Pakistan: Time to take responsibility

By: Kamila Hyat

What does Malala Yousafzai have to do with drones? How can the 14-year-old school girl, who today struggles for survival in a UK hospital, have anything to do with the unmanned aircraft that swoop over our northern territories – the Orakzai Agency being the latest area picked out for attacks? Yet, while people across the country have generally been shocked by what happened, there are others, including political and religious leaders who have created immense confusion by trying to wrap the two issues – Malala’s attack and drone strikes – together. In the National Assembly, Maulana Attaur Rehman, who happens to be Maulana Fazalur Rehman’s brother, spoke of the need to ‘guide’ children correctly. Other clerics have been hesitant to condemn the murderous assault on a helpless child – apparently forgetting the most critical lessons of their religion. Even so-called liberals – Imran Khan standing out as one example – have sprung into discussions on the ‘root’ behind the shooting, suggesting that drones were the problem that led to such outrage. In the small, petty game of politics, we hear statements suggesting Malala is being ‘used’ by the Americans. It is then hardly surprising that the accusations that Americans may have orchestrated the attack come from both sides – the people who say Malala is ‘used’ by the US and the Taliban. This is despite clear cut statements from Ihsanullah Ihsan, the Taliban spokesman who holds regular media talks over mobile phone lines, claiming responsibility for the attack and saying that they would make further attempts to kill her if she survived. It has also become clear that the gunmen were sent by Maulana Fazalullah, the former Taliban commander of Swat. Although he was never captured as the military operation in Swat ended, but deprived of his radio channels and the white horse he once rode in a grotesquely distorted emulation of Islamic heroes, it now seems he wages war on children. And too few speak for these children. The astonishingly articulate and courageous Malala, addressing audiences in both Urdu and fluent English, was forced to speak for the right to education for girls, to condemn the Taliban, because too few adults dared to do so. Had they spoken out, had marches been led in previous years – or even now – to oppose Taliban atrocities, as they are held against drone attacks, Malala and her injured friends may not have been left alone to have bullets pumped into them. We, as a society, must ask if it is really acceptable to thrust that responsibility on our children. They should not have to risk their lives by speaking out against an inhumane, brutal force because no one else dares to do so. Even now, we should ask why the Taliban are openly condemned by so few, even though we have seen in the clearest terms what they are capable off. Yet, despite those pictures of a little girl with tubes helping her breathe as she lies in a hospital bed, sedatives dulling her pain, jibes and ‘jokes’ come in about the American’s ‘using’ her or ‘exploiting’ the situation. Humanity appears to have vanished – and taken rationality along with it as well. Things should not be that difficult to make sense off. There can be more than one evil in the world. Murder and rape are both terrible crimes. In just the same fashion, the Taliban and other militant forces deserve to be opposed with all the might we can muster. And yes, drone attacks too need to be opposed – though it is not necessary to constantly connect dots. There is every reason to believe the Taliban have acquired a force that goes beyond hatred for the US. The climate of extremism they have woven holds our country in a vice like-grip, as difficult to disentangle as a spider’s web. We hear of threats to girls’ education in southern Punjab, and acid attacks on women who step outdoors in Balochistan. We also see silence descend over the issue of blasphemy, despite the evidence that has emerged time and again of people being framed; of a teenaged Christian girl with Down’s Syndrome being ensnared in a blasphemy case; and of extremist forces becoming more and more active in the Punjab. All this has little to do with the US as such; although yes, anti-western feelings are present – and acute. They are a factor in what we are seeing. But extremism has taken on a life of its own. The Taliban struggle is one for power and it is simplistic to believe it will vanish once the Americans leave the region. This will simply not happen and facing this reality is crucial to our future. The reality tells us we must speak up more powerfully. We must take on responsibility for what is happening, and not leave the burden sitting on the shoulders of the very young. The political parties so fond of ‘long marches’ must march – or rather drive – a little more, taking on the Taliban. Still more essential is to remove the props and keep them standing up and indeed rising higher like a puppet raised above the theatre brink by the master who wields the stick it is built onto. But there can be no excuse at all for backing a force capable of the worst kind of crime. The Taliban are little different from other such forces we have seen through history; they are worse than some. Collaboration or support for them is simply unacceptable. All we have to do to understand this is to talk to people who have lived under their rule. Many in Swat, Dir, South Waziristan and other places are perfectly clear on who is responsible for the destruction and havoc in their lives. Though they see the complexities involved, with the US presence in the region, they know too at whose hands they have suffered worst. The views of such ordinary people must be respected. They must be given a chance to become their own spokespeople and not have words put in their mouths by outsiders who pursue a line of their own for political and ideological reasons, even though to do so they need to throw morality and basic human decency aside.