Pakistan - Kalash of Cultures
September 2003 - 18' min 55 sec
Hindu Kush mountains
Music
00:00
CORCORAN: Across the mighty Hindu Kush mountains, the legend of Alexander the Great still resonates, the Macedonian General who conquered the ancient world from Greece to India. His legacy, an Hellenic culture that endured for centuries.
00:09
Peshawar
Today in the Pakistan frontier town of Peshawar, a journey to the bazaar reveals alluring fragments of that lost world. Behind the usual bric-a-brac of the stalls there’s a thriving black market of drugs, guns and a plundered antiquities.
00:36
Corcoran at coin dealers
CORCORAN: So how much for this coin?
01:02
COIN DEALER: This is 10,000 rupees.
CORCORAN: 10,000?
COIN DEALER: Rupees, yeah.
CORCORAN: What’s that in US dollars?
COIN DEALER: It’s about 150.
CORCORAN: The dealers, knowing an amateur when they see one, offer up ancient Greek coins of dubious origin.
01:11
CORCORAN: It’s the real thing?
01:18
COIN DEALER: Yeah.
CORCORAN: It’s not a copy?
COIN DEALER: Not a copy, it’s real.
CORCORAN: It would be easy to prove whether this coin is fake or real but far more difficult to establish is the claim from a small community from a remote corner of Pakistan that they are the direct descendants of Alexander’s armies. A living link stretching back more than 2,300 years to the world of ancient Greece.
Music
Jeep travelling over mountains
CORCORAN: Their isolated world is still a treacherous two-day jeep ride over the Hindu Kush. Beyond, lies the home of the Kalash Kafirs – translated literally they are the Black Infidels.
01:59
Kalash dancing
The Kalash are welcoming the spring with the Joshi festival. They’re animists, nature worshippers and the refusal to convert to Islam has seen them marginalised over the centuries. Numbering fewer than 4,000, the Kalash now occupy just three remote valleys along the rugged northern border of Afghanistan.
02:20
The exact origins of their ancient culture are shrouded in mystery but Kalash schoolteacher, Anees Umar, believes he knows the answer.
02:51
Anees Umar
ANEES UMAR: I think that these people are descendants of Alexander the Great because I found a similarity in Greece. The ancient Greek culture was similar to the Kalasha people.
03:01
Kalash dancing
CORCORAN: About the only way to spot a Kalash man is by the distinctive peacock feather in his cap. But the women still proudly insist on wearing their traditional black outfits every day of the year. In the museums of Greece, Anees claims to have found many striking parallels in language, architecture and dress.
03:20
Anees Umar
ANEES UMAR: The dresses, the women’s dresses, there are many museums I found like these dresses.
03:42
Shaman telling stories
CORCORAN: The elderly shaman recounts the stories of Kalash ancestors. This is a purely oral culture, there’s no written history. They believe in an ancient spiritual home called Tsiam – interpreted by many historians as being the base of one of Alexander’s generals in what is now modern day Syria.
04:00
Stonemasons
The Greek connection, it appears, is largely a matter of faith. And one outsider who passionately believes in the preservation of Kalash culture is Athanasios Lerounis from an Athens based group “Greek Volunteers”. He’s building a cultural centre, partly funded by the Greek government.
04:38
Corcoran walks with Athanasios outside cultural centre At first glance this all appears very Greek to me, the designs.
05:04
ATHANASIOS LEROUNIS: Yes the design of the Kalasha houses are similar to the Greek designs.
CORCORAN: And the columns?
ATHANASIOS LEROUNIS: And the capitals of the columns are Ionic style but also it’s Kalasha style.
Builders
CORCORAN: When finished, the centre will dominate the Kalash village of Bumboret, a school, museum and medical clinic all rolled into one. Prominently displayed is the Star of Vergina, Alexander the Great’s family crest. A controversial symbol which the modern nations of Greece and Macedonia now both claim as their own.
05:23
Corcoran and Athanasios
CORCORAN: It looks like a Macedonian star.
