Hi, chapos. I posted this in the check-in thread and was recommended to make a post about it so here it is:

In a queer space recently, I met a lesbian lady who lives in Pakistan and works for the Department of School Education. Direct quotes:

“I work with the School Education Department, which approaches the children who live in remote areas on those living in the triol areas, for schooling, we make our small schools in it, which means for some time in one area, then for some time in another area, these areas tribals are against the education of girls, then in these areas. It works”

For like two seconds I thought this was cool, but she started talking about how “the tribals” in Punjab are all “dangerous” and “keep their girls from going to school”, and how the Department delivers USAID textbooks, uniforms, so on. Smelt really bad to me, particularly the use of the noun “tribals” and automatic connection of them to misogyny and violence:

Direct Quote 2: “There are many tribal areas in Pakistan, there are hilly areas where there is a tribal who is the chief, they are ruled or there are organizations, then they themselves hold the community there, people are not allowed to send girls out of the house or send them to school, especially when the girl is above 10 years of age. So sheis not allowed to go out of the house, it is considered worse to go to school.”

Direct quote 3: “Yes, the department also supports a little bit and gives its own people such as Wellingly who want to go and in addition to this, USAID also helps in it, free books free uniforms things, etc.”

I heavily suspect that this is an imperialist thing. Pakistan has been somewhat in the USA’s pocket for a while from what I can tell, and USAID funded/written? textbooks were also what the Taliban used in Afghanistan for radicalisation, based on what I could dig up. I also discovered that there’s been debate about the content of textbooks which I suspect is related. Westoid search results make it hard to draw connections :)

Certainly there is criticism of USAID regarding corruption and such, and Pakistan does not seem to treat its tribespeople very well. They’ve also sent their military into the FATA region with the excuse of “antiterrorism operations”, which sounds great.

Worthy to note, I just asked her about what she does and how it gets done, I did not unhinge my jaw and spew forth a DOG OF THE USAMERICAN EMPIRE rant, because you know what they say about No Investigation. It was kind of surreal to be trying to sniff out potential western propaganda in realtime while talking with this queer woman from Pakistan though. This whole thing, this lesbian woman bitching and griping ahout THOSE TRIBALS who DONT WANT THEIR GIRLS EDUMACATED whilst working for a US-funded state education department fucking reeks of pinkwashing.

Opinions from anyone educated or knowledgeable on this subject are greatly appreciated, especially if we have any comrades from Pakistan