By Amir Zia
The News
October 16, 2012
Our collective sin remains that we waited far too long and did little when all these years the Taliban had been busy blowing up schools in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, brainwashing and preparing child suicide bombers and using Pakistani soil for terrorism not just within the country but also in other parts of the world.
A text message from the banned Hizb-ut-Tahrir – circulated among many media persons this week – blamed the “Raymond Davis network” for the attack on Malala Yousafzai by which it implied that the US spy agency was involved in the affair. Many mainstream religious parties – from the Jamaat-e-Islami to the various factions of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) – instead of condemning the ghastly assault on the 14-year-old girl from Swat, tried to spin it by saying that it was the result of the US-led war in Afghanistan and its drone strikes on Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas. A leader of a prominent religious party had the audacity to say in a television talk-show that the attack was a reaction to the way the government, the media and non-government organisations (NGOs) used Malala against the Taliban.
While the majority of ordinary Pakistanis have put their hearts and souls in praying for Malala’s life and condemning the perpetrators of the attack, the religious forces today stand exposed by not condemning the Taliban who tried to silence this young voice pleading the case of girls’ education in her hometown and taking a position against the systematic destruction of schools by militants.
The JUI chief, Maulana Fazlur Rehman said in a menacing tone that all statements slamming clerics and religious leaders for not denouncing the Taliban militants are being noted. According to media reports that quote intelligence sources, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is planning action against national and international media houses, following which the Interior Ministry beefed up their security.
Despite efforts by the fundamentalist forces to confuse the issue and link it with the war in Afghanistan and drone attacks, there remains a clarity and level-headedness among ordinary Pakistanis, who find targeting a child, for whatever so-called lofty ideals, unacceptable.
Indeed, Malala has become a symbol of defiance against the barbarism and atrocities the Taliban and their Al-Qaeda allies have been committing using the sacred name of Islam, which preaches kindness, forgiveness, moderation, and tolerance even in conflict and war. But this fundamental message of Islam seems to have been forgotten by militants and their cheerleaders in the rightwing and religious parties, who represent the triumph of all that is unreasonable and unjust over reason and justice. Their emotional arguments and violent deeds generate heat, but unfortunately no light.
Our collective sin remains that we waited far too long and did little when all these years the Taliban had been busy blowing up schools in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, brainwashing and preparing child suicide bombers and using Pakistani soil for terrorism not just within the country but also in other parts of the world.
The silence of the majority, the failure of mainstream political parties and the government in countering the self-defeating narrative of the Taliban, and the half-hearted measures of the security forces in fighting terrorism have led to Malala’s current ordeal. She represents all the tens of thousands of students who missed valuable academic years because their schools were destroyed by these self-styled “holy warriors”. She is the face of all those children who were killed, maimed or injured in terrorist attacks that have remained “part of our lives” for more than a decade now. She is the emblem of all those who carry the trauma and scars of losing their near and dear ones at the hands of the Taliban.
The extremist mindset attacked a potent symbol of defiance by targeting and wounding Malala and two other female students – Kainat and Shazia. Before shooting and wounding these girls, the so-called brave and pious Taliban completely destroyed 121 schools in Malala’s hometown of Swat and partially damaged 280 others, according to a report issued last month by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc). The total number of schools destroyed in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, according to the report, remains more than 700, depriving at least 600,000 children of education.
When all this was happening, we, the majority chose to remain silent or pay lip service to mark our indignation at these horrendous acts amidst the crescendo of voices raised by the Taliban apologists, supporters and ideological backers, who justified and defended every crime and every madness committed in the name of our religion on the pretext that the war against terrorism and extremism was not our war.