05:45
ATHANASIOS LEROUNIS: All the robekas, the round designs of the Kalash, all of them I have seen in the Greek museums.
CORCORAN: Athanasios won’t buy into the historical debate on the origins of the Kalash but there’s no doubt where his heart lies.
05:55
AthanasiosSuper: Athanasios Lerounis“Greek Volunteers”
ATHANASIOS LEROUNIS: Their dances, their music, their clothes, in their language there are also some Greek words in it. There are many points that show us that may be in the past these people had a connection with the Greeks.
06:02
Mohammed and Corcoran drink wine
DIN MOHAMMED: This is the wine, local wine, red wine.
06:18
CORCORAN: Another similarity with Greeks is the Kalash love of wine. Din Mohammed shares the name of the prophet but he’s no Muslim.
DIN MOHAMMED: Cheers. Kalasha wine.
06:31
CORCORAN: It’s very nice.
DIN MOHAMMED: It’s good with meat.
Mohammed in classroom
CORCORAN: Headmaster of a Kalash school, he doesn’t take the ancient Greek link too seriously and certainly doesn’t teach it as fact in the classroom.
06:43
Here, as in most of Pakistan, state funding for education is scarce. The “Greek Volunteers” have rebuilt a number of government schools where the Kalash are allowed to teach their own language and culture and for this support, Din Mohammed is grateful.
06:58
MohammedSuper: Din Mohammed Kalash school headmaster
DIN MOHAMMED: Yeah, they did a lot in education, only in education. They provide scholarships for the students and they built some latrines for every school.
07:19
Children at school
CORCORAN: He says most Kalash go along with the myth of Ancient Greek heritage because it brings in valuable foreign aid to a very poor community. But with every scholarship and new school building, Din Mohammed claims the Greeks are subtly imposing their own version of history on his people.
07:33
Mohammed
DIN MOHAMMED: Yeah, they’re building in their own way, but I think that’s not fair. I think they should build this like Kalasha, the real Kalasha.
07:54
CORCORAN: Is this a Kalasha way or a Greek way?
DIN MOHAMMED: This is Greek way. They have their own sign, look over there.
08:06
CORCORAN: Are you descendent from the ancient Greeks?
DIN MOHAMMED: Yeah history says that but actually our people don’t think that.
Kalasha festival
CORCORAN: Their passion for dancing, wine and the mingling of the sexes draws many Pakistani Muslims to the festival, curious to see this cultural anomaly in what is an Islamic state. But not all Muslims are so tolerant.
08:23
Shaman leading prayers
At the high point of the Joshi festival, the Shaman leads prayers towards the mountains, regarded as a source of purity, a key concept in Kalash culture. While below, a provocative sermon booms across the valley.
08:43
Loudspeaker
Mullah over loudspeaker: Kalash people worship many Gods.
08:59
Muslims at prayer
Among those attempting to win the hearts and minds of the Kalash people are increasing numbers of Islamic preachers who operated from the local mosques here. While they refuse to appear on camera, they insist that they’re not out to convert anyone but every Friday at midday prayers, the mullahs pump up the volume on the mosque loudspeakers warning fellow Muslims not to fall prey to the evil ways of the Kalash.
09:09
Mullah speech over loudspeaker: These people come to the valley, drink with the Kalash, get drunk and enjoy themselves! They are Muslims in name only!
09:36
Young Kalasha dancing
CORCORAN: Many Kalash are now heeding the call of the mullahs. More than 6,000 have already converted, outnumbering those who maintain the traditional ways. Women who embrace Islam are divorced from their culture, banned from dancing or wearing their beloved Kalash costume. The converts are not usually motivated by faith, but the need to work and feed a family.
10:02
AneesSuper: Anees Umar Kalash schoolteacher
ANEES UMAR: The Muslim people they are preaching that when you covert to Islam we will give you job. Of course sometimes they are giving these jobs but there are not a lot of jobs - this is not a Muslim country. So for the Kalasha people, there are no vacancies to get the jobs.
