Introduction: "The 14-year-old schoolgirl and activist stood up to the Taliban - and they gunned her down. Now, her shooting is uniting Pakistan in outrage. Will the attack prove to be the final tipping point against the Taliban?"
Malala Yousafzai, the 14-year old school girl who stood up to the Taliban. (photo: Salman Muzaffar/AP)
Will Malala Yousafzai's Shooting Be Pakistan's Rosa Parks Moment?
13 October 12
The 14-year-old schoolgirl and activist stood up to the Taliban - and they gunned her down. Now, her shooting is uniting Pakistan in outrage. Will the attack prove to be the final tipping point against the Taliban?
eanwhile, outside her hospital room and across Pakistan, there is a sense of anger - and of déjà vu.
The brazen attack on the lovable teenager has shaken the country down to its core, sparking many rallies in her support. Meanwhile, in Pakistan's electronic and print media, the outrage is aptly pouring out. Even religious talk show hosts are discussing how such a crime has nothing to do with Islam.
The country's anger is not only directed towards the gunman - though it has spurred a massive hunt for those responsible for the shooting, with news breaking on Friday that police had arrested four suspects in the Swat Valley, where the attack occurred, and had identified a mastermind, who remained at large. The fury is also directed towards the Taliban as an organization that would mastermind such an attack, and that has said it would hurt Malala again if she survives. More than 50 Islamic scholars affiliated with the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) have issued a joint fatwa calling the attack un-Islamic. Political party leader Ataf Hussain, from the powerful Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), appealed to his supporters to not attend prayers led by any cleric that does not condemn the attack.
Pakistan has been here before. In April 2009, a video of a girl being flogged by the Taliban surfaced on YouTube and similarly bound the whole country together in collective outrage. That time, the video gave the Pakistani army a mandate to mount an attack of its own, with the result being a massive military operation to drive the Taliban out of Swat.
This time, an innocent teenager has been caught in the crossfire. Now, Malala's story is being shaped in the country's media as Pakistan's version of Rosa Parks. Like Parks--whose refusal to sit in the colored section of a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama made her into a leading symbol for America's Civil Rights movement - Malala is now being turned into an icon of resistance to injustice. She was on the Taliban's radar in the first place because of her outspoken criticism of their regime in Swat after they banned girls from going to school past the fourth grade. She started expressing her disdain for the cloistered way of life under the Taliban by writing for BBC Urdu under a pen name. She eventually spoke out on national and international platforms championing her cause for girls' education in Pakistan.
History is peppered with turning points where certain events determine the course of actions for nations, be it Pearl Harbor or Sept. 11. If Malala's shooting proves to be the turning point for Pakistan's fight against the Taliban, she will be the symbol of that turn, no matter which side wins.
Much of the discourse in Pakistan in the last few weeks has been about the power of negotiations - despite the Pakistan army's continuous reassertions that the Taliban must be crushed. During a speech on Pakistan's Independence Day, chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani told the nation, "The fight against extremism and terrorism is our own war and we are right in fighting it. Let there be no doubt about it, otherwise we'll be divided and taken towards civil war. Our minds should be clear on this."
But getting the rest of the nation behind the idea of an internal war against the Taliban has been an uphill battle. Until, perhaps, now. Malala's shooting seems to have united Pakistan against the Taliban. Nobody wants to negotiate with barbarians.
Editorials like the one published in The Express Tribune are questioning, "Will Malala unite us against terror?" The battle lines are being drawn, asking the nation to choose which version of Pakistan they would like to be a part of: one that Malala represents, or the one that the Taliban represents. Achieving Malala's version of Pakistan means yet another military operation. But this time, let's hope the results are not the same as always, pushing the Taliban far enough away but not fully out.
Both Pakistan's future and Malala's life seem to hang in the balance.
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Does anybody know how we could nominate her for one ??
I really don't know - how many teenaged girls have they shot? Yeah, they are loud. Yeah, they have severe analcephalic impactions. Yeah they LOVE to drop word bombs, but I've forgotten what 14 year olds they've shot. Enlightenment please.
