Of Heroes & Anti-Heroes: Malala Yousafzai

She came to pub­lic atten­tion in Jan­u­ary 2009 when her blog appeared on the BBC Urdu web­site about life under Tal­iban in the war torn val­ley of Swat, using the pen name Gul Makai and it gained pop­u­lar­i­ty.
Lat­er she appeared in a doc­u­men­tary for The New York Times web­site. Malala Yousufzai, a teenaged school girl rose in the pub­lic eye as she appeared on TV chan­nels and attend­ed con­fer­ences and sem­i­nars where she spoke elo­quent­ly advo­cat­ing peace and edu­ca­tion espe­cial­ly for girls. Since then she has remained in the lime­light to cham­pi­on her cause.

In Octo­ber 2012 Malala was again in all head­lines when she suf­fered bul­let injuries in a tar­get­ed attack on her by the Tal­iban. She was shot at point blank while return­ing from school in broad day­light. In her book she nar­rates “I come from a coun­try which was cre­at­ed at mid­night. When I almost died it was just after mid­day.” The attack left her with a brain injury, a bro­ken skull, a dam­aged nerve and a per­ma­nent­ly impaired hear­ing. She was not expect­ed to sur­vive but mirac­u­lous­ly she did. Her world, how­ev­er, has changed.

It was not just an attack on a young teenaged girl; it was an attack on a voice that refused to be muf­fled by the mind­less atroc­i­ties of the Tal­iban and their ter­ror­ism.

Imme­di­ate­ly after the attempt­ed assas­si­na­tion, sym­pa­thies for her sur­vival and con­dem­na­tion against her per­pe­tra­tors poured in, as did spec­u­la­tion. Malala was ini­tial­ly treat­ed at the local hos­pi­tal but giv­en to her crit­i­cal con­di­tion she was shift­ed to the mil­i­tary hos­pi­tal in the gar­ri­son city of Pak­istan. The doc­tors were putting in their best efforts but her brain injury was extreme­ly seri­ous and there was very lit­tle hope for recov­ery, where­as the Army Chief him­self was tak­ing keen inter­est in the mat­ter. A deci­sion was tak­en to shift Malala to the Queen Eliz­a­beth Hos­pi­tal in Birm­ing­ham. Malala writes, “Nobody con­sult­ed my par­ents on what should hap­pen to me. All deci­sions were made by the Army.”

Grad­u­al­ly the news sto­ry of the attack on her was not a head­line sto­ry any­more in Pak­istan. The sym­pa­thy for her turned into apa­thy, Malala was flown out of the coun­try in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion as she fought for her life.
From the day she was attacked all types of con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries were being prop­a­gat­ed but with the deci­sion to air lift her to Birm­ing­ham for treat­ment, the pace at which these the­o­ries were com­ing forth almost dou­bled. Malala apt­ly writes in her book that “our peo­ple see con­spir­a­cies behind every­thing”.

There are the­o­ries like she is an agent plant­ed by the West work­ing against the inter­est of Pak­istan and on anti-Pak­istan agen­da or that the attack on her nev­er took place at all or that the Tehreek-e-Tal­iban Pak­istan (TTP) nev­er orches­trat­ed the attack, and that there are many more angles and per­spec­tives to Malala.

In Pak­istan, a coun­try where news chan­nels are more pop­u­lar and have a large view­er­ship as com­pared to the enter­tain­ment chan­nels, the pro­pa­gan­da against Malala has nev­er stopped. A large num­ber of TV talk shows have elab­o­rate­ly dis­cussed and debat­ed Malala and many self-pro­claimed schol­ars and ana­lysts have been extreme­ly vocal prop­a­gat­ing base­less rhetoric against her and her fam­i­ly in an attempt to taint her image and declare her to be a dubi­ous char­ac­ter with ulte­ri­or motives hav­ing an anti-Pak­istan agen­da. How­ev­er, all these alle­ga­tions have been lev­elled with­out any proof what­so­ev­er.

The social media has been stream­ing with all types of the­o­ries and sto­ries based more on fic­tion than facts and smear cam­paigns have been active­ly inject­ed to influ­ence the mind­sets of the pub­lic. An over­whelm­ing major­i­ty, indeed, has been filled with a neg­a­tive image of Malala and hatred for her.

Malala who has strong­ly cam­paigned for the right to edu­ca­tion, for peace in the region and against the TTP has been pro­ject­ed as an anti-Pak­istan fig­ure and a West­ern agent. It seems that peo­ple with strong anti-Malala sen­ti­ments would have been glad if she had died in the attack on her and her assas­sins would have been the real heroes who had silenced an alleged West­ern agent, regard­less of the fact that this voice has been speak­ing only in the long term inter­est of Pak­istan.

How­ev­er, all this neg­a­tive pub­lic­i­ty in her own coun­try and every attempt to taint her image has mis­er­ably failed and Malala has emerged as a glob­al sym­bol of peace and the youngest ever nom­i­nee for the Nobel Peace prize as well as the youngest Nobel Lau­re­ate in the his­to­ry of this most pres­ti­gious hon­or.

It seems that not just all crit­i­cism against her has failed and she has risen to gain respect as a sym­bol of courage and deter­mi­na­tion glob­al­ly, her resolve to fight against the tyran­ny of her oppres­sors has remained unde­terred. In her own words, “If you are afraid you can’t move for­ward”.

The Nor­we­gian Nobel Com­mit­tee’s deci­sion to co-nom­i­nate Kailash Sat­yarthi, an Indi­an chil­dren’s rights activist, along with Malala has per­haps fur­ther offend­ed her crit­ics. They might have despised her less if Malala would have shared this hon­or with some­one else. At the state lev­el Malala has been referred as the pride if Pak­istan, yet it is sur­pris­ing to see how she is still mocked, despised, hat­ed and dis­liked by cer­tain seg­ments of the soci­ety who appear to still dwell in the dark ages, cen­turies behind the world though hours ahead in time zone.
Malala’s efforts for edu­ca­tion and peace are unmatched so more pow­er and glo­ry to Malala. For her achieve­ments and hero­ic role in edu­ca­tion empow­er­ment, the hate, humil­i­a­tion and spite towards her is under­stand­able as a large num­ber of Pak­ista­nis do not treat their real heroes accord­ing to their worth. The first Pak­istani Nobel lau­re­ate Dr. Abdus Salam was alien­at­ed by his own peo­ple and now its Malala’s turn.