10:33
Kalash farmers
Music
CORCORAN: On first impression, this is an idyllic rural existence but the traditional Kalash dependents on subsistence farming means it’s a life often lived in borderline poverty.
10:56
Mohammed walks with Corcoran
Headmaster Din Mohammed is determined to maintain the Kalash ways. As one of the lucky few in full time employment, he can afford to.
11:15
DIN MOHAMMED: This is my home, this is my cattle house. We keep here the cows.
11:31
CORCORAN: How many cows have you got?
DIN MOHAMMED: I have six cows and one bull.
CORCORAN: Who’s this over here?
DIN MOHAMMED: She’s my wife. She works in the fields.CORCORAN: Am I permitted to go over and meet your wife?
DIN MOHAMMED: Yeah, why not?
Corcoran greets Mohammed’s wife
CORCORAN: Kalash women are not bound by Purdah – the Muslim custom of keeping adult females in seclusion and can openly meet with visitors.
11:51
DIN MOHAMMED: Say hello.
CORCORAN: Hello, how do you do?
DIN MOHAMMED: Fine. We have four boys.
CORCORAN: And any daughters?
DIN MOHAMMED: No daughter yet.
CORCORAN: All sons.
DIN MOHAMMED: We hope God will give us daughter.
CORCORAN: Do the Kalash women, do you always wear the traditional clothing?
12:11
DIN MOHAMMED: Yes they always wear it.
CORCORAN: How long does it take you to make one dress?
DIN MOHAMMED: Five days. She can’t speak English so it’s difficult, illiterate. So this is my home where my family stays, they live here.
Mohammed and Corcoran enter house
CORCORAN: Inside is another member of the extended family whom we can’t greet.
12:46
DIN MOHAMMED: This is my sister and she converted to Muslim.
CORCORAN: Have you ever been tempted to convert to Islam?
DIN MOHAMMED: No, no, never, no one.
CORCORAN: Would life be easier for you if you did?
DIN MOHAMMED: No I like to be a Kalasha.
Mohammed and family
CORCORAN: Over another round of drinks with his family, Din Mohammed explains that maintaining expensive Kalash traditions such as feasts is too much for many to bear. He says his sister regrets converting but there’s no coming back. The increasingly strident Islamic fundamentalists would make sure of that.
13:10
Mohammed
DIN MOHAMMED: She can’t become Kalash again. If she becomes Kalash, then the Muslims will kill her – him or her, they don’t allow.
13:33
CORCORAN: They will kill them if they try to come back to Kalash. 13:42
DIN MOHAMMED: Yes. It’s very bad.
Polo match
Music
CORCORAN: But down the valley, amid the beauty of the regional centre Chitral, there are no fundamentalist sermons – what stirs passions here is polo.
14:02
Siraj
SIRAJ UL MULK: This is where it started. This is where the game was born and then it was taken by the British to other places of the world and modified.
14:20
CORCORAN: Siraj Ul Mulk is a descendent of Chitral’s Muslim royal family, once the absolute rulers of this region.14:32
Siraj
SIRAJ UL MULK: Our family has been here for over 700 years. I don’t know since when they’ve been playing polo but they have been on the scenes in Chitral for that long, maybe more. The Kalash, in fact, were here even before our family came here. They were the original inhabitants of Chitral.
14:41
Siraj on horseback
CORCORAN: The man whose ancestors drove the Kalash into these hills now believes there’s only one way to prevent their cultural extinction – foreign tourists. He’s hosting a United Nations conference on sustainable tourism and organises an expedition for the saddle-sore delegates up to the Kalash mountain valleys. But Siraj is motivated by more than the noblesse oblige – he owns a big hotel in Chitral and has a vested interest in making tourism work.
15:06
Siraj with delegates
SIRAJ UL MULK: So it’s not the problem of how many tourists come, it’s the quality of the tourists that come and the amount of money that they give into the pockets of the local people. That’s what the thing is about.
