Malala Yousafzai is like a breath of fresh air for a country like Pakistan, haunted by villains, tyrants and men spewing hatred and hypocrisy in the name of a religion which preaches tolerance, welfare and peace while encouraging acquisition of knowledge. In December Pakistan’s national anthem and flag will be proudly raised in Oslo, the second time after Professor Abdus Salam became the first Nobel Laureate.
Bulk of majority Muslim populated states are plagued by tyrannical monarchs, military dictators, and pied pipers leading illiterate masses back to medieval ages, instead of focusing on development of human resources without which progress, prosperity, state security and sovereignty cannot be attained. In a country where lives of citizens residing even in major financial hub Karachi are not secure, Malala Yousafzai had moral courage and character to stand up in Swat at a time when this once peaceful place was hostage to armed gangs and extremist fundamentalists enforcing their version of Islam, which had nothing in common with the religion preached by Prophet Mohammed PBUH.
Both Pakistan and India are infected with feudalism where political power and nobility are considered to be acquired through accident of birth, Malala Yousafzai rose from a poor lower middle class background to acquire international recognition and honour through her sheer commitment to promote female education which Islam allows right where feudalism and a culture where dynastic politics with all its evil still prevails.
The unfortunate reality is that the curse of terrorism which plagues Pakistan posing a threat to its national security is a product of myopic vision of military dictators like Zia and Musharraf, who gave sanctuary to armed terrorists to feed their insatiable greed for power, foreign grants and patronage by the West. While almost $50 billion that poured into Pakistan between 1982 to 1987 evaporated into thin air, with not a cent going to the national exchequer, all that this unfortunate country inherited was the curse of ethnicity, sectarianism, powerful armed private militias, and an environment where land and drug mafia plundered this country at will with tacit approval of a corrupt bureaucracy and a gang of political opportunists who reaped a bonanza.
ALI MALIK TARIQ
Dubai, UAE