Ignorant and misguided?

How do Imran Khan’s plans to pacify, deal with Taliban fit in with his thinking on education, role for girls & women?

Since the mid-1990s, when Imran Khan decided to embark upon a political career, the general consensus until last year — taking into account his performance — has been that he is not a politician by nature and that he cannot take on the conniving, corrupt and largely amoral politicians who have been his contemporaries or have been around for almost a decade since he arrived on the scene. It was felt that he would do better to stick to the good work he has done in the hospital and school field, work that has benefited many a deprived citizen of Pakistan.

He persevered in the field foreign to his nature — neither corrupt nor a schemer and plotter, bearing none of the traits that make a successful politician in the land of the pure — and come last year and the ongoing excesses of the present government in corruption, non-governance and a healthy disdain not only for the national exchequer but for the nation at large, he underwent a sea change and began to make his mark.

Now, following his grand motorcade march — which was aborted by the powers that be — and subsequent happenings, he seems to have blown it. His election policy has gone for a six, the October 9 Malala incident has rendered his black and white theories on the US and drones as redundant.

His totally unthought-out and rather pathetic remarks on why he abstained from adding to the substantial condemnation of the Taliban because he feared for his party members of the Taliban-infested areas have brought upon him accusations of cowardice. Other remarks have enraged President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and his government; Mr Khan’s statement to the press about insurgents in Afghanistan fighting a just ‘jihad’ has not gone down at all well with the Afghans. A Foreign Office spokesperson went as far as saying that Khan is “profoundly and dangerously ignorant about the reality in Afghanistan”, adding that children and civilians are killed on a daily basis as schools, hospitals and infrastructure are attacked (somewhat reminiscent of Pakistan) and “to call any of that jihad is profoundly wrong and misguided”.

Reportedly, President Karzai has written to all of our politicians, including Mr Khan: “We must ask why we have been unable to counter the terrorism that is attacking our people …”.

Well, many in Pakistan will now say with equal force that Imran Khan’s thinking on the US, the drones and the Taliban is profoundly and dangerously ignorant and misguided. Government and establishment apathy, apart from the routine media condemnations, have nothing to do with ignorance but all to do with not rocking any boat in the interests of self-preservation. And the media and civil society outrage against the Malala shooting cannot really be termed nationwide. It is selective and restricted to various segments and pockets. A shoddy video raised a far more effective nationwide protest — and really, the only true protest in this country has to be violent, destructive and mindless, as we have witnessed on more than one occasion.

As for the education of the female of the species, the Taliban and their supporters, the supine and spineless who allow them to do what they do in their own interest, and the military which is reluctant to act for its own reasons, all seem to be winning the battle to keep girls and women in what is regarded by far too many as their rightful place.

Literacy statistics bear this out as does a recent list of 128 countries, which allow women to play a role as economic agents in their social and political systems. It has been compiled by the international consultancy and management firm, Booz & Company. At the bottom of the list are Yemen, Pakistan, Sudan and Chad.

Performance is based mainly on primary, secondary and tertiary education afforded to females.

Now, how do Imran Khan’s plans to pacify and deal with the Taliban fit in with his thinking on education and a role for the country’s girls and women?

Published in The Express Tribune, October 20^th, 2012.