The writer is a lawyer based in Lahore and also teaches at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. He holds an LLM from New York University where he was a Hauser Global Scholar. He tweets @HNiaziii
As far as headlines go, it’s hard to come up with one more fitting than: ‘She left home in a coma and returned with a Nobel’. It was an apt summary by this paper of the fascinating life of Malala Yousafzai.
Her return has taken away a regular criticism in the general vitriolic assault on her character employed by her detractors: ‘If she is so brave why doesn’t she return to Pakistan?’ After all, they sneer, just look at the Army Public School (APS) survivors. Clever, but quite myopic.
If returning to Pakistan means dodging assassins on your way to school, then we can hardly blame her for trying to stay alive. It is a fact that Malala was the target of an assassination and that the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) wanted to silence her voice specifically. Malala wasn’t just the name of a random girl that the TTP drew out of a turban; she was becoming a symbol of resistance against them.
Before the attack on her life she was blogging to the BBC about how her school had been shut down by the TTP. Her advocacy for the education of young girls would result in a documentary by The New York Times on her life. Her efforts would lead to her winning Pakistan’s first National Youth Prize.
Not an ordinary girl by any means. And if there is one thing the TTP hates, it is extraordinary women. So, Malala was no random girl, and the TTP have made it clear that they wish to finish the job they started. Her mere presence in Pakistan puts her life at a substantial risk and has to be respected as an act of immense bravery.
Yet, Malala’s detractors also criticise her for pushing a Western ‘agenda’. A closer look reveals that the agenda involves the following: Telling the president of the United States that drone strikes need to stop in Pakistan; building schools in Swat; donating $7 million for educational needs in Pakistan (most of her critics should ask themselves whether they even pay their taxes); visiting Syrian refugees; rebuilding schools damaged by the TTP; oh, and that picture making the rounds on social media drawing comparisons with the APS survivors? She sponsored medical treatment for them and continues to support them. If all this is part of the Malala agenda, I am all for it and couldn’t care less if it is being sponsored by the West.
In the end, only one argument remains: Malala is tainting Pakistan’s image. Actually, she is painting a picture of the amount of resilience young girls and women in Pakistan have. She personifies the bravery young girls in Swat show in going to school in the land of misogyny. Of course, she is not the only young girl who has faced these difficulties, but she has never said she is.
In her own words she has said, “I tell my story, not because it is unique, but because it is not. It is the story of many girls.” Martin Luther King didn’t care about the image of the US when he spoke of his dreams, he cared about eliminating oppression. We have to recognise that we have a problem in our country and try to solve it rather than criticising people for raising it.
In the grand scheme of things Malala has done more for Pakistan’s image than any one of us could ever hope to achieve. Then why do some people in the country try so hard to dislike her?
Is it because she forces us to confront an inconvenient truth: That we, as a country, cannot protect our children? That dissent is a luxury that we cannot afford to instill in young minds for fears of some fanatic taking note? That every time Malala speaks she forces us to confront the horrific attempt on a young girl’s life, the massacre in APS, and bullets speeding towards schoolchildren?
Is Malala the mirror to our society’s battle with terrorism that we constantly avoid facing?
Those who are calling Malala a fraud should take note that they stand on the wrong side of history. History eventually vindicates the names of the good and pure. Pakistan always seems to recognise its heroes too late. Think Asma Jahangir — also criticised for pushing an agenda.
Now, we all suffer because her voice is no longer amongst us. We should cherish Malala’s voice while we have it.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 3rd, 2018.
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