Pakistan animation advocates fighting coronavirus with handwashing--not guns

The video advocates fighting the coronavirus with his "bare hands" and not guns

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A deeply conservative, tribal region of Pakistan is spreading an animated, Pashto-language video to warn its population about the coronavirus - and taking a shot at its gun culture in the process.

Pakistan’s restive Khyber-Pakhtunkwa (KPK) province is known for its prevalent gun culture and a popular Pashtun slogan which dominates daily life: "The gun is my law".

Amid the recent coronavirus outbreak, however, two local filmmakers have put a hygienic spin on the famous slogan: "The soap is my law". Their animated video is now being used by the local government as part of its public awareness campaign to spread the importance of public hygiene and overcome cultural obstacles.

Many parts of Pakistan have imposed lockdowns, but authorities continue to struggle to get citizens to cooperate, particularly in northwestern Khyber-Pakhutunkhwa province, which saw the country’s first death from the virus last week.

The video stars a narrator referred to as Pabo Badmash ("Pabo the thug"), who advocates fighting the coronavirus with his "bare hands" and not guns -- meaning handwashing. "The idea was to take out one issue out of many, and which was, in this case, the importance of washing hands for 20 seconds which is the need of the day, nowadays. And we wanted to do that by showing a character who comes forward and sort of saves the day by just washing his hands," Zeeshan Parwez, one of the animators behind the video, told Reuters.