Girls in Pakistan: Victim, figurehead, martyr

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk

It is no surprise that girls in Pakistan have been protesting against the renaming of their schools in honour of Malala Yousafzai, the brave teenager who survived a Taliban assassination attempt. Of course, there is nothing wrong with honouring such a talented and articulate campaigner for girls education. She should be honoured. But there is something deeply troubling about the way politicians in Pakistan and overseas are jumping on to the bandwagon.

The girls in Mingora, Malala's home town in the Swat Valley, said they feared becoming targets of the Pakistan Taliban if the name of their school is changed from the Government Postgraduate Malala College for Girls in Mingora back to the Saidu Postgraduate College for Girls. The town was controlled by Taliban militias in 2009 and remains a target of their gunmen. It was here, on her way home from school, that Malala came close to death. The girls' fear is not paranoia – it is a reflection of a very real threat. Similar sentiments have been expressed by Kainat Riaz, a 16-year-old who was injured alongside Malala. She has spoken out about plans to name a school after her, for fear it will bring further reprisals. Her family is under pressure to leave their home in Mingora for the same reason. They are talking about seeking asylum overseas. Make these girls a symbol of women's education and you may as well draw a big target on their foreheads. So when I hear that Gordon Brown has launched a Malala fund for education I think not of the new schools, but whether she can ever return to Pakistan. The same is true of Rimsha Masih. Her case was picked up by international campaign groups when she was arrested on suspicion of blasphemy in August, turning her into a global figurehead for the fight against religious extremism and a heroine in the local campaign to reform Pakistan's brutal laws. Yet the truth is that there is precious little appetite inside the country to overhaul the laws. Few politicians had the courage to speak when Salman Taseer, the late governor of Punjab, made his effort at updating legislation to prevent abuse of an outdated law. For all the fuss over Rimsha, it seems political leaders are only willing to stand up and be counted when the main focus – and the terrorist crosshairs – are elsewhere, centred on a young girl. Where is she now? Does anyone care? For now – and possibly forever – she is in hiding. This is the tragedy of women in modern Pakistan. Just as girls and women remain at the mercy of religious extremists, so too they remain largely voiceless in a society that can only see them as victims. They are powerless. No-one bothered to ask Kainat whether she wanted a school named after her. Rimsha's case was used by both Christian groups and democracy campaigners overseas to further their cause. Did she have any idea? The truth is that girls like her and Malala and Rimsha, girls that flit across public consciousness, are locked in a narrow series of roles defined by society. We want to believe their stories are gamechangers, catalysts that will make a difference. The protests in Mingora are a reminder that things are much more difficult. Even girls like these are stuck in someone else's narrative: first as victim, then as figurehead and possibly, finally, as martyr.