As a gift to a girl who began her campaign when she was just 11 years old, we need to ensure her dream comes true. PHOTO: REUTERS
She will need major reconstructive surgery on her cranium in a few weeks’ time to repair damage inflicted by the bullet that pierced it and, according to sources, is also undergoing physical therapy to help deal with damage to the brain tissue and the muscles it controls as a result of the wound. It is hoped, however, that the plucky teenager who has already been giving interviews and talking to people from her hospital bed will eventually recover fully. The Pakistan government’s decision to give her father, Ziauddin Yousufzai, a job as education attaché at the Pakistan mission in the UK, for at least three years, is good news.
But let us look beyond Malala and her new life in the UK. What has been done to stop the Taliban continuing to act to prevent education and hamper development? Just recently, five teachers were killed in Swabi. There have been other attacks on schools for girls and Malala’s friends in Mingora say they still live in fear. The true tribute we could pay to Malala would be to make education safely available to every girl in the country and to eradicate the Taliban, who have inflicted so much damage on this basic right. The fact that they still stalk the country is bad news for everyone. As a gift to a girl who began her campaign when she was just 11 years old and suffered terrible injuries as a result a few years down the road, we need to ensure all possible help to make her dream come true.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 6th, 2013.
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@Feroz: "There are many who cannot escape abroad, what happens to them ?" They must take a life-threatening bullet in a vital part of their anatomy to qualify for any consideration, I suppose!
The saddest part is that the Government is no longer able to give Malala and her family security and they had to flee abroad, probably never to return. There are many who cannot escape abroad, what happens to them ?
Well wishers of Pakistan shall agree with every word of this editorial. It is apt to remember however that the Taliban, or militants in general, are not something that came into existence on its own. Elsewhere in The Express Tribune today, Mr Muhammad Ali Ehsan tells us in his “Changing Doctrines” that “the army’s Green Book gives us hope that the army is finally ready to combat the threat that is its own creation”: Mr Ehsan was talking of the militants in general throughout the country, especially on the western front. This is the crux of the matter: Pakistan needs to eradicate militants as early as possible – for Pakistan’s own sake. The editorial concludes with the following: “The true tribute we could pay to Malala would be to make education safely available to every girl in the country and to eradicate the Taliban, who have inflicted so much damage on this basic right. The fact that they still stalk the country is bad news for everyone.” That’s very true, indeed. There is need to ensure that the Taliban do not dictate the social and cultural priorities of the people and that girls have school education as much as boys do. V. C. Bhutani, Delhi, India, 6 Jan 2013, 0540 IST