15:45
Exterior of hotel
CORCORAN: Tourism has already left its indelible mark. In the village of Bumboret, there appear to be more hotels than houses. Some Kalash have invested everything in small guest lodges. But the tourist boom hasn’t happened. Post September 11, few foreigners venture to Pakistan and those who do stay at big hotels owned by Pakistani Muslims, a fact deeply resented by Kalash activist and lodge owner, Saifulah Jan.
16:04
Saifulah
SAIFULAH JAN: Most of the hotels have been built by the people who come from other cities, like from Peshawar, from Lahore, from Karachi. They’ve no right to come here and to take the business of these people.
16:39
Athanasios listening
CORCORAN: Athanasios Lerounis of the “Greek Volunteers” says nothing at the meeting. Development versus cultural identity is an old debate he’s heard many times before in his native Greece.
16:56
Athanasios
ATHANASIOS LEROUNIS: I have the experience of tourism. Tourism destroy our culture. Our course tourism will give us money but little by little, the Greek culture is finished because of the tourism. If this happens here, also the Kalasha traditions will be finished.
17:10
Kalasha undertaking sacrifice
CORCORAN: It’s the end of the Joshi festival and the men gather at the high temple to sacrifice cheese and bread to the Gods. Many Kalash now pray that tourism will be their saviour – with the romantic yet unproven link to the Ancient Greeks bringing in the foreign dollars.
17:36
Kalasha Like ethnic minorities the world over, the Kalash must now adapt but with opinions so sharply divided about their past and future, the fear is they may soon face cultural oblivion consigned to history and legend alongside Alexander of Macedon.
18:05
Mohammedf
CORCORAN: Do you ever see a time when the Kalash people may be gone?
18:26
DIN MOHAMMED: Yeah we are thinking of that. If we are not united and if we don’t keep our culture as united, then we are to disappear from here.
KALASH OF CULTURES
Reporter: Mark Corcoran
Camera: Ron Foley
Editor: Garth Thomas
Research: Anna Bracks
Producer: Chris Clark
September 2003 - 18' min 55 sec
Hindu Kush mountains
Music
00:00
CORCORAN: Across the mighty Hindu Kush mountains, the legend of Alexander the Great still resonates, the Macedonian General who conquered the ancient world from Greece to India. His legacy, an Hellenic culture that endured for centuries.
00:09
Peshawar
Today in the Pakistan frontier town of Peshawar, a journey to the bazaar reveals alluring fragments of that lost world. Behind the usual bric-a-brac of the stalls there’s a thriving black market of drugs, guns and a plundered antiquities.
00:36
Corcoran at coin dealers
CORCORAN: So how much for this coin?
01:02
COIN DEALER: This is 10,000 rupees.
CORCORAN: 10,000?
COIN DEALER: Rupees, yeah.
CORCORAN: What’s that in US dollars?
COIN DEALER: It’s about 150.
CORCORAN: The dealers, knowing an amateur when they see one, offer up ancient Greek coins of dubious origin.
01:11
CORCORAN: It’s the real thing?
01:18
COIN DEALER: Yeah.
CORCORAN: It’s not a copy?
COIN DEALER: Not a copy, it’s real.
CORCORAN: It would be easy to prove whether this coin is fake or real but far more difficult to establish is the claim from a small community from a remote corner of Pakistan that they are the direct descendants of Alexander’s armies. A living link stretching back more than 2,300 years to the world of ancient Greece.
Music
Jeep travelling over mountains
CORCORAN: Their isolated world is still a treacherous two-day jeep ride over the Hindu Kush. Beyond, lies the home of the Kalash Kafirs – translated literally they are the Black Infidels.
01:59
Kalash dancing
The Kalash are welcoming the spring with the Joshi festival. They’re animists, nature worshippers and the refusal to convert to Islam has seen them marginalised over the centuries. Numbering fewer than 4,000, the Kalash now occupy just three remote valleys along the rugged northern border of Afghanistan.
