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Pakistan's Hazara Women Strike Back with Martial Arts

A female student of the Hazara community practices Shaolin Kung Fu during a self-defense martial arts training class, on the outskirts of Quetta. AFP
A female student of the Hazara community practices Shaolin Kung Fu during a self-defense martial arts training class, on the outskirts of Quetta. AFP
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Pakistan's Hazara Women Strike Back with Martial Arts

A female student of the Hazara community practices Shaolin Kung Fu during a self-defense martial arts training class, on the outskirts of Quetta. AFP
A female student of the Hazara community practices Shaolin Kung Fu during a self-defense martial arts training class, on the outskirts of Quetta. AFP

Hundreds of Pakistani Hazara women are learning how to deliver sidekicks and elbow blows as martial arts booms within the marginalized community.

Women must contend with routine harassment from men, with groping commonplace in crowded markets or public transport.

"We can't stop bomb blasts with karate, but with self-defense, I have learnt to feel confident," 20-year-old Nargis Batool told AFP.

"Everyone here knows that I am going to the club. Nobody dares say anything to me while I am out," she added.

Up to 4,000 people are attending regular classes in more than 25 clubs in Balochistan province, of which Quetta is the capital, according to Ishaq Ali, head of the Balochistan Wushu Kung Fu Association, which oversees the sport.

The city's two largest academies, which train around 250 people each, told AFP the majority of their students were young Hazara women.

Many of them go on to earn money from the sport, taking part in frequent competitions.

It is still unusual for women to play sport in deeply conservative Pakistan where families often forbid it, but martial arts teacher Fida Hussain Kazmi says exceptions are being made.

"In general, women cannot exercise in our society... but for the sake of self-defense and her family, they are being allowed," he explained.

The uptake is also credited to national champions Nargis Hazara and Kulsoom Hazara, who have won medals in international competitions.

Kazmi says he has trained hundreds of women over the years, after learning the sport from a Chinese master in the eastern city of Lahore.

The 41-year-old offers two hours of training six days a week for 500 rupees ($3) but gives free classes to women who have lost a relative to militant violence.

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1st Car Made during Soviet-era in Poland Goes on Display 73 Years Later

This Warszawa M-20 car with serial number 000001, based on a Soviet Union's model, was the first vehicle to leave a car factory in Poland after World War II, on Nov. 6, 1951 and now, 73 years later, it goes on public display at a private museum in Otrebusy, central Poland, on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
This Warszawa M-20 car with serial number 000001, based on a Soviet Union's model, was the first vehicle to leave a car factory in Poland after World War II, on Nov. 6, 1951 and now, 73 years later, it goes on public display at a private museum in Otrebusy, central Poland, on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
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1st Car Made during Soviet-era in Poland Goes on Display 73 Years Later

This Warszawa M-20 car with serial number 000001, based on a Soviet Union's model, was the first vehicle to leave a car factory in Poland after World War II, on Nov. 6, 1951 and now, 73 years later, it goes on public display at a private museum in Otrebusy, central Poland, on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
This Warszawa M-20 car with serial number 000001, based on a Soviet Union's model, was the first vehicle to leave a car factory in Poland after World War II, on Nov. 6, 1951 and now, 73 years later, it goes on public display at a private museum in Otrebusy, central Poland, on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

The very first car produced in Soviet-era Poland after World War II went on display Friday near Warsaw after it was tracked down in Finland during decades of searching and acquired after years of negotiations.

The chunky 1951 Warszawa M-20 bears the serial number 000001 it had when it left the FSO Passenger Car Factory in Warsaw on Nov. 6 of that year, exactly 73 years ago. It is a relic of the period of Poland’s post-war subordination to communist-ruled Soviet Union.

“We are extremely proud because now we count among the very few people in the world who have retrieved the very first vehicles of the series made in their countries,” said Zbigniew Mikiciuk, a co-founder of the private museum in Otrebusy.

The car was first given to the Soviet army marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, who served as Poland’s defense minister after the war to seal the country’s dependency to Moscow. It eventually was discovered in the possession of the family of Finnish rally car driver Rauno Aaltonen, though the car's history in between remains unclear, Mikiciuk said.
It took more than two years of negotiations to obtain the vehicle from the Finnish owners, The Associated Press quoted him as saying.

The car's original light color has been painted over with a shade of brown that was fashionable in the 1970s and bears marks of once-intensive use that the museum has preserved to keep it authentic, but it is still "holding together” and is “cool” despite its age, Mikiciuk said.
The now-defunct FSO factory intensively sought the original model during the 1970s in hopes of using it to mark an anniversary. The company even offered a new car in exchange for it, at a time when cars were still a luxury in Poland, but to no avail.
The FSO factory was originally built in the late 1940s to make Italian Fiat 508 and 1100 cars, but Soviet leaders in Moscow objected to the ties with a Western company during the Cold War. They ordered production to be based on the Soviet Union's Pobeda (Victory) cars, with Moscow providing the technology and the production lines.
The car now joins the museum’s many historic vehicles, including a 1928 US-made Oakland brought to Poland before the war by a doctor’s family and a 1953 Buick that belonged to Poland’s communist-era Prime Minister Jozef Cyrankiewicz. The former leader brought the car to Poland via the Netherlands apparently to avoid a direct connection to the US during the Cold War.
The museum also displays a Volvo that was used by Poland’s communist leader, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, known for having imposed martial law in 1981.
“We have been doing this for more than 50 years and we are not collecting cars you can see in the street but cars that have their history, their soul and their legend,” Mikiciuk said.
The museum owners hope that by displaying the initial Warszawa M-20 they can encourage members of the public to come forward and fill in more details of its history.