The Imran Khans, Maulana Fazal-ur Rehmans and Munawar Hasans of this world tried to thrive and score points by confusing the homegrown challenge of extremism and terrorism by justifying that it was a mere reaction to the foreign intervention in Afghanistan and drone strikes in Pakistan. They conveniently forgot the circumstances that led to this intervention. Their half-truths, conspiracy theories and deliberate distortion of facts always fail to take into account that the region serves as a safe-haven for all shades of local, regional and international militants who threaten Pakistan by trying to impose their harsh brand of Islam and use its soil to carry out terrorist activities around the world. The footprints of many international terrorist plots led directly to our doorstep. Pakistan paid a far higher price compared with any other country at the hands of extremists.
Our inability to establish writ of the state in the tribal region and parts of northern Pakistan – infested by local and foreign militants – remained one of the key failures. We tried half-hearted crackdowns, devoid of ideological support from the mainstream political parties. We failed in giving a popular counter-narrative to challenge the Taliban and Al-Qaeda’s distorted version of Islam. Instead, the authorities kept moving between the two extremes of military operations or striking deals with commander this and commander that. But the policy of appeasement failed to curb militancy.
Our class-based and multi-tiered education system, which excludes poor children from modern schooling, is other mega factor responsible for the growing intolerance and extremism. The children of the poor are mostly left at the mercy of antiquated seminaries, run on donations and alms. Despite many announcements, we failed to reform these seminaries or provide a better alternative to their students as the state abdicated its responsibility of providing education. The worldview of the seminary students stands in stark contrast to the children belonging to the privileged and middle classes, who attend fancy private English-medium school. Thus we created and accepted an ever-widening divide, which alienated one world from the other, creating all the right conditions for a conflict.
The state needs to take a holistic approach when dealing with the challenge of extremism that is bent upon destroying the very fabric of our society. Any counter-terrorism strategy needs to be backed by an ideological narrative in which the political parties and the civil society have a crucial role to play. Reforming the education system, and ensuring it provides equal opportunities to students of all classes – both in the rural and urban centres of Pakistan – should be one of its main pillars. That’s what Malala stood for. And that’s what we must stand for – if we love our children and care for the future of Pakistan. If we fail to act now, we will all have to pay the price.
The News
October 16, 2012
Our collective sin remains that we waited far too long and did little when all these years the Taliban had been busy blowing up schools in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, brainwashing and preparing child suicide bombers and using Pakistani soil for terrorism not just within the country but also in other parts of the world.
A text message from the banned Hizb-ut-Tahrir – circulated among many media persons this week – blamed the “Raymond Davis network” for the attack on Malala Yousafzai by which it implied that the US spy agency was involved in the affair. Many mainstream religious parties – from the Jamaat-e-Islami to the various factions of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) – instead of condemning the ghastly assault on the 14-year-old girl from Swat, tried to spin it by saying that it was the result of the US-led war in Afghanistan and its drone strikes on Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas. A leader of a prominent religious party had the audacity to say in a television talk-show that the attack was a reaction to the way the government, the media and non-government organisations (NGOs) used Malala against the Taliban.
While the majority of ordinary Pakistanis have put their hearts and souls in praying for Malala’s life and condemning the perpetrators of the attack, the religious forces today stand exposed by not condemning the Taliban who tried to silence this young voice pleading the case of girls’ education in her hometown and taking a position against the systematic destruction of schools by militants.
The JUI chief, Maulana Fazlur Rehman said in a menacing tone that all statements slamming clerics and religious leaders for not denouncing the Taliban militants are being noted. According to media reports that quote intelligence sources, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is planning action against national and international media houses, following which the Interior Ministry beefed up their security.
Despite efforts by the fundamentalist forces to confuse the issue and link it with the war in Afghanistan and drone attacks, there remains a clarity and level-headedness among ordinary Pakistanis, who find targeting a child, for whatever so-called lofty ideals, unacceptable.
Indeed, Malala has become a symbol of defiance against the barbarism and atrocities the Taliban and their Al-Qaeda allies have been committing using the sacred name of Islam, which preaches kindness, forgiveness, moderation, and tolerance even in conflict and war. But this fundamental message of Islam seems to have been forgotten by militants and their cheerleaders in the rightwing and religious parties, who represent the triumph of all that is unreasonable and unjust over reason and justice. Their emotional arguments and violent deeds generate heat, but unfortunately no light.
