On September 3, 2013, Malala Yousafzai, the 16-year-old schoolgirl who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban in 2012, formally opened one of the world’s largest libraries in Birmingham, which cost £ 188.8 million ($ 293 million). While Malala was creating an aura of radiance in the local and international media, many of my countrymen were perplexed. Some of them called the whole Malala tragedy a hoax, a drama and a conspiracy to undermine Islamic zealots. A few managed to equate the whole tragedy with the drone victims, and the rest paid their tributes to Afia Siddiqui. It is not that the tragedy involving drone attacks is less important or Afia Siddiqui’s trial proceedings were not of historic significance in the US. However, as always we manage to mix and muddle things for our own satisfaction, and this incident, it seems, is no exception. This manipulation of ideas often leads to conspiracy theories and one tends to lose focus on the real issue. In the untold history of Islamic imperialism/dominance, it is recorded that over centuries the ruling elite manipulated Islam for its own vested interests. From the Umayyads to the Abbasids to the Ottomans, almost everyone found it incredibly easy to misinterpret Islam and camouflage its teachings to strengthen their power base. This not only led to divisions in the early days of Islam but also to a systematic style of persecution of anyone who opposed the rulers. More divisions followed in the ninth and 10th centuries, when Islam was at the peak of its power. The irony of this divide is two-fold: first, it caused the entire Muslim population to deviate from the original teachings of Islam and second, but most importantly, we legitimised our preferential argument to be most coherent, concise and perfect. Additionally, the might of Tariq bin Ziyad and Salauddin Ayubi was so mesmerising that we kept romanticising our golden era and the nostalgia is still alive for many pseudo-intellectuals. Meanwhile, the very basic rules of pluralism and coexistence are diminished. The debate about coexistence not only lacked transparency but also any intellectual and moral grounds. And the disagreements resulted only in bloodshed, beheading or persecution of the weaker. Hence, I am not in any doubt that the crux of Islamism leaves thoughts divided, and there are only blacks and whites left to look at. As the whole world watched Malala represent Pakistan, I was not sure if the narrow-minded mentality was still prevalent but I came across many Paksitanis who had the audacity to question their own Islamic belief system when they asked outrageous questions: “If the bullet pierced her head how did she survive?” “Where is the bullet?” screamed a friend after the October 9, 2012 incident. The very existence of these questions was beyond my comprehension. I hibernated for some time over these conspiracy theories but felt compelled to write; the bullet that was shot in broad daylight on October 9, 2012 near Swat actually captured the thought process (if any) of the Taliban. The same Taliban one of whose commanders later wrote an open letter to Malala threatening her again, but Malala defied it all and went on to become one of the most influential thinkers in the world at the tender age of 16. Yes, it also punctured the lungs of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, another offshoot of the Taliban, whose leaders famously announced that they would purify the breathing air of the Shia’s ‘bad breath’, yet the Shias resist and still nearly 25 million of them are ‘polluting’ the air of the ‘pure’ land. This bullet was lodged in the modus operandi of the extremists functioning from Lasbela and southern Punjab; nevertheless, the Hazara children, with tears rolling down their cheeks, show resilience to date after every massacre in Quetta. I agree that in reality the bullet was not just shot at Malala’s head but also into their own feet. It also penetrated the hearts and minds of those who seek closure of girls’ schools, advocate Shia killings, incite hatred against Ahmedis and issue decrees to wed Hindu girls at gunpoint. It is the same individuals who always put a question mark on the plight of Christians and forget very easily how one of few remaining Sikhs was beheaded in FATA/KP. In recent years, these dear countrymen celebrated the murder of Salmaan Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti, but forgot about the wellbeing of a judge who sentenced Mumtaz Qadri to death by simply following the rule of law. The widening gap between those who champion freedom of speech, expression and opinion and those who always tend to act as mouthpieces for the fanatics who commit heinous crimes has been cutting through the heartland of Pakistan just as the Indus does. Actually, for them it doesn’t exist as they believe that we live in peace, harmony and tranquillity and it is only the west that is challenging our conscience to weaken us. Surely it is too difficult for them to admit that our version of Islam is not even the real Islam and we are worse than the people who lived in the pre-Islam Arabian Peninsula. Probably, persecution lies ahead for me too for disagreeing but my argument is that we live in the dark ages, and in darkness no one will ever find the bullet. Our last bastion of hope are people like Malala, who is not only an unofficial ambassador, but who also offers an olive branch to those apologists who deep down in their hearts know that it will be their turn next to face the bullet, and then, surely they will find the bullet. The writer is an IT-Project Manager based in the UK. He can be reached at tehsinzaidi@gmail.com and tweets @secretinstinct