The Censure of “I am Malala” Continues

Con­tin­u­ing the offi­cial pol­i­cy of dis­own­ing and dis­cred­it­ing Malala Yousufzai, the PTI led gov­ern­ment in Khy­ber Pakhtoonkhwa (KP) stopped the launch­ing cer­e­mo­ny of Malala’s book “I am Malala”. The cer­e­mo­ny was sched­uled in Uni­ver­si­ty of Peshawar’s area study cen­ter on Jan­u­ary 28 with the col­lab­o­ra­tion of Bacha Khan Trust Edu­ca­tion Foun­da­tion (BKTEF) and Strength­en­ing Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry Orga­ni­za­tion (SPO). The cer­e­mo­ny was can­celled when the law enforce­ment agen­cies refused to pro­vide secu­ri­ty and the orga­niz­ers were pres­sur­ized by the gov­ern­ment offi­cials.
The area study center’s Direc­tor Sar­fraz Khan told that he was pres­sur­ized by the Vice Chan­cel­lor and the gov­ern­ment offi­cials to with­draw. Khadim Hus­sain, the Direc­tor of BKTEF, con­demned it by call­ing this inci­dent against the spir­it of free­dom of expres­sion and pro­mo­tion of edu­ca­tion.

“It was to get more US fund­ing”
The Infor­ma­tion Min­is­ter of KP gov­ern­ment Shah Far­man accused BKEF’s sup­port for the launch of Malala’s book as a move to get “more funds from US”. He said that the venue was not suit­able for the launch as the gov­ern­ment is against the use of edu­ca­tion­al insti­tutes for polit­i­cal gain. “Gov­ern­ment is ready to sup­port them but using edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions for polit­i­cal gains would dis­rupt the edu­ca­tion­al envi­ron­ment for the stu­dents.” He said.
Government’s plea of not using the cam­pus for ‘polit­i­cal gains’ faced a back­lash two days after the can­cel­la­tion of the cer­e­mo­ny when many stu­dents protest­ed against the vis­it of Shireen Mazari, the offi­cial spokesper­son of the rul­ing par­ty PTI. The pro­test­ers were incensed at the can­cel­la­tion of the book launch and administration’s hyp­o­crit­i­cal role.

“They stopped us to please Tal­iban”
The Bacha Khan Foun­da­tion crit­i­cized the gov­ern­ment and stat­ed that KP government’s deci­sion to stop the book launch was a move to please Tal­iban. “They stopped us to please Tal­iban, we will soon announce anoth­er date for the book launch­ing.” Khadim Hus­sain, the Direc­tor of BKTEF told AFP.
The spokesper­son of the teach­ers asso­ci­a­tion at Peshawar Uni­ver­si­ty Dr. Jamil Chi­trali has opposed the government’s actions say­ing “It has brought a bad name to the uni­ver­si­ty.”

Stu­dents Divid­ed on Malala’s book: “not suit­able” ver­sus “an inspi­ra­tion for all”
The opin­ion of the stu­dent com­mu­ni­ty about the book is divid­ed. Many stu­dents at Uni­ver­si­ty of Peshawar favored the can­ce­la­tion of the book launch as they thought that Malala was pro­mot­ing the “West­ern agen­da” in Pak­istan. A stu­dent named Sai­ful­lah talk­ing to The Laal­tain said that Malala is not a hero and he thinks that her book con­tains “un-Islam­ic” con­tent which is not suit­able for us. When asked if he him­self has read the book he said, “I have heard this from many peo­ple that it is not suit­able for read­ing.”
A stu­dent on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty told Laal­tain that Malala’s book is an inspi­ra­tion for all of us in this time of dis­tress. She stat­ed that Malala’s sto­ry gives her the courage to stand and speak for her rights.
Fer­oz Khan, anoth­er stu­dent at the Uni­ver­si­ty was of the view that Malala should be the sym­bol of our strug­gle against extrem­ism and ter­ror­ism instead she has been neglect­ed and aban­doned by the state and the peo­ple.

In Novem­ber last year the All Pak­istan Pri­vate Schools Man­age­ment Asso­ci­a­tion (APPSMA) had already banned Malala’s book from pri­vate schools of Pak­istan. The deci­sion was tak­en as the asso­ci­a­tion thought the book was “inap­pro­pri­ate” for the stu­dents. The pres­i­dent of APPSMA, Mirza Kashif object­ed on Malala’s views about the sta­tus of women and free­dom of expres­sion call­ing them against the Islam­ic ide­ol­o­gy.
Some of the renowned Urdu colum­nists such as Oriya Maq­bool Jan and Ansar Abbasi have also labeled this book un-Islam­ic in their writ­ings. Ear­li­er the book­sellers in KP have refused to put “I am Malala” on stalls feel­ing them­selves under threat for sell­ing the book.
On the oth­er hand, rights activists and edu­ca­tion experts have showed con­cern over the threats posed against the forums of edu­ca­tion and pub­lic debate. They opine that peo­ple gen­er­al­ly and the gov­ern­ment in par­tic­u­lar are not will­ing to oppose the grow­ing rad­i­cal extrem­ism which is affect­ing the edu­ca­tion sec­tor the most.