Malala-- Our Little Big Teacher

Malala Yousufzai

After several hours of surgery on Malala Yousufzai , the 15 year old girl ,who was shot in head by two Talibani  youth, doctors successfully removed a bullets from her head when they found one side of her brain was swelling. It’s a matter of great relief and a matter of bliss that Talibans failed in their mission. Whatever the state of Pakistan may claim, it is a fact that they failed to instill the social value of a girl child and her education in an upcoming society.

Malala braved the Talibans in her town, Mingora in the volatile Swat Valley, even when she was just 11, and when the government had effectively ceded control of  the Valley to the militants. Her determination made her a national hero, which was seen from wide spread condemnation of the shooting in her country. The front pages of national newspapers carried pictures of a bandaged and bloody Malala to inform the nation the gruesome act. The surprise part of the fact is that the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility and told some newsmen that they will try to kill her again if Malala survives.

Why the Talibans did this? Their arguments, they are dead against any secular education and co-education. They took Malala a “pro-West”, propagating western culture and had been speaking out against Talibans. “Any female that, by any means, plays a role in the war against mujahideen should be killed,” said a Taliban spokesman.

And why this happened to her? Malala , when just 11, at eighth standard, had  been exposing the Pakistani Taliban's cruelty in BBC’s blog posts for several day’s in the form of dairy. Instantly his posts got popular and became sources of information to the outer world about what was happening in Swat Valley. Thus, in one hand, she became a leading advocate for the education of girls in her country, and on the other she was heaping wrath of the Talibans against her, irrespective of her tender age.

To the Talibans this was too much. They were seeking to impose their austere interpretation of Sharia law and have had destroyed about 150 schools by then. Five more were blown up during when Malala had her last day in school on 15 January last. Possibly, this attack was made earlier than schedule for Malala was selected for International Children’s Peace Prize for her fearless doing and it was to be conferred on her next year.

Possibly, Pakistan lost maximum number of determined civilians who protested the Taliban’s dreadful interpretation of Shariat, and misinterpretation of the Holy Book. Yet, I wonder, what about larger Muslim world? It was all academic discussions that ran for volumes whenever the political leaders or civil society champs came frontward. In reality none of these groups systematized weightage to desist Talibans from declaring war against human in general and its own people in particular. We know any number of Malalas cannot stop them from plundering human endeavors, unless a determined Islamic state or a group of Islamic states take up the arms to fight the hazards.

Sometime I wonder, why war against Taliban does not become a religious war instead of a political one. Why the larger Muslim world do not consider Talibani acts as un-Islamic, and obnoxious. I feel more puzzled when I find Pakistanis, no less a Islamic human force, are fighting them with whatever gadget obtainable to them. Like a pen and an iron will that Malala fought at this tender age of 14.

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