Moalims

The writer  Kamila Hyat is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor.
Hatred, or even an active dislike, for an individual or group is a powerful emotion. It is especially disturbing when it comes from an entire group, in the form of racism that we still see in so many places. Such hatred has marred entire eras of history – and we see it too in bigotry directed against a religious or ethnic group.

This has of course become more frequent in our country over the past decades, and is hidden less and less frequently, with people sometimes reacting with unexpected expressions of shock when it is suggested that all citizens are equal or that hate does not solve problems.

In some of its forms hate can be especially frightening. This is true in the case of the rather astonishing wave of hatred directed against the teenager Malala Yousafzai in her own country. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate is a hero for many in the world. Schoolchildren in other countries seek to liaise with her or support the now massive Malala Fund which supports education for children around the world.

But it would be a fascinating exercise to see how much money to this foundation goes in from Malala’s home country, in the form of individual or corporate donations. The suspicion is that it would not amount to very much. An indication of this can be obtained from the fact that Malala’s superb GCSE result consisting of six A (stars) and four As was met not with applause but widespread derision in her home country.

People asked why she was giving the exam two years later than most in the UK; there were suggestions that in some massive act of fraud and conspiracy involving the UK examination system and world governments, the result had been rigged even though the names of candidates are anonymous or that Malala had in some other ways been assisted in obtaining the grade she did. There was little recognition of the fact that the girl, educated under a different system at a tiny school located down a Mingora alley, had spent months battling the after-effects of her bullet injury and then more months adjusting to a different education system in an alien setting. She herself has spoken honestly of her struggles to adjust and cope with an environment in which all learning is in what is effectively her third language.

There seems to have been no celebration of this achievement at home. So why is Malala hated, or at least bitterly disliked? Why are there so many rumours about her – some suggesting she is a western puppet being manipulated from foreign capitals, or even that she suffered brain damage as a result of the bullet wound and the speeches she delivers are read off robotically without true understanding, or any input of her own.

These are extraordinary views, given that even as an 11-year-old the preteen Malala, quite possibly with help from her parents like many tweens, wrote a blog for the BBC about the Taliban’s curbs on education in Swat and has spoken spontaneously without a written speech in sight about her experiences and her beliefs. There is nothing to suggest she is not a normal teenage girl, from a conservative society in Pakistan, who giggles about boyfriends and about life with two younger brothers.

It is important to understand this phenomenon. There are reasons for it and not all are entirely illogical. The reality is that Malala’s story, although it seems this was never her intention, has created misconceptions about Pakistan with people around the world apparently convinced that no girl goes to a school in the country. The fact that we have an enrolment rate for primary age girls now approaching 90 percent has indeed been obscured by these misinterpretations of Malala’s story.

The reality of course is that most girls do go to school, many do stupendously well and more and more are moving on to higher education. There are educated, intelligent and courageous women around the country who fly passenger planes, run developmental organisations or engage in other activities not always available to their counterparts in the west. Pakistan, after all, has had a woman head of government. The US has not.

But these perceptions are not constructed by Malala. What she talks about is the right of every child to gain an education – and there are children in our country as well as other parts of the world who are still denied this. In Swat, this happened during the period under the Taliban. The story that Malala was shot because she went to school is simplistic. She was shot because she campaigned against the Taliban’s attempt to hold back education for girls and keep them out of classrooms. The two realities are quite different and nuances are important. We seem to have made no attempt to understand them although this should be easier for us to grasp than for other people around the world.

The results have been peculiar. Rather than appearing on a postage stamp, as would almost certainly have happened in many countries, attempts were made to ban Malala’s book from schools or even bookstores. In some shops in Peshawar, it is kept carefully hidden under the counter to be sold almost as illicit material. We have woven so many controversies and so many lies about the whole story that we have come to believe them and in the process lost the ability to think rationally or applaud a child from our country who has risen to international fame.

Yes, it is true Malala Yousafzai has been honoured by the west. But this is no reason why she should not be honoured at home as well. She has never derided her own country, and has spoken frequently of her love for the beautiful valley to which it is unlikely she will ever be able to return. The impact on the family, of a forced and possibly permanent exile, has never been considered with any sympathy. They have lost family and social links or the right toe return to a region where their roots lie and to which Malala and her parents seem deeply attached.

As all exiles can say, and as poets such as the Chilean Pablo Neruda and our own Faiz Ahmed Faiz have written so eloquently, being forced away even from a hostile homeland can be the loneliest and hardest of all experiences. This is not something we talk about at home in the case of Malala. Instead, rather mockingly and with little empathy, we seem to believe her father manipulated a way to find a life for his family in the west and to gain awards and money.

This is a wicked way to look at the shooting of a little girl. It shows the extent to which we have contorted our own thinking and the lack of rationality which now exists. Yes, the Malala story has complicated and possibly blackened the picture of Pakistan for the world.

Our own reaction to what happened to her, our refusal to accept her achievements or to show for her any appreciation as a young person willing to raise a voice for a very real global cause at an age when other teenagers are obsessed only with themselves makes the story a particularly tragic one.