The attack on Malala Yousufzai

EDITORIAL : Vengeance coming full circle

The gruesome killing of innocent people in the name of religion is the worst thing to imagine and absorb. The attack on Malala Yousufzai, the fourteen year old prodigy who voiced her concerns regarding girls’ education in the terror-hit areas of Pakistan has exposed the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP’s) visage of being fundamentally opposed to progress, development and modernisation, only to perpetuate their self-styled religious agenda far removed from Islam and its teachings. Malala was identified and then attacked when the assailant mounted the vehicle in which she was travelling home from school. They chose to shoot her in the head to minimise the chances of her survival. She however, survived; the bullet penetrated through her brain and settled in the shoulder. The bullet has been removed in a five hour-long operation. The government has decided, on the advice of the medical board dealing with her case, not to risk sending her abroad in her present condition, and instead get foreign doctors to visit Pakistan if needed. The TTP, while claiming responsibility for the attack, has condemned Malala for her open, secular and modern views on education and women’s participation in the social and political arenas. Her stance against the Taliban and more so on their irrational and ill-conceived notion of keeping children away from education by demolishing schools was the biggest irritant for the TTP. They had been issuing threats to her family, had asked her to remain silent, and even now when they have injured her grievously, their desire to eliminate her has not disappeared: “We will kill her even if she survives now,” they say. Malala began her journey to communicate with the world by writing blogs under a pen name Gul Makai in 2008. She would publish pages from her diaries on the web. Each one of her writings was soaked in the blood, terror and agony suffered by the people of Swat. However, there would always be hope wrapped in her thoughts that looked forward to an end of the TTP and the coming of democracy in her region eventually. To be a part of this long and tiring journey, she had desired to become a politician and launch her own political party. Malala has been awarded the First National Peace Award of Pakistan. She was nominated for an International Children’s Peace Prize by Kids Rights Foundation, an international children’s advocacy group. And finally the gallantry award from the President of Pakistan consummated this little girl’s heroic profile at the tender age of fourteen. The attack on Malala is an attack on all those people who dare to think along secular and modern lines in Pakistan today. It is an attack on the very ideology of this country that never wanted theology to ruin its very essence. When Maulana Sufi along with his group of jihadists in 1990 began establishing a state-within-the-state in the name of Shariah, the threat this posed did not dawn on the authorities responsible for the territorial and constitutional defence of the state. Eventually when the military operation in 2009 was launched, it displaced 2.5 million people, one of the largest internal displacements in recent history. But the offensive did not eliminate the militants; it only forced them to retreat from Swat temporarily. For the last one year, not only has militancy returned to the area, Maulana Fazlullah, who had been considered dead, is found holed up in Afghanistan. Lately we have had a number of attacks in lower and upper Dir on the security forces of Pakistan by the TTP. The government has been unable to fill the political and administrative vacuum and thereby root out the curse of militancy. Now with the attack on Malala, the vengeance of these enemies of Pakistan has come full circle. While we pray for Malala’s full and quick recovery, the government must tighten the noose around the necks of those who have so far been released from the courts because of legal loopholes or intimidation of judges and witnesses, and spared punishment. Also, all those still running around loose and sowing mayhem and chaos through their terrorism must be brought to book in a concerted manner if more Malalas are not to fall victim to their fanaticism.