Malala refused to be silenced

If this new generation is not given pens, they will be given guns by terrorists. This was Malala Yousafzai’s statement in an interview some time back. Right on she was, because education could have wrested away the motivation that went behind a mindless bullet fired on the courageous 14-year-old girl from the Swat valley. After all, Malala was only asking for her universal right to education.

She was shot in the head while returning from school, critically injuring her, in an incident that saw two other girls also hurt. Not only did the Taliban accept responsibility for this heinous act, it even justified the crime with a whole list of Malala’s wrong-doings. These include her pro-female education stance, and an innocent, harmless admiration for the American president (who fooled many of us too with his grand speeches at the beginning of his tenure).

Malala rose to fame after she wrote a diary for the BBC’s Urdu service, chronicling how it was to live under the oppressive rule of the Taliban, who had taken over the Swat district.

In those tense, and often dangerous times, the brave Pashtun teenager, only 11 at that time, used the pen-name Gul Makai to narrate to the world how her life changed with the arrival of the Taliban. She wrote of the fear with which people lived under them, and how she wore everyday clothes, hiding her books in her shawl, so that the Taliban would not stop her from going to school. The Taliban controlled the Swat valley for nearly two years, in a reign of terror where schools for girls were closed down, and thousands of Swat residents were either killed for standing up to the brutal tactics of the Taliban to impose their laws, or uprooted from their homes, as they fled away to save their lives.

Eventually, as the Taliban rule gained momentum, Malala’s school was also closed down. Her family was amongst the thousands who were forced to flee from the Swat valley as the army was called in to take charge of the district.

Malala’s courage, confidence and understanding that education was imperative for positive change, earned her international recognition and admiration. She was given the National Peace Prize in Pakistan, and was nominated for an international peace award for children. Unfortunately though, her tenacity also earned her the wrath of those she stood up to. She has been on the Taliban hit-list since 2011.

But here we have an opportune chance to steer public opinion away from the prevalent atmosphere of extremism and militancy in Pakistan, for this was no vague, random shooting.

This act of brutality against a schoolgirl whose only real breach was her courage to speak up against the Taliban, might be a bit much, even for those secretly sympathetic to the cause of the Taliban in the past.

Mercifully, Malala and her friends are reportedly out of danger, defying those who hoped to silence her for her progressive campaign for education and her public criticism of the Taliban — something hardly anyone dares to do.

But this planned shooting speaks volumes about the mindset that made the Taliban target a young girl for her so-called secular thoughts regarding education (and presumably for being the daughter of an educationist and social activist, who is part of the anti-Taliban Jirga in Swat). It is indeed a disturbing psyche, and one that forced a ban on female education when it took control of the Swat valley.

It is even more disturbing for those who see the eradication of gender disparity in education as the only solution to the woes of our country, and especially women — be it hunger, poverty, disease or exploitation.

The attack on Malala is a stark example of the price that even a young girl has to pay in Pakistan for speaking her mind.

It took a long time for the military operation in Swat valley to be declared successful. The army had culled the Taliban insurgency, the people of Swat were told. People stumbled back to their homes, and a fragile semblance of peace and normalcy returned to the area.

But the attack on Malala stands to shatter this very peace. Not only does it contradict the success of the military operation of 2009, it also raises valid questions regarding the incompetence and utter failure to reign in militancy in the country, and even areas that the government claims to have cleared in the operation.

It is obvious that the Taliban were not completely uprooted from the Swat valley, maintaining a definite presence - if only in scattered form. Not only is the Taliban still active, it has the impunity to stop a school van at Mingora, the district’s main town, before gunning down a young girl who has been bad-mouthing them.

And they don’t care that the world knows the girl as a brave peace activist, or that there will be wide public outcry for this act of theirs. They are certain that they can get away with it, and have in fact threatened to target Malala again, if she survives this attack.

In fact, in a country where the government is at an absolute loss as to ways of curbing the deaths on innocents — in pre-planned shootings, suicide bombings, grenade attacks or the dastardly drone incursions, they can get away with anything, and they do, all the time.

While Pakistan’s power players carry on with their confused stance, some condemning the Taliban, others talking of bringing them to the negotiation table, and yet others offering silent (and even material) support, we can only pray that Malala recovers soon enough so as to reach the mainstream of politics eventually, as is her aspiration. Her dream of ‘education for all’ must find realisation, if we are to have a prosperous, progressive Pakistan.

Rabia Alavi is a Dubai based writer. You can follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/RabiaAlavi