What kind of a crowd gives this comment a net 17 point recommendation. You idiots should be ashamed of yourselves for being so stupid.
We love to think Republicans and Conservatives are so stupid, but equating the Taliban with Christians really makes you look stupid.
She made the video for the BBC and must have known that she was at risk already. One significant fact that emerged is, that of US and other country's aid to this nuclear armed nation, 80% is going to the military who are pretty corrupt and at times either collaborate with the Taliban or turn the cheek when they perpetrate their fanatical outrages on others supposedly under the protection of the army or police, all for a price of course.
Malala's father, a schoolteacher himself, is also deeply courageous and should be included in any protection and plaudits accruing to his daughter, as these villains are still avowed in their "Fatwah" on them. Still, some arrests have been made and hundreds of Mullahs have signed a counter-Fatwah to get the actual shooters who are still at large, so they are finally closing in on them.
I just hope that the country isn't so far gone in official corruption that they'll sweep it under the table: the world is watching.
By the way, haven't we heard some crowing during the recent debates about the Taliban be "negated" linked to Bin Laden's death?? Makes you wonder, dunnit?
I'd like to hear David Barsamean of "Alternative Radio" on this subject as he is something of an authority on the region, or more especially Tarik Ali, who is London-based but from there and reprts regularly in depth on the country and India.
Just image how afraid they are now that the country is coming together against them.
Now, after your comment, I wonder if the Taliban feel fear as the rest of us do. Their programming is so crazy and heavy that ascribing the feelings of more compassionate and reasonable people to them may be an error. They are fully programmed fanatics, and their programming as Taliban Soldiers is built upon a lifetime from early childhood, of programmed belief in "God" and the Prophets, and the "divine" connections of the leaders who receive their messages from "God".
This deep programming is why we have suicide bombers and people who will shoot a young girl to prevent women from violating their programmed role.
The "leader", who is assumed to have a special connection to "God", tells the faith-addled believer, "Here is a nice bomb. God wants you to strap it on and go kill yourself and a bunch of people you don't know". Off goes the faith-addicted follower to go boom and get his reward in heaven. All faith and belief lead to irrational behavior. Religion equals discussions of the Emperor's clothes.
Actually from what I know, Pakistan has a certain amount of Government backed health care unlike the US.
Good idea to send gifts or greetings (Money sticks to the wrong hand in transit in Pakistan) so that if she survives, which is looking more probable, she knows that the world is behind her and perhaps move the government to get these human detritus out of the country and hound them into isolation once and for all. I'd even back the US military if they sent special forces after them, which has proven to be much more effective than massive air strikes and so forth.
Perhaps the Red Cross or Red Crescent?
All this has nothing to do with Pakistan or Afghanistan. It is all about the US conquest of Central Asia. The US makes use of the Taliban and other fundamentalist groups. The CIA pretends to the American audience that they are fighting the Taliban but on the ground they are supporting the Taliban and stopping the social development of people in Central Asia.
You can be sure that the bullets that shot Malala came from the US.
Malala should get the Nobel Peace Prize and Obama should go to court in the Hague for crimes against humanity.
If you don't believe this, you just have to consider the US relations with Saudi Arabia and why the US supports Saudi wars in Syria, Libya, and the rest of the middle east. Saudi Arabia still runs more than 2000 Madrassas in Pakistan training young males in the Wahabbi sect. The US fully supports Saudi programs for training fundamentalist fighters all over the Muslim world -- east Africa, Indonesia, Philipines, Central Asia.
Think about it. The root of the problem is the US and Saudi Arabia.
Just what this country is all about needs to be explained very well to Americans and voted on, because the idea of shipping our means of production and jobs to China, and then continuing to buy oil at inflated prices from Saudi Arabia and giving them ownership and access to the American government is about as stupid a strategic decision as I have ever seen.
http://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/86-86/13984-need-for-practical-unity-against-taliban
Anyway I thank Sajjad Shaukat for his on the ground insight and taking more risk than writers do in this country..
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