Daily Times

This was a prayer I had said a million times saved for my only daughter who is facing one of the most excruciating crises of her life since the last seven years and has shown tremendous courage, fortitude and strength of character in standing up to the tyranny of events during her relentless ordeal. Whenever I see her curled up in deep sleep I know that is a rare bliss as I softly mutter, “Sleep peacefully my child. You shall have music wherever you go.” I wish her from the depths of my heart. I am amazed at the way she suffers in nobility, and at her unwavering poise under adversity. Her stout heart and steely resolve are simply perplexing under the deep personal anguish that she is enduring undeservedly. If the oppression of circumstances stacked against her is daunting, it is only matched by her formidable determination to stand up and fight back. Though the strong winds of ingrained social prejudice and an inexorable religious repression are tearing through the sails threatening a shipwreck, she refuses to leave the upper deck.

When Malala was shot by those mangy maggots from the rotten carcass of sub-humanity in Mingora, my heart went out to her. To me, in a way, she reflected my daughter’s own private battle and much more. I have always been fascinated by her bravery, courage of conviction and the most remarkable challenge to the assassins and hangmen of obscure monsters crouching behind the hills of Swat and the tribal areas of Pakistan. She was shot and wounded critically while returning home from her school in Mingora, Swat on October 9 one afternoon. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility and reiterated that should she survive this attack she would not be spared next time. As they claimed, it was a lesson taught to her and the likes of her for speaking against the tyranny of the Taliban. Shock, disbelief and rage overwhelmed whoever heard about this yet another act of unmitigated savagery by the vile Taliban. The Swati Taliban have a unique ability stuck into their contaminated minds through which they rally and invite a mass reaction against themselves. Last time that they did this was when they publicly lashed another teenage girl in the same town of Mingora in 2009. That mindless cruelty saw the last of them bolt out of Swat under the enormous public pressure and a resolute military action. This time again it is a teenage girl but of vastly greater significance and world acclaim. The venue and barbarity remain the same just as the perpetrators do.

Public anger has already begun to swell as also a global reaction despite the attempt to inject disinformation by the devil’s advocates: some of our tongue-in-cheek mullahs and a few double speaking politicians with a bag full of wool in their minds. However, popular outrage could push for a relatively much bigger reaction this time and perhaps a decisive one. Since the condemnation is worldwide and Afghanistan showed an equal amount of concern and grief, it is hoped that these predators will not find a sanctuary in Afghanistan unlike the last time. Malala is not just a Pakistani campaigner; she has become a universal humanitarian and ideological icon of resistance, light and hope against the forces of intolerance, hatred and spite. She seems to transcend all borders and has become a world asset.

The shooting of Malala shows barbarity, remorseless cruelty and unremitting repression. Is this the caliphate, Islamic emirate or the rule of ulema the Taliban want to impose on not just us but the whole world? Is this the jihad that they trumpet around, day in and day out, feeling so proud of, which shoots an unarmed, defenceless little schoolgirl in cold blood just because she insisted on being educated? It is nothing new as they and their canine prowlers who roam the country specialise in shooting down or incinerate defenceless, unarmed men and women in the name of religion and then thump their chests in holy triumph, dreaming of a divine reward. Their other specialty and favourite sport is in fact a butcher’s envy — beheading prisoners with ecstatic shouts and proud photo shoots with the gory trophies. Not even wild animals can match their blood lust and the burning hatred for fellow beings. And then they think they will set up an exemplary Muslim society and a rule where there is going to be milk and honey, peace and prosperity? There could be nothing more preposterous than this perfidy. They have defiled Muslims, discredited Islam and reviled jihad. But who cares among this assembly of bald vultures, particularly in the gang of butchers of the Fazlullah, Shah Doran and Muslim Khan variety. More about this caliphate-cum-emirate yearning for absolute power some other time.

The attempt on Malala’s life is not just an attempt to kill a little girl because she spoke so fearlessly. It is has a complex background. Swat and its upper reaches like FATA and most of the frontier are inhabited by a race of men who have traditionally viewed women as not more than subjects and homemakers with all other social spaces exclusively reserved for men. They had already been wearing religion habitually on their sleeves, particularly when it concerned women. In comes the spiked foreign brand of unforgiving Islam along with gun-toting foreign fighters and petro dollars in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It added stark greed, biting bitterness and intolerance to the prevalent brittleness in society, which was already disintegrating because of terribly decomposing human development indices in the country. Rule of law had long been smashed by the rulers themselves and the writ of the state was hanging by a thread. In this extensive vacuum, these predatory men inserted themselves, monopolizing very large social, administrative and religious spaces in the country through the muzzle of the gun; and they have continued to occupy those spaces to date. All intervening governments have merely been coexisting or temporised. When Malala defied them, she defied the entire rapacious structure of their evil power. It was an unthinkable affront by a person whose gender had always lived as mute subjects next to cattle and sheep in their houses. She had to be shot and if possible hung, drawn and quartered in a public square. Through her, a dreadful lesson had to be taught to all and sundry to learn unquestioning obedience to the dictat of these hideous men.

The day Malala was shot I shifted my million prayers to her. She embodies what I seem to detect in the consuming struggle of my daughter against discriminatory social attitudes, self assigned embedded male entitlements and the unrepentant arrogance of the so-called keepers of pristine Islam who readily approbate tyranny perpetrated over the weak, the vulnerable, women and children. Images of Malala’s agony and motionless sleep make me pray again and again, “Sleep blissfully my child. You shall have music wherever you go.” This brave little girl from Swat will live forever. May she recover fully and may God protect her always.

The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan army and can be reached at clay.potter@hotmail.com