02:20
The exact origins of their ancient culture are shrouded in mystery but Kalash schoolteacher, Anees Umar, believes he knows the answer.
02:51
Anees Umar
ANEES UMAR: I think that these people are descendants of Alexander the Great because I found a similarity in Greece. The ancient Greek culture was similar to the Kalasha people.
03:01
Kalash dancing
CORCORAN: About the only way to spot a Kalash man is by the distinctive peacock feather in his cap. But the women still proudly insist on wearing their traditional black outfits every day of the year. In the museums of Greece, Anees claims to have found many striking parallels in language, architecture and dress.
03:20
Anees Umar
ANEES UMAR: The dresses, the women’s dresses, there are many museums I found like these dresses.
03:42
Shaman telling stories
CORCORAN: The elderly shaman recounts the stories of Kalash ancestors. This is a purely oral culture, there’s no written history. They believe in an ancient spiritual home called Tsiam – interpreted by many historians as being the base of one of Alexander’s generals in what is now modern day Syria.
04:00
Stonemasons
The Greek connection, it appears, is largely a matter of faith. And one outsider who passionately believes in the preservation of Kalash culture is Athanasios Lerounis from an Athens based group “Greek Volunteers”. He’s building a cultural centre, partly funded by the Greek government.
04:38
Corcoran walks with Athanasios outside cultural centre At first glance this all appears very Greek to me, the designs.
05:04
ATHANASIOS LEROUNIS: Yes the design of the Kalasha houses are similar to the Greek designs.
CORCORAN: And the columns?
ATHANASIOS LEROUNIS: And the capitals of the columns are Ionic style but also it’s Kalasha style.
Builders
CORCORAN: When finished, the centre will dominate the Kalash village of Bumboret, a school, museum and medical clinic all rolled into one. Prominently displayed is the Star of Vergina, Alexander the Great’s family crest. A controversial symbol which the modern nations of Greece and Macedonia now both claim as their own.
05:23
Corcoran and Athanasios
CORCORAN: It looks like a Macedonian star.
05:45
ATHANASIOS LEROUNIS: All the robekas, the round designs of the Kalash, all of them I have seen in the Greek museums.
CORCORAN: Athanasios won’t buy into the historical debate on the origins of the Kalash but there’s no doubt where his heart lies.
05:55
AthanasiosSuper: Athanasios Lerounis“Greek Volunteers”
ATHANASIOS LEROUNIS: Their dances, their music, their clothes, in their language there are also some Greek words in it. There are many points that show us that may be in the past these people had a connection with the Greeks.
06:02
Mohammed and Corcoran drink wine
DIN MOHAMMED: This is the wine, local wine, red wine.
06:18
CORCORAN: Another similarity with Greeks is the Kalash love of wine. Din Mohammed shares the name of the prophet but he’s no Muslim.
DIN MOHAMMED: Cheers. Kalasha wine.
06:31
CORCORAN: It’s very nice.
DIN MOHAMMED: It’s good with meat.
Mohammed in classroom
CORCORAN: Headmaster of a Kalash school, he doesn’t take the ancient Greek link too seriously and certainly doesn’t teach it as fact in the classroom.
06:43
Here, as in most of Pakistan, state funding for education is scarce. The “Greek Volunteers” have rebuilt a number of government schools where the Kalash are allowed to teach their own language and culture and for this support, Din Mohammed is grateful.
06:58
MohammedSuper: Din Mohammed Kalash school headmaster
DIN MOHAMMED: Yeah, they did a lot in education, only in education. They provide scholarships for the students and they built some latrines for every school.
07:19
Children at school
CORCORAN: He says most Kalash go along with the myth of Ancient Greek heritage because it brings in valuable foreign aid to a very poor community. But with every scholarship and new school building, Din Mohammed claims the Greeks are subtly imposing their own version of history on his people.
07:33
Mohammed
DIN MOHAMMED: Yeah, they’re building in their own way, but I think that’s not fair. I think they should build this like Kalasha, the real Kalasha.
