Malala Yousafzai: Controversy’s favourite child

Just like human beings, nations have their fates as well. Sometimes, they write their fate with their own hands however there are circumstances when they could be bound by heavenly fate and in such circumstances they become mere spectators. Pakistan is a country that you always will find entangled in the whirlpool of heavenly fate or self –written fate i.e. either because of geographical location or the people she gave birth to.

On 12 July, 1997 a girl was born in the house of a common man in Mingora, Pakistan, and she was named Malala Yousafzai. Her father Mr. Ziauddin Yousafzai brought her up and her education started at home. When she was 11–12, she wrote a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC Urdu detailing her life during the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan’s occupation of Swat. On 9 October 2012, while on a bus in the Swat District, after taking an exam, Malala and two other girls were shot by a Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan gunman in an assassination attempt in retaliation for her activism. The gunman fled the scene.

Malala received a bullet in the head and remained unconscious and in a critical condition at the Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology, but her condition later improved enough for her to be transferred to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, UK. The attempt on her life sparked an international spate of support for her. Then she got better and started appearing on the media and expressing her views on Pakistan, Pakistani culture and Pakistani society.

Then, as claimed, she wrote her biography i.e. I am Malala. In 2012, she received Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Prize and in 2013 Sakharov Prize. In 2014, she became co-recipient of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize along with Kailash Satyarthi of India. Aged 17 at the time, she was the youngest-ever Nobel Prize winner. In 2017, she completed her secondary school education at Edgbaston High School for Girls in Birmingham, England and she graduated in 2020. And the story goes on.

Consider it Malala’s shortest biography. She is very well groomed by the Western media and now she knows how to get into the limelight. In Pakistan, people were suspicious of her ability to write blogs for BBC Urdu at the age of 11 or 12 as she got her early education at home instead of a regular contemporary school. What happened to other two girls who were accompanying Malala at the time of the TTP attack? Why didn’t they write their life stories and get the Nobel Prize? How many victims of terrorist attacks have the opportunity to be taken to modern Western hospitals?

Malala’s father was portrayed as a poet, philanthropist, activist educationist and bla bla bla bla… have you ever heard of him before this incident? Pakistan lost hundreds of children in terrorist attacks and how many got widespread coverage in the local and international media. How many victims of terrorist attacks got lifesaving surgeries at Western hospitals?

There are many who don’t believe in Malala’s story, but history tells us whoever talks about Pakistan, its culture and norms or against the Islamic theology, will be picked by the West. We are not living in an ideal society, who else can claim? We have our own shortcomings and soft spots but how can we allow all and sundry to dictate us about our religious and cultural norms. Just a few days ago, Malala said during an interview:

I still don’t understand why people have to get married. If you want to have a person in your life, why do you have to sign marriage papers, why can’t it just be a partnership?”

She also said she’s not sure if she would ever marry anyone. As in generality, how can she know that marriage is a Sunnah and pure and solemn and heavenly relationship and it is not a contract like give and take. It is beyond her understanding.

Malala got an apt reply from Mathira, a well-known Pakistani showbiz celebrity:

“Malala, please! We should be teaching this generation that nikkah is Sunnah; it’s not just about signing a paper – you aren’t buying a plot. Forced marriages, abusive marriages, child marriages are bad. But getting a nikkah done with the blessings of Allah is beautiful. So if you think having someone as a partner in your life is great, then getting your future blessed in a halal way is wonderful.”

One of our teachers said, “We don’t need Taliban neither we want Malala. It is because of TTP that people like Malala and Tariq Fateh get an opportunity to speak against Pakistan.”

It is observed that channels like BBC, VoA and DW don’t lose any opportunity to defame Pakistan, especially with the help of liberal fascists and so-called human activists from Pakistan. We need to improve ourselves first and then we would be able to respond to such tactics.

The lynchpin is that we must address our inner flaws first. It is really valid to say that Malala and others like her are doing no good to us. It is us who can build Pakistan on true principles of justice, equality and fraternity.

The writer is an educationist and teaches at a public sector university in Oman.