I post my reply here because it is a long discussion and I don't wish to hijack his Facebook discussion and subject others to my lengthy discourse if they weren't interested.
See, this is what I meant - the part about why Malala is the only one getting publicity and rewards. When she was shot, people asked: what about the other girls who were injured? When she's on TV and being nominated (not for being shot at but for being brave enough to speak up against the Taliban) people ask, what about everyone else who has done so much else?
No one is denying that there are plenty of good people doing a lot of good in the world and most of them and the good they do are going unnoticed. That's true even in the business world, where so many do a wonderful job but only a select few get noticed and receive appreciation for what they do. Same goes for the entertainment industry. Some of the best artists are the people no one has heard of. Journalism is the same, and I'm pretty sure that I know better parents than the celebrities who get featured as awesome parents in magazines and newspapers. And you would be absolutely right to say it is not fair that so many go unnoticed and unappreciated. The question I would like to pose is: is that reason to argue against someone receiving recognition? The term "taang ghaseetna" may aptly describe what is being done to Malala and her image when we essentially suggest that what she has done wan't all that big of a deal and therefore she isn't worthy of the recognition she is receiving. And yes, I do believe that were she male, she might not have been facing such scrutiny over her worthiness for recognition against that of "thousands of others." Instead, headlines would have read "finally someone from our nation is recognized for humanitarian efforts... too bad he had to get shot first," and "perhaps now those who have been laboring for years for humanitarian causes will also receive the recognition they truly deserve."
One must ask why such an article has not been published in the Pakistani media including the channels broadcast internationally, considering the immense concern for the country's public image. I would have expected something to the effect of: "Malala and the other heroes of Pakistan" which would then go on to list other lesser known heroes and what they've done with pictures and video documentary, and Malala given equal (not less or more) coverage. Does it really matter if there is "over-coverage" of Malala if we can use this excessive interest to push a few more names out there?
The Nobel award you are referring to was for Physics and went to Dr. Abdus Salam for his work on a theory he developed with two other physicists. The way the prizes work is that a select three thousand or so individuals nominate contenders for a prize, so unless one of those three thousand people know of your work it will not be nominated. If there were scientists in other parts of the world that made great strides but were unknown to those 3000, they were never even considered for the award despite any strides they may have made. It is entirely possible that Dr. Salam might not have been recognized had he not been working with the other western physicist whose work was familiar to the select group that puts forward nominations.
And that would explain why Malala was being considered for the Nobel Peace Prize - she made the rounds in the media to be known, to become a familiar name. I don't think you can compare humanitarian efforts to strides in science. It's like comparing apples and oranges. There's no way to say that the advancement in science contributed by Dr. Salam is any lesser or greater than a very young teenager's stance for education in the face of the very real threat of death. And that these two people should earn any recognition should take nothing away from Abdul Sattar Edhi who devoted his life after migration to selflessly helping others in his community.
The reason Edhi is not receiving the kind of attention that Malala is may partially be attributed to Edhi's humility and private nature and it may be that he does not seek such recognition to further his cause because he thinks his cause can progress without the extra attention. Malala's cause, the education of women in areas governed by factions that actively seek to limit female education, does require recognition to add muscle to the movement. Her opponents are the Taliban, after all. It is sad that no one has once talked about her cause or it's worthiness for a prize. The prize is for the effort, not the person. Dr. Salam won the prize for his work, not for himself (and also not for the many noteworthy contributions he made to his homeland). And no one wondered if he was as worthy of the prize as other much lesser known minds may have been at his time, if there were others in/from the country more worthy of consideration.
Moreover, there is something to be said for someone so young (she was only 14) to take on such a burdensome issue, and then, as if that weren't enough, actually be shot at. The threat to her life is what sensationalized it. Or maybe it was the actual shooting that sensationalized it. That is the other reason she is receiving so much attention, because she was a child who almost died because she stood for the rights of others.
I was reading up on Fatima Jinnah the other day when one open letter to Malala ("Shame on your Dad" - http://hmkyz.wordpress.com/2013/10/10/shame-on-your-dad/ ) asked her why she did not name her instead of Benazir Bhutto as her idol. (To be correct, Malala said she admired Bhutto because she wanted to be Prime Minister like her one day). Truth be told, while I had read a lot about the male leadership of the country, I had never read much on Fatima Jinnah other than that she was the Quaid's sister and that she was the "mother of the nation." The letter blames her father for not telling her about Jinnah, but I blame my history books for never talking about her. Turns out Jinnah was an active supporter of female education and while my books said she remained "active" politically until her death, they failed to mention that she actually ran for the Presidency against Ayub Khan. (Would that have made her the first female in Pakistan to run for the President's office?). I think had Malala known that, she would have absolutely chosen her as her hero.
Ironically for the author of that open letter, it turns out that Jinnah, the person he claims Malala should have preferred as her hero, suffered accusations of being an Indian and American agent (being pro-India and pro America, to be exact) by Ayub Khan, much as Malala is being referred to as an American agent for pandering to the west.
http://pakteahouse.net/2009/
So then, really, we should see through this as coming from that same bag of age-old tactics to discredit someone.
But what is sadder is how what Fatima Jinnah stood for was never seen as worthy enough for the history books - OUR history books. The right of females to education is apparently not a worthy enough cause in our books, quite literally. They teach children here about Rosa Parks, the woman who took a stand against segregation by refusing to sit in the back of the bus, but we can't find room in our books or classrooms for the "mother of the nation" because we think giving her a title should suffice? Why would Pakistan think Malala is worthy when it didn't think Jinnah was worthy? That was the sister of the founding father, an active participant of the Pakistan movement, and she stood for a lot more than female education. This is just Malala.