Our collective sin remains that we waited far too long and did little when all these years the Taliban had been busy blowing up schools in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, brainwashing and preparing child suicide bombers and using Pakistani soil for terrorism not just within the country but also in other parts of the world.
The silence of the majority, the failure of mainstream political parties and the government in countering the self-defeating narrative of the Taliban, and the half-hearted measures of the security forces in fighting terrorism have led to Malala’s current ordeal. She represents all the tens of thousands of students who missed valuable academic years because their schools were destroyed by these self-styled “holy warriors”. She is the face of all those children who were killed, maimed or injured in terrorist attacks that have remained “part of our lives” for more than a decade now. She is the emblem of all those who carry the trauma and scars of losing their near and dear ones at the hands of the Taliban.
The extremist mindset attacked a potent symbol of defiance by targeting and wounding Malala and two other female students – Kainat and Shazia. Before shooting and wounding these girls, the so-called brave and pious Taliban completely destroyed 121 schools in Malala’s hometown of Swat and partially damaged 280 others, according to a report issued last month by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc). The total number of schools destroyed in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, according to the report, remains more than 700, depriving at least 600,000 children of education.
When all this was happening, we, the majority chose to remain silent or pay lip service to mark our indignation at these horrendous acts amidst the crescendo of voices raised by the Taliban apologists, supporters and ideological backers, who justified and defended every crime and every madness committed in the name of our religion on the pretext that the war against terrorism and extremism was not our war.
The Imran Khans, Maulana Fazal-ur Rehmans and Munawar Hasans of this world tried to thrive and score points by confusing the homegrown challenge of extremism and terrorism by justifying that it was a mere reaction to the foreign intervention in Afghanistan and drone strikes in Pakistan. They conveniently forgot the circumstances that led to this intervention. Their half-truths, conspiracy theories and deliberate distortion of facts always fail to take into account that the region serves as a safe-haven for all shades of local, regional and international militants who threaten Pakistan by trying to impose their harsh brand of Islam and use its soil to carry out terrorist activities around the world. The footprints of many international terrorist plots led directly to our doorstep. Pakistan paid a far higher price compared with any other country at the hands of extremists.
Our inability to establish writ of the state in the tribal region and parts of northern Pakistan – infested by local and foreign militants – remained one of the key failures. We tried half-hearted crackdowns, devoid of ideological support from the mainstream political parties. We failed in giving a popular counter-narrative to challenge the Taliban and Al-Qaeda’s distorted version of Islam. Instead, the authorities kept moving between the two extremes of military operations or striking deals with commander this and commander that. But the policy of appeasement failed to curb militancy.
Our class-based and multi-tiered education system, which excludes poor children from modern schooling, is other mega factor responsible for the growing intolerance and extremism. The children of the poor are mostly left at the mercy of antiquated seminaries, run on donations and alms. Despite many announcements, we failed to reform these seminaries or provide a better alternative to their students as the state abdicated its responsibility of providing education. The worldview of the seminary students stands in stark contrast to the children belonging to the privileged and middle classes, who attend fancy private English-medium school. Thus we created and accepted an ever-widening divide, which alienated one world from the other, creating all the right conditions for a conflict.
The state needs to take a holistic approach when dealing with the challenge of extremism that is bent upon destroying the very fabric of our society. Any counter-terrorism strategy needs to be backed by an ideological narrative in which the political parties and the civil society have a crucial role to play. Reforming the education system, and ensuring it provides equal opportunities to students of all classes – both in the rural and urban centres of Pakistan – should be one of its main pillars. That’s what Malala stood for. And that’s what we must stand for – if we love our children and care for the future of Pakistan. If we fail to act now, we will all have to pay the price.
