Malala: the battleground

An ideological battle is being fought by Pakistan's conservative, fundamentalist and liberal, secular forces over her.

The fierce controversy that is currently going on in Pakistan around a 16-year-old Malala Yousufzai — who was shot by the Taliban on October 9, 2012 for promoting girl’s rights to education — and her book titled I Am Malala represents a sharp ideological divide in the society. The debate in the country is no longer about Malala and her book. Her body has become a battleground on which an ideological battle is being fought by conservative/fundamentalist and liberal/secular forces in Pakistan.

The appropriation of Malala by the West has also sharpened the tension between the ‘Christian North’ and the ‘Muslim South’. Through the adoption of Malala, the West is trying to project itself as liberal, humane, pro-women and pro-education. Showering Malala with all kinds of awards and nominating her for the Nobel Peace Prize helps the West construct its image as a saviour. This is an attempt to deflect global public attention from the injustices and atrocities that are being committed by the West under the leadership of the United States of America in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Continuing drone attacks on Pakistan as part of a mindless, inhuman war strategy of imperialist America against terrorism have killed scores of innocent civilians. By owning Malala, the West is trying to camouflage its hypocrisy and criminal silence on drone attacks in Pakistan and the violation of human rights that are a result of its economic agenda that it is aggressively pushing around the globe. The neo-liberal economic policies (liberalisation, privatisation and in formalisation of labour) and the supporting international monetary institutions (IMF, World Bank) have been responsible for creating massive poverty, unemployment, and illiteracy around the world. Consequently, 57 million children globally are out of school, 60 per cent of them being girl children.

Within the country, the attack on Malala as a Western agent is coming from extremist forces which themselves have a history of serving the Western agenda. These religio-political forces in the country have always been working closely with America as its allies. During the 1980s, they actively pushed the American agenda in the region. With the help of US dollars, they managed to create jihadi outfits and a jihadi culture in order to fight America’s war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. They clearly have a political agenda and they use religion to promote their politics. Thus, every time innocent citizens are attacked and human rights are violated in the name of religion, these forces come forward to provide justification for their actions. Instead of condemning terrorists for killing more than 50,000 innocent civilians, they will mention drone attacks as the reason and provide justification for their brutality.

Similarly, instead of condemning the brutal attack on Malala, they are projecting her as a Western agent to neutralise the severity of the heinous crimes. These are the psychological tactics that they use to blur and confuse public opinion by making Malala controversial. This helps them undermine the national consensus that has emerged on girls’ education following the attack.

Ironically, the beneficiaries of this brutal attack on Malala are actually the women of Pakistan. Malala achieved, singlehandedly, what the women’s rights movement in Pakistan failed to achieve over the last 65 years. Her survival of the brutal attack on her life has pushed the women’s rights agenda and the right to girls’ education at the centre stage of governance, not only in Pakistan but also globally. Despite the International Convention on Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals, the cause of women’s education could not have become as much of a priority of nation states as it is now because of Malala. There is an increasing focus, now, on children who are out of school globally in general and girl children in particular. Malala’s Global Fund of $1.5 billion has been created to address the plight of children who are deprived of their fundamental right to education around the world.

The anger, desperation and frustration of the Taliban apologists on the emerging leadership of Malala who represents the liberal, secular face of Pakistan is evident from their frivolous attacks on her book. In their shared desperation, they are coming up with conspiracy theories and playing with the religious sentiments of people. Their objections on the content of her book are absolutely trivial, laughable and meaningless.

Anti-Malala forces cleverly picked sensitive issues from her book to play with the religious sentiments of the public. They maliciously manipulate the content and the meaning of the text by putting their own words in her mouth.

They have objections to her views on the laws that were introduced by the military dictator Ziaul Haq. For many Pakistanis who believed that Zia manipulated religion for his political project, she is absolutely correct. Ziaul Haq is guilty of defaming religion.

Her views on the blasphemy law, Ahmadis and sectarianism are based on the ground reality of our society. Blasphemy laws after the amendments introduced by Zia have been massively misused. Ahmadis are the most persecuted community in Pakistan. Malala’s political vision is clearly influenced by the vision of Quaid-e-Azam’s Pakistan that is clearly reflected in his August 11 speech: “You are free; you are free to go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the State.”

These religio-political forces are trying to make invisible the threats of humanism that seems to run through in Malala’s political position on every issue that she has reflected on in her book by focusing on trivialities. She is truly a vocal voice of the oppressed and marginalised. In her person, she represents the liberal, democratic and secular forces of the country. Malala’s celebration is the celebration of a liberal democratic thought in our society. This is what makes Malala hated, dangerous and threatening to the retrogressive forces in the country.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 8^th, 2013.

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