In early 2018, the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement or Pashtun Protection Movement (PTM) came suddenly into the limelight in Pakistan. The PTM is spearheaded by young firebrand Pashtun generation mainly from the war-torn North-West Frontier region of the country. However, the movement's rhetoric and policy agenda have put it at loggerheads with Pakistan's powerful military establishment. Whilst the PTM blames the Army for the plight of Pashtuns in the country, the military has labelled the movement as a foreign ‘proxy’ working at the behest of other countries against the institutions of its own state. In essence, both parties have resorted to conspiracy theories of one sort or the other. This development has strained the nascent process of ‘mainstreaming’ the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) into becoming a normalized part of Pakistan. However, there are some encouraging political aspects and developments related to this debate. These include the increasingly wide-scale use of social media for political activism and awareness; various impacts on merger of FATA with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; and also the successful conduct of recent provincial elections in the region.

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普什图保护运动 (PTM) 的兴起：论战和阴谋论

2018 年初，普什图塔哈夫兹运动或普什图保护运动 (PTM) 突然成为巴基斯坦的焦点。PTM 由主要来自该国饱受战争蹂躏的西北边境地区的年轻煽动者普什图族带头。然而，该运动的言论和政策议程使其与巴基斯坦强大的军事机构发生了争执。虽然 PTM 将普什图人在该国的困境归咎于军队，但军方已将该运动标记为外国“代理人”，在其他国家的要求下反对本国机构。从本质上讲，双方都诉诸了一种或另一种阴谋论。这一发展使联邦直辖部落地区（FATA）“主流化”成为巴基斯坦正常化一部分的新生进程变得紧张。然而，与这场辩论有关的一些令人鼓舞的政治方面和事态发展。这些包括越来越广泛地使用社交媒体来促进政治活动和提高意识；对FATA与开伯尔-普赫图赫瓦合并的各种影响；以及最近在该地区成功举行的省级选举。