Daily Times

Recently Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai visited Pakistan after spending five years abroad. Her homecoming received a mixed response, which has been testified to by popular feedback on social media. Some considered her a beacon of change and advocated that she was an admirable person for promoting women’s empowerment and education in Pakistan. The major chunk, however, was quite sceptical of her credentials and suspicious of the sudden global spotlight she received after getting shot by the Taliban. Many considered this a story scripted by the West for some nefarious agenda.

Although the above-oversimplified context can help any reader get a superficial analysis of the social backlash that Malala’s homecoming garnered, in order to have a thorough understanding of the genesis of the backlash, deep insight is required. The issue is pervasive scepticism with respect to women’s empowerment in Pakistani society.

This can be attributed to Pakistan’s inability to create awareness amongst the masses about the importance of women’s empowerment. Faced with the challenge of creating a gender inclusive society in a globalised world, the government has failed to help the masses understand how to reconcile women’s emancipation and Pakistani traditions.

Unfortunately, because there is no holistic approach to cater to the issue at hand on the part of the government, social discourses apathetic to women’s empowerment have been strengthened. No major breakthrough — be it symbolic or substantial — has been made. Any move, be it on the part of the government in the form of legislation or individual effort to sensitise people about women’s rights receives a lot of opposition from the sceptic public at large. Similarly, take the example of Malala and how her campaign for girls’ education is being opposed through fabricated myths.

Faced with the challenge of creating a gender inclusive society in a globalised world, the government has failed to help the masses understand how to reconcile women’s emancipation and Pakistani traditions

The other day, I posted a video on my Facebook timeline which acknowledged Malala as an inspiring figure. After a few minutes, I started receiving comments saying that she was fake and her campaign was propagating a Western agenda. Those comments did not surprise me that much, keeping in view the issue I discussed above. However, it is pertinent to mention here that these were all educated people, who would not usually oppose someone advocating girls’ education. These individuals were influenced by the discourse surrounding Malala in this country, to the extent that they ignored the positive side of her activism.

In the outside world, no doubt, Pakistan has got a lot of recognition for being home to a beacon of girls’ education and a very young Nobel Laureate. Within Pakistan, unfortunately, the situation is different. The aftermath of Malala’s homecoming has brought Pakistan face-to-face with one of its perennial problems with respect to women’s empowerment.

Women’s emancipation is not a luxury which Pakistan can afford to be without. Rather, it is a necessity without which we will never be able to deal with the modern challenges of the global world. Charismatic figures like Malala, are a godsend for Pakistan who should be capitalized on. The government needs to create platforms through which the public at large can be sensitised about gender issues.

The writer is an MPhil scholar studying International Relations at Department of Political Science at University of the Punjab, Lahore. He can be reached at uinam39@gmail.com, https://www.facebook.com/inamullah.marwat.56

Published in Daily Times, April 10^th 2018.