops and
botched air strikes kill 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Peshawar is
regularly hit by militant bombings, including a deadly suicide attack on a US
government convoy in September — and American diplomats’ movements are tightly
controlled due to security worries.
Reaching
out across the airwaves is a cheap and easy way to get around the frustrations
of restrictions to make contact with people, Cram says.
“How can
you do that for example in Peshawar when you can’t leave the [consulate] gates?
How do I reach someone’s heart and let them know who I am and what I’m about as
an American when I can’t physically go out?” she said.
“One of the
most effective ways I think is through music, because it’s something people can
connect to and understand in a simple way.”
The
29-year-old is no stranger to the musical limelight — she taught herself the
guitar while working in west Africa, writing songs about HIV/AIDS and child
trafficking that were still played on Togolese radio after she left the
country.
While the
embassy has been supportive, Cram received no financial assistance.
“Jenaiy”
was recorded in a studio with the help of Pakistani friends in the music
industry, and a slick video was shot in someone’s garden on the edge of
Islamabad. The track has been sent to radio stations across the northwest.
Pastun
culture has a rich and vibrant musical tradition, but critics warn Cram faces a
tough task in trying to win over the public.
Sher Ali, a
music journalist for English-language newspaper The Express Tribune, said
success would depend on how much air play the track gets.
“The key is
to get on the regional networks which connect to people in the grassroots,” he
told AFP.
“The music
is very mainstream and will connect with a certain class of urban listener, but
Pakistan is very divided and a lot of the population you want to connect to
with this message is working class or in rural areas.”
Rasheed
Safi, head of news at Buraq Radio, one of the biggest stations in the
northwest, welcomed Cram’s efforts but said her accent — picked up from her
Afghan teachers in the US — might put listeners off.
“This is a
good attempt and I appreciate that a US diplomat has learnt Pashto language and
then sung a song, but the accent is Afghani, which is less attractive for
Pakistani Pashto music lovers,” he told AFP.
The video
can be seen at vimeo.com/54387742.
Agence France-Presse
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| Malala Yousafzai was attacked last month with two other girls while travelling home from school in the Swat Valley. Photograph: Queen Elizabeth Hospital/PA |
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