By Ashfaq Yusufzai, IPS, March 17, 2012

Photo caption:
Fans defy the Taliban to attend a music concert at Nishtar Hall in Peshawar.
Credit:Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

PESHAWAR - [....] On the night of Jan. 2, 2009, the Taliban brutally executed Shabana, a popular female dancer in Swat and strung up her body from an electric pole. That year, local singer Ghani Dad was killed in Swat while he was returning home from a music session.

But the tide began changing against the Taliban after the Pakistan army launched operations against militancy in the region in 2009 and the United States military stepped up drone strikes targeting top Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders holed up in Pakistan’s northwest.

"We have opened the 600-seat Nishtar Hall for cultural activities and want to defeat terrorism through music and art," Mian Iftikhar Hussain, KP’s culture minister, tells IPS. Hussain wants to reverse the policies of the former MMA government which banned musical concerts and other cultural events, considering them to be un-Islamic.  Hussain says the revival of music and cultural activities was also part of the government’s campaign to send across the message that the Pashtuns are a liberal people and opposed to terrorism [....]