Life in Swat is picking up from the ruins of the Taliban era. For Malala Yousufzai, the best part is that she can go to school again without fear in her heart.
The Taliban may have managed to outlaw women’s education, but it is back and every day thousands of girls are attending local schools and colleges.
After living through the Taliban’s dark night of terror and their inglorious exit from the beautiful, pastoral valley, Malala, a seventh-grader at Khushal School and College, has high thehopes for Swat’s future.
The crusade against education was arguably the most striking aspect of Swat’s militancy, as hundreds of schools were blown up and militants imposed a ban on girls’ education beyond primary school.
“In the beginning, I did not take the ban seriously and even joked with classmates who were worried about the school closing,” Malala told the Express Tribune.
But as the 15th January deadline to close girls’ schools drew closer, reality began to sink in. “I realized the school really was going to be closed,” she said.
She felt the Taliban did not want an educated society as they knew that, “Educated girls will become educated mothers, and they will not allow their sons to become suicide bombers.”
Malala said that living through the militancy was like walking blindly into darkness. “I was enraged at the politicians and authorities for their inaction in the face of lawlessness,” she said.
Malala felt suspicious of both the Taliban and army during those tumultuous days, especially during Operation Rah-e-Raast, as she, like most people of Swat, had to leave her home and remain an Internally Displaced Person (IDP) for around three months.
“The operation restored our confidence in the army operation in Swat,” she said.
During the reign of terror, fear, particularly for female students, was a persistent partner. Malala recalls a day she was returning from school and a man was walking a few steps behind her. All of sudden, the man said ‘I will not spare you.’ “I panicked, mistaking him for a Talib and started running. However, when I got close to home, I turned around and saw that the man was talking on his cell phone,” she recalls.
One of the prominent aspects of militancy was the ever increasing level of fear. Malala mentioned hearing daily updates on the number of headless bodies in Green Chowk (infamous as Khooni Chowk/ Bloody Square) and nightly exchanges of firing and shelling.
“ I developed a premonition that now we all will die and Swat will be destroyed,” she said.
She said there were Taliban spies all around and whoever said anything against them was executed the very next day. “It would sound crazy if it were not true.”
“I felt the worst surge of fear when the school administration advised us to come to school to in plain clothes and later to hide books under our shawls so that no one could identify us, she said.
Malala is outspoken and mature beyond her years, and it is perhaps the most tragic aftermath of the insurgency that children, having missed their chance at childhood, must think like adults.
“I wanted to be a politician as the country has good doctors and engineers, but needs good politicians to make decisions that are good for this country.”
On the state of education, she wants to see schools reconstructed quickly and students who are studying in tents sitting in classrooms.
As she headed off to finish her homework, she had one last reminder for her fellow Swatis, “The people of Swat should take home a lesson from the last few years and not patronise any Mullah in the future.”
Published in The Express Tribune, April 11th, 2011.
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