07:54
CORCORAN: Is this a Kalasha way or a Greek way?
DIN MOHAMMED: This is Greek way. They have their own sign, look over there.
08:06
CORCORAN: Are you descendent from the ancient Greeks?
DIN MOHAMMED: Yeah history says that but actually our people don’t think that.
Kalasha festival
CORCORAN: Their passion for dancing, wine and the mingling of the sexes draws many Pakistani Muslims to the festival, curious to see this cultural anomaly in what is an Islamic state. But not all Muslims are so tolerant.
08:23
Shaman leading prayers
At the high point of the Joshi festival, the Shaman leads prayers towards the mountains, regarded as a source of purity, a key concept in Kalash culture. While below, a provocative sermon booms across the valley.
08:43
Loudspeaker
Mullah over loudspeaker: Kalash people worship many Gods.
08:59
Muslims at prayer
Among those attempting to win the hearts and minds of the Kalash people are increasing numbers of Islamic preachers who operated from the local mosques here. While they refuse to appear on camera, they insist that they’re not out to convert anyone but every Friday at midday prayers, the mullahs pump up the volume on the mosque loudspeakers warning fellow Muslims not to fall prey to the evil ways of the Kalash.
09:09
Mullah speech over loudspeaker: These people come to the valley, drink with the Kalash, get drunk and enjoy themselves! They are Muslims in name only!
09:36
Young Kalasha dancing
CORCORAN: Many Kalash are now heeding the call of the mullahs. More than 6,000 have already converted, outnumbering those who maintain the traditional ways. Women who embrace Islam are divorced from their culture, banned from dancing or wearing their beloved Kalash costume. The converts are not usually motivated by faith, but the need to work and feed a family.
10:02
AneesSuper: Anees Umar Kalash schoolteacher
ANEES UMAR: The Muslim people they are preaching that when you covert to Islam we will give you job. Of course sometimes they are giving these jobs but there are not a lot of jobs - this is not a Muslim country. So for the Kalasha people, there are no vacancies to get the jobs.
10:33
Kalash farmers
Music
CORCORAN: On first impression, this is an idyllic rural existence but the traditional Kalash dependents on subsistence farming means it’s a life often lived in borderline poverty.
10:56
Mohammed walks with Corcoran
Headmaster Din Mohammed is determined to maintain the Kalash ways. As one of the lucky few in full time employment, he can afford to.
11:15
DIN MOHAMMED: This is my home, this is my cattle house. We keep here the cows.
11:31
CORCORAN: How many cows have you got?
DIN MOHAMMED: I have six cows and one bull.
CORCORAN: Who’s this over here?
DIN MOHAMMED: She’s my wife. She works in the fields.CORCORAN: Am I permitted to go over and meet your wife?
DIN MOHAMMED: Yeah, why not?
Corcoran greets Mohammed’s wife
CORCORAN: Kalash women are not bound by Purdah – the Muslim custom of keeping adult females in seclusion and can openly meet with visitors.
11:51
DIN MOHAMMED: Say hello.
CORCORAN: Hello, how do you do?
DIN MOHAMMED: Fine. We have four boys.
CORCORAN: And any daughters?
DIN MOHAMMED: No daughter yet.
CORCORAN: All sons.
DIN MOHAMMED: We hope God will give us daughter.
CORCORAN: Do the Kalash women, do you always wear the traditional clothing?
12:11
DIN MOHAMMED: Yes they always wear it.
CORCORAN: How long does it take you to make one dress?
DIN MOHAMMED: Five days. She can’t speak English so it’s difficult, illiterate. So this is my home where my family stays, they live here.
Mohammed and Corcoran enter house
CORCORAN: Inside is another member of the extended family whom we can’t greet.
12:46
DIN MOHAMMED: This is my sister and she converted to Muslim.
CORCORAN: Have you ever been tempted to convert to Islam?
DIN MOHAMMED: No, no, never, no one.
CORCORAN: Would life be easier for you if you did?
DIN MOHAMMED: No I like to be a Kalasha.
