PAKISTANIS have united in outrage
over the Taliban's attack on 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai, who campaigned for
girls' education and became a prominent symbol of defiance against Islamist
rule.
Gunmen boarded a school bus last
week, asked for Malala by name, and shot her in the head (she is now in a
British hospital). A Pakistani Taliban spokesman defended the attack,
justifying it because Malala was promoting ''enlightened moderation''. He said
they would attack her again if she recovered.
So, as Malala fights for life, I
have a question: Will this atrocity finally push Pakistan's military and ISI
intelligence agency to reject the militancy that pervades the country? Will
Pakistan's leaders acknowledge that they can't fight certain Taliban groups
while providing safe haven for other groups that are useful to them as tools
against their arch enemy India?
Malala's story shows how
shortsighted, indeed suicidal, that approach is for Pakistan, where militants
want to take over a nuclear-armed country. As the Pakistani daily The News
put it after the shooting: ''Malala Yousafzai is in critical condition today
and so is Pakistan.''
I have a personal interest in
Malala's case. In November 2009 I visited the beautiful Swat valley, where she
and her family lived, and which had fallen prey to the Taliban. While there, I
had a moving conversation with Malala's father, Ziauddin Yousafzai - a
human-rights campaigner who ran an independent school for girls.
With its mountains and waterfalls,
Swat had once been a tourist destination, a place where generations of
Pakistanis went for their honeymoons. But in 2008, a vicious group of Taliban
moved in from the adjacent tribal areas and virtually took over the valley.
They shut down girls' schools,
including the one run by Yousafzai, cut off the heads of anyone who challenged
them, and murdered women. At this time, 11-year-old Malala started writing an
anonymous blog for the BBC about life under the Taliban.
The residents felt abandoned by
their political leaders. Indeed, during a visit to Pakistan in April 2009 I had
watched in amazement as the parliament endorsed a deal with the leader of the
Swat militants that would have conceded them the valley. The only thing that
saved the people of Swat was that the Taliban started marching towards
Islamabad a week after the deal was signed. The parliament quickly rescinded
the pact, and the Pakistani army mounted a massive assault on the militants,
pushing them back.
By the time I arrived in November,
the militants were no longer visible, but people there were still nervous. They
felt trapped between the militants and the military.
Local merchants were convinced that
the Taliban couldn't have grown so strong if the military and ISI hadn't
coddled them. ''When the dragon becomes too large,'' one told me, asking for
anonymity, ''it eats its own. There are still some Pakistani agencies who have
a soft spot for the Taliban.''
I sat in the garden of a local
architect's home, talking with prominent Swat civic leaders, including Malala's
father. He told me that even after the army supposedly vanquished the Taliban
and he went to reopen his school, he was afraid the Taliban would kill him. He slept
every night in a different house.
''We had terrorists in our valley,''
he told me. ''They wanted to negate our right to culture and poetry, and they
wanted to destroy the special musical heritage of our valley. They want to
impose their culture on us.''
Then Yousafzai got to the point that
most disturbed him: Pakistan's political leaders were failing to tell their own
people that the Taliban presented a mortal threat, and could only drag the
country backward.
When it came to fighting the
Taliban, he said, ''Pakistan's religious parties, even Imran Khan [the famous
cricket player turned politician], all say it's America's war, not my war. How
can they say this if my children are being killed in Swat?''
This brave man was referring then to
the girl students from his school who were at risk from the Taliban. Today it
is his own daughter who is at death's door.
Even now I wonder whether Malala's
sacrifice is enough to wake the country to the threat it faces. Pakistani
journalists tell me the country's religious parties, while denouncing the
attack on Malala, have not condemned the Taliban by name. Nor has Imran Khan,
who offered to pay for Malala's medical care but still talks of deals with the
militants.
Pakistan's top general rushed to
Malala's bedside. But Pakistan still harbours the Afghan Taliban leaders who
are responsible for the deaths of many thousands of civilians and want to take
over Afghanistan after US troops leave. And Pakistan harbours terrorist groups
that murder Pakistani Shiites, Ahmadis and Christians
Perhaps the attack on Malala will
jolt her country into a new reality. I really hope so. But it won't happen
unless Pakistani generals and politicians display the same courage as this
young girl.
Trudy Rubin is a columnist and
editorial board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/a-trigger-for-pakistan-20121017-27rfl.html#ixzz29gh4WQBL
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