Last year, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won an Oscar for her documentary on acid victims, and while some wrote about the honor she brought to Pakistan, many were quick to dismiss all the "hype" around her and questioned her worthiness for all the attention, accusing her of "exploiting vulnerable women and vilifying Pakistan as part of a Western-backed campaign." (http://latitude.blogs.
The link above also mentions Mukhtar Mai, who was accused of capitalizing on the crime that she was a victim of.
What I'm pointing to is a pattern, a pattern of discrediting women and their causes, a pattern of questioning their worthiness for recognition. What I am pointing to is that Malala, or anyone else standing for the cause of female education, must recognize that to make any kind of stride, she must first fight the covert misogyny embedded deep in our culture, disguised so well that we can't see it even when it stares at us, under cutting the advances this country makes for its women, and undercutting the women who make those advances.
And what I am pointing to is that there is a concerted campaign by the Taliban to discredit a person who is challenging their system. I understand exactly how you feel about the Taliban, but while you may not be able to drop a bomb on them, you may be able to see through their deceptive campaigns and not play into them. Their campaign to discredit Malala and silence her voice is nothing short of bullying. People need to see through their vicious campaign. They need to question, does Malala's drawing attention to the flaws of this nation (in truth, she is only really speaking against the acts of the Taliban in Sawat valley) any more detrimental to the country's image than our drawing attention to our disdain for the recognition she is getting because we think it is overt?
It is quite ironic, I think, that for as much as the Taliban despise all the hoopla around Malala, they have only themselves to thank for it.
As far as Taliban sentiment is concerned... they don't care for lost lives. All they care about is the entity that is Taliban. They react to the US for the same reasons they react against Malala.. because both dare to challenge them. They proclaim that they wish to establish a country on religious values, but we all know that what they wish to establish is themselves in power. Religion is their manifesto only because they know people are easily manipulated by it. If they knew religion (or truly cared for it) they would know that speaking up against religion is not grounds for death and that God did not sanction fighting or killing to obliterate an opponent and establish one's rule or to coerce people into submission. It is quite clear that the loss of human life means very little to them besides it's value in inciting and fueling hatred against whoever they choose.
I know you and others you know don't agree with them from that perspective, but is there maybe some sympathy because they come under attack from the US, an external power exerting its military might within our national borders?
We like to think this is a "national" issue, but that is either naive or ignorant because we know that the people who live and train here go on to commit criminal activity in other parts of the world. Thus, they are an international enemy and an interest for those who have been victimized by them. They try to justify what they do by claiming they fight for the rights of other Muslims in other parts of the world. I would believe that if the Muslims in their part of the world were any better off under them. I think we all see the lie, yet we succumb to their scheme. Somewhere in the back of our minds, they have successfully planted the notion that the US is an enemy no matter what and when we start to point fingers at the Taliban, they deflect attention towards the US. They point to drone attacks as an injustice against them and against a nation because its national borders have been breached. The drone attacks are intended to end them and their schemes and plots against whoever they choose to target. You yourself said you wish you could drop a bomb on them, which you can't. Many people you know may wish that too. But when the US does, why is it suddenly an enemy? Should the US leave it to our very illustrious leadership to take care of them and put an end to them? Does the nation trust it's leadership to complete the task?
More important, perhaps, is the question: would Pakistanis give their government the mandate to go after and eliminate the Taliban threat? In case any one is thinking "yes", maybe they should revisit and reflect on the nations reaction to the events of Lal Masjid. The events were presented such that it seemed that Musharraf had a personal issue with the cleric who was challenging him and his government. Musharraf, was also (interestingly) branded pro-American because of his attacking pro-Taliban militants in the tribal areas and this perpetuated Musharraf's unpopularity resulting ultimately in his removal from office.
The country plays into the Taliban's scheme so well. They have done such a good job of indoctrination that it's almost like certain keywords can trigger a switch in the nation's thinking. Suddenly the nation is blind to any wrong the Taliban do, and everyone finds unity in hating America. Suddenly, there are no longer any Lahoris or Karachiites or Punjabi, Balochi, Sindhi, Kashmiri, Sunni, Shiite... suddenly they are one, a united Pakistan. Bravo, Taliban. Bravo on using a completely unoriginal and blatantly obvious concept so successfully.
Perhaps you may not have considered the possibility that maybe western media is portrayed very differently (read: negatively) in Pakistan. No one thinks, says or portrays Malala as a "single gem shucked in the middle of hundreds of millions of terrorists" as you put it. No one believes that all Pakistanis are terrorists with a few good people hidden here and there. In fact, the portrayal is the other way around. What they do know is (just as we know it) that some of the best and most dangerous either trained there or are hiding there. But the fact that a person like you would think so - that someone who is openly anti-Taliban and who is well educated and intelligent and is probably unlikely to hang on to a belief "just because" would subscribe to such a view - says something about how effective such a campaign really is. And that is extremely disturbing.
What I see is a very conflicted nation, a nation that claims to stand for certain issues, but then subscribes to views that undermine them, and then becomes angry when someone points out the discrepancy. If it can get past its pride disguised as nationalism, maybe it will see the truth. Maybe it will see how it keeps playing into the hands of the very people it hopes to be rid of, and how it harbors and shelters the very ideologies that it seeks to abolish.
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