Mohammed and family
CORCORAN: Over another round of drinks with his family, Din Mohammed explains that maintaining expensive Kalash traditions such as feasts is too much for many to bear. He says his sister regrets converting but there’s no coming back. The increasingly strident Islamic fundamentalists would make sure of that.
13:10
Mohammed
DIN MOHAMMED: She can’t become Kalash again. If she becomes Kalash, then the Muslims will kill her – him or her, they don’t allow.
13:33
CORCORAN: They will kill them if they try to come back to Kalash. 13:42
DIN MOHAMMED: Yes. It’s very bad.
Polo match
Music
CORCORAN: But down the valley, amid the beauty of the regional centre Chitral, there are no fundamentalist sermons – what stirs passions here is polo.
14:02
Siraj
SIRAJ UL MULK: This is where it started. This is where the game was born and then it was taken by the British to other places of the world and modified.
14:20
CORCORAN: Siraj Ul Mulk is a descendent of Chitral’s Muslim royal family, once the absolute rulers of this region.14:32
Siraj
SIRAJ UL MULK: Our family has been here for over 700 years. I don’t know since when they’ve been playing polo but they have been on the scenes in Chitral for that long, maybe more. The Kalash, in fact, were here even before our family came here. They were the original inhabitants of Chitral.
14:41
Siraj on horseback
CORCORAN: The man whose ancestors drove the Kalash into these hills now believes there’s only one way to prevent their cultural extinction – foreign tourists. He’s hosting a United Nations conference on sustainable tourism and organises an expedition for the saddle-sore delegates up to the Kalash mountain valleys. But Siraj is motivated by more than the noblesse oblige – he owns a big hotel in Chitral and has a vested interest in making tourism work.
15:06
Siraj with delegates
SIRAJ UL MULK: So it’s not the problem of how many tourists come, it’s the quality of the tourists that come and the amount of money that they give into the pockets of the local people. That’s what the thing is about.
15:45
Exterior of hotel
CORCORAN: Tourism has already left its indelible mark. In the village of Bumboret, there appear to be more hotels than houses. Some Kalash have invested everything in small guest lodges. But the tourist boom hasn’t happened. Post September 11, few foreigners venture to Pakistan and those who do stay at big hotels owned by Pakistani Muslims, a fact deeply resented by Kalash activist and lodge owner, Saifulah Jan.
16:04
Saifulah
SAIFULAH JAN: Most of the hotels have been built by the people who come from other cities, like from Peshawar, from Lahore, from Karachi. They’ve no right to come here and to take the business of these people.
16:39
Athanasios listening
CORCORAN: Athanasios Lerounis of the “Greek Volunteers” says nothing at the meeting. Development versus cultural identity is an old debate he’s heard many times before in his native Greece.
16:56
Athanasios
ATHANASIOS LEROUNIS: I have the experience of tourism. Tourism destroy our culture. Our course tourism will give us money but little by little, the Greek culture is finished because of the tourism. If this happens here, also the Kalasha traditions will be finished.
17:10
Kalasha undertaking sacrifice
CORCORAN: It’s the end of the Joshi festival and the men gather at the high temple to sacrifice cheese and bread to the Gods. Many Kalash now pray that tourism will be their saviour – with the romantic yet unproven link to the Ancient Greeks bringing in the foreign dollars.
17:36
Kalasha Like ethnic minorities the world over, the Kalash must now adapt but with opinions so sharply divided about their past and future, the fear is they may soon face cultural oblivion consigned to history and legend alongside Alexander of Macedon.
18:05
Mohammedf
CORCORAN: Do you ever see a time when the Kalash people may be gone?
18:26
DIN MOHAMMED: Yeah we are thinking of that. If we are not united and if we don’t keep our culture as united, then we are to disappear from here.
KALASH OF CULTURES
Reporter: Mark Corcoran
Camera: Ron Foley
Editor: Garth Thomas
Research: Anna Bracks
Producer: Chris Clark