Malala: the epitome of courage and resistance

The assault on Malala left all of Pakistan with a heartrending grief to nurse along with her loved ones. This prize is an acknowledgement of her valour, courage and resistance

Malala Yousafzai has become the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner, rightly deserved for her heroic struggle for girls’ right to education. She is indeed an international icon of resistance, women’s empowerment and right to education. She is the prized daughter of the nation, who at such a young age has earned a name and fame worldwide. Malala Yousafzai is undoubtedly an epitome of exceptionally enviable courage and boldness, who stood by her beliefs unflinchingly and, despite her very young age, she did not budge an inch from her noble stance in the face of dire threats. Leaders belonging to the ruling and opposition parties have congratulated Malala on winning the prestigious award. Though she is being revered the world over, a few people from international and local opinion makers’ circles are whining about how the Nobel Peace Prize should have been given to someone who has contributed towards peace or for efforts to eliminate war.

It was indeed the prerogative of the Nobel Prize Committee to believe that education makes people civilised, in turn reducing turmoil and war to create a climate conducive to peace. The five-member Nobel committee, while taking the decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Malala, stated: “Despite her youth, Malala Yousafzai has already fought for several years for the right of girls to education, and has shown by example that children and young people, too, can contribute to improving their own situations.” The assault on Malala left all of Pakistan with a heartrending grief to nurse along with her loved ones. This prize is an acknowledgement of her valour, courage and resistance, and that she defied the accursed thugs who not only attacked her, they pierced the very heart of this nation.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility, and vowed to attack her again if she survived. With this dastardly attack, they demonstrated how bestial they innately are. Attacking a child is not bravery; it is outright cowardice. This savage attack should have at least served to pull our clerical orders out of their own conceit, making them declare in unambiguous words that Islam abhors the killing of innocents, old men, women and children under any circumstances. Malala had been receiving threats from the militants yet no security was provided to her whereas scores of police personnel are deputed for the security of hundreds of ministers, politicos and other government functionaries. Of course, the attackers had descended from the hills from across the border where Pakistani fugitive militants like Fazlullah and Faqir Mohammad are ensconced. They have found safe haven in the neighbouring Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan.

Unfortunately, the civil security apparatus in Pakistan, whose job it is essentially to fight urban terrorism, was found lacking. Secondly, some terror apologists were condoning the vile acts of the militants, who felt emboldened by the support. Apart from killings, the militants destroyed not only girls’ schools but boys’ schools also and the civil administration could not stop them. Extremists and terrorists who are raising the banner of Islam are in fact striking at the very foundation of the faith.

In Pakistan, books and schools have been torched and destroyed, and human beings have been killed by suicide bombers. In Pakistan, militants have burned hundreds of schools to the ground, especially girls schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Maulana Fazlullah, now chief of the TTP, had been broadcasting through an illegal FM radio station in Imam Dheri village, discouraging girls from going to school. Keeping up their attacks on schools, the insurgents destroyed schools in Mingora as well; the official count was more than 135 schools. These thugs do not understand that the foremost feature of man’s characteristics is that God granted him knowledge of the names of things, which made him superior to the angels and, as such, the latter were commanded by the Lord Creator to prostrate to him.

Religious scholars have not seriously tried to ignite the internal combustible spirit in us and convert the release into useful energy with the potential for change and to find a niche in the comity of nations. They did not reach the innermost recesses of the conscious and subconscious minds of the people to inculcate in them an urge or desire to search for truth and reality. More than 1,400 years ago, Islam gave the message of peace, justice, human dignity, reason and light. Its rejection of outdated customs and traditions is enough evidence that Islam is an active and radical religion. Those who misinterpret Islam as a dogmatic and conservative upholder of obscurantism in fact deviate from the simple, rational and humane spirit of Islam.

Unfortunately, there was no coherent plan by the administration to take the militants head on. The armed forces and paramilitaries are rendering tremendous sacrifices in fighting this war. Operation Zarb-e-Azb is successfully progressing and, according to military sources, 80 percent of North Waziristan has been cleared of the terrorists and militants. The military is determined to cleanse FATA and other areas where militants are hiding. Unfortunately, a couple of political parties and religious groups, in pursuance of their political interests, appear to have lost sight of the collective national goals of fighting and eliminating the scourge of terrorism.

They have been creating fear in the minds of the people and government functionaries that, in the event of an operation being launched against the militants in FATA, the blowback would be disastrous. But they have been proved wrong, and the terror apologists are now quiet for the moment. The government should maintain its resolve to eliminate terrorism using an assorted counter-terrorism strategy. It should take steps to expedite relief to the internally displaced persons (IDPs) and look after them properly, as they are the ones who will prove to be a bulwark against terrorists and militants after they return to their cities and towns.