Daily Times

While appreciating Syed Kamran Hashmi’s op-ed piece, ‘Why is Malala so controversial?’ (Daily Times, July 31, 2015), I believe the issue is important enough to solicit more views. Hashmi has applied his considerable skills to detail the reasons for the west’s penchant for lionising someone like Malala and the subsequent polarising figure that she has become at home. While I am in agreement with the author that public perception is often flawed by what appear to be ‘foreign constructs’ of personalities as in Malala’s case, it is simplistic to presume that alternate opinions can be dismissed as mere reactions to the ‘negative’ images of Pakistan being perpetrated by Malala or Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy.
There is more than a modicum of truth to the belief that anything or anyone lionised by the west is perceived with deep suspicion. For a first, there is the question of agenda: what does the west hope to gain from an incident? While Malala’s particular circumstances — the savage assault, nature of injuries, her age — were all factors that initially won her the love and sympathy of the majority of Pakistanis since it exposed the brutality and retrogressive nature of her attackers, it was the subsequent publicity and media coverage of her case that alienated many of her sympathisers. Many argued that the schoolgirl had been singled out as the western media’s darling while two other girls also shot at close range had been denied the same coverage. Or that the thousands of young men and women who have been killed or maimed during the terror wars had been given mere passing references numerically by the western media.
The nature of the beast called ‘newsworthy’ is such that the media is forced to be brutally selective and hence partisan. The Malala incident made excellent copy since it fell like a ripe fruit in the western media’s lap. Even Hollywood would have had difficulty in coming up with a screenplay that matched the incident’s hardcore drama. This is not an attempt at dwarfing Malala’s stature, which is considerable, especially after the Nobel award, but only an attempt at analysing the standards by which societies adjudicate and accept the individual’s stature as heroic or otherwise. The question for social scientists and historians in this context therefore is: what constitutes a hero? Classical literature has a particular bias towards male heroes with tragic flaws that bring about their own downfall, thereby propagating the idea of tragedy. Women have been given short shrift and the Trojan women, Joan d’Arcs and Jhansi ki Ranis are sparsely represented. The significance lies in the fact that all these characters are warrior women and that is the manner in which the west perceived Malala, as a warrior albeit a young one, pitted against the forces of darkness, ignorance, stifling orthodoxy and obscurantism. Oddly enough — and Hashmi is right in pointing this out — as her reputation and stature grow abroad, there is a corresponding decrease in sympathy at home. A chorus of disapprovers voice their concern about the manner in which their hero is being visibly and willingly ‘hijacked’ by the west.
Hashmi therefore draws up a list of so-called ‘controversial’ figures. The inclusion of Dr Abdus Salam and his later omission from the list of eminent/controversial Pakistanis is attributed to the fact that (in the author’s own words) “his work was purely scientific and had very little or no contribution on social issues; he just got penalised for being an Ahmedi at a time when emotions were running high in 1979.” Hashmi cannot possibly mean that attaining national stature (controversial or acceptable) is dependent upon a “contribution to social issues” only. The implication that world-class scientific research has no immediate, oblique or subsequent impact on the social constructs that a people live by is to bifurcate the world into realms that are exclusive.
We know that all knowledge impacts on all life — whether discoveries take place in the upper echelons of physics or within the daily humdrum of our lives, from identifying the God particle to the delicacy of a perfect mise-en-scene — each seed contributes, impacts and colours our perceptions and our world. This participatory ‘fallout’ can be illustrated by the example of a stone thrown in still water with ripples widening until they come to rest at the shore line. The fact of the matter is that we have chosen (and continue to do so) to bury the Salam controversy as deeply as possible rather than risk reprisals of any sort. The less said about Pakistan’s first Nobel winner the better.
My second observation about Hashmi’s op-ed piece concerns itself with the comparison he draws between Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy and the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The latter was not more popular with audiences back home because he had worked with Scorcese and Stone; most people would not even recognise the names, but because he had performed for his own people! The maestro was part and parcel of the homegrown cultural scene; many had seen him perform in person and his work was accessible. Sharmeen’s work, on the other hand, though our pride and joy by virtue of being awarded Pakistan’s first Oscar, remains an unknown entity in her country. How accessible is her work to fellow Pakistanis? How many have actually seen the film that earned her laurels? Saving Face remains elusive and not for public viewing. So, the two cultural heroes exist on different planes: one local, indigenous, accessible and therefore beloved. The other: respected, admired but remote and unknown, and therefore uneasily controversial.
In all fairness, I cannot comment on Sharmeen’s work in detail since I have not seen her film but I do know that Chinoy is perceived as being unduly impressed with the west and therefore seen as portraying her country negatively. The simple equation being in Bush terms: either you are with us or against us. While such perceptions of disapproval and controversy on home turf garner sympathy abroad, it must be taken into account that people are genuinely curious about the film that has brought home the golden statuette. It is in the fitness of things that work produced for foreign forums be shared with the general public at home. From what I have learned, Saving Face, with its double entendre, is a story of courage and heroism, all the more reason why it should be seen, critiqued and finally owned.
Imran Khan and Nusrat Fateh are the people’s heroes just as Faiz, Edhi and Burney are because they are homegrown while Malala and Sharmeen need to connect with their own people before they can be recognised as such. I do not know what Yousafzai’s ‘ideology’ is apart from her stance on education for all young women and that too from sources other than local. A fair number of people at home feel that Malala’s Nobel was premature as in the case of Obama and that a lifetime of excellence in public service should have weighed in for Edhi rather than the survival of a young outspoken victim.
It is unfortunate but we have long held a penchant for cutting our nose to spite our face and it is only when the west recognises contributions to knowledge, science, literature or otherwise that we begin to assert our ownership. The ‘colour’ of Faiz’s poetry challenged the establishment for the longest time and the Lenin prize was awarded long before Faiz found his rightful place in the annals of Urdu literature at home. To dismiss Abdus Salam’s case because he “just got penalised for being an Ahmedi” is to further sweep controversy under the carpet. The fact of the matter is that Salam’s contribution to science was poorly understood (if at all) at home. His efforts to set up a Centre of Excellence for physicists at home were thwarted and he had to settle for a world-class facility in Trieste.
It is tragic that we have often failed to recognise our true heroes. For me, it is not simply the courage shown in one incident but the constant effort to stretch one’s self beyond the ordinary in the pursuit of excellence that makes for a hero. Malala has the makings of one but she has miles to go before she scales the mountain.

The writer is an academic advisor at the Lahore Grammar School and the former dean of the School of Liberal Arts, Beaconhouse National University