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talkpoliticsThis is Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani girl who's not afraid to raise her voice. A year or so ago mass protests in Pakistan met the news of bin Laden's death; the Taliban were called freedom fighters, and US flags were being burned everywhere. Today there are protests as big as those ones, but this time against the Taliban. And they're being called terrorists. The Pakistanis are used to terror attacks and all sorts of ugly assaults, but the brutal attempt for public execution of a young girl couldn't but put the final drop in their cup of patience.
October 9, after the end of the school day, pupils from a small girls school got on their school bus on their way back home. Just a couple hundred meters after school, it suddenly stopped. The doors opened and two bearded men with hoodies went in. Everyone was like paralyzed. One pressed a gun at the driver's head, the other pointed an AK at the kids and shouted, "Which of you is Malala? Tell me or you all die! She dares speak against the warriors of Allah. She must be punished!" At first there was no reply, but the man eventually recognized his target. He got closer to the 9-grade girl and fired point-blank at her. Panic ensued, a few more shots echoed in the bus, then the two men swiftly disappeared.
The target of this daylight attack was 14 year old Malala Yousafzai, and the reason is... that she wanted to go to school. Three years ago, when the Tehrik-i-Taliban movement (also dubbed the Pakistani Taliban) took control of the Swat valley in the tribal provinces of North Pakistan, all girl schools were closed. Among them, Malala's school. She decided she couldn't pup up with this, so she started blowing the lid off this in her online blog, where she wrote about the thoughts and the everyday life of a girl under the rule of the fundamentalists. When the Pakistani army eventually drove the Taliban out of Swat, Malala started appearing on various media, giving interviews and criticizing both the extremists and the central government that had left her town in Taliban hands.
Many in her country perceived her as a national hero, a bold girl who spoke what was on their mind but what they dared not say out loud. And the Taliban did their best to make her shut up - they sent her death threats, they dumped corpses in front of her home. When this didn't stop her, a decision was made to eliminate her. They carefully examined her daily route and they planned the attack to happen next to a military outpost, so they could demonstrate that they're invincible and they can strike anywhere at will. The attack took no more than a minute, and two bullets wounded her severely in the head and the neck. She was rushed to hospital, and ended up in UK for treatment. Meanwhile, the whole case ignited the public indignation both in Pakistan and around the world.
The TV and radio stations across Pakistan are now having public discussions, prayers and vigils for Malala's health and survival. There's a consensus forming in the country between the Pakistani people, the government and the army, all of them united against the Taliban. What billions of dollars of funding, multiple politicians' assassinations and tough political maneuvring couldn't achieve in terms of winning hearts and minds, a small girl is about to achieve by just being herself, and not being scared to speak her mind. The anger against the actions of the extremists is so strong that 50 Islamist clerics who are usually prone to supporting them, have now issued a fatwa against them.
No doubt what has happened to Malala is a big opportunity for change. The Pakistanis are more united than ever on this issue, and the government is feeling a huge public pressure to actually do something real this time. The more optimistic scenario is that the protests would push the Pakistani society to form some kind of a political subject, an anti-Taliban coalition, which could eventually succeed in winning the elections, or at least exert significant pressure on decision-making in the country. And the government would be forced to take more serious action against the Taliban.
How exactly such a "firm" policy would look, is difficult to say. The main source of problems for Pakistan has always been the so called tribal areas in North Pakistan. The presence of the central power has been nothing else but nominal, and the control is in the hands of various warlords. There's practically no border control with Afghanistan, and arms and drugs smuggling flourishes. This situation is perfect for all sorts of armed groups, including the Taliban. In the long term, gaining control of these areas and really incorporating them into Pakistan ought to happen, otherwise they'll remain a source of problems and an obstacle for peace in both countries forever.
But any actions against the tribal areas is full of enormous risks at this point. Actually the very foundation of Tehrik-i-Taliban happened after one such attempt to get control of the northern territories. After the beginning of the Afghanistan war, the then president Pervez Musharraf started building roads that would bring supplies for the allied forces across the border. Then the local tribes united against the Pakistani army, getting the support of some local Mujahideen who had settled there during the war with the USSR. And that's how the so called Pakistani Taliban emerged. Pakistan suffered enormous losses and was forced to retreat and sign a ceasefire agreement that allowed the Taliban to impose their own laws and rules in the region.
The problems in front of a large-scale operation inside the tribal areas are two. One, no one really knows what the hell is going on there. The other is the fact that even if that territory is somehow secured, that still wouldn't solve anything. The extremists would simply move across borders to Afghanistan, and the attacks would continue from there. So a possible attempt to go into the northern territories is very likely to end up with another military, or why not a political failure for Pakistan. That's why the more realistic expectations are that the Pakistani military actions against the Taliban will remain limited for the time being.
I wouldn't bet money that Malala's case would lead to any serious tremors in the current status quo. And not so much because of the above challenges to any possible military operation. In Pakistan it's become a norm to see something scandalous happening. I hope I'll be proven wrong, but I'm afraid this case, as scandalous as it may be, will remain in the public focus just for a couple of weeks, up to a month, then fade away. So it'd be wiser to wait for a couple more weeks and see where things will go, and whether the pressure will loosen or it'll stay - and only then say for sure if anything constructive would come out of the whole situation.
(no subject)
Date: 23/10/12 18:44 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 23/10/12 20:12 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 23/10/12 20:20 (UTC)Btw here's her diary.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7834402.stm
(no subject)
Date: 23/10/12 20:54 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 24/10/12 01:45 (UTC)/rant.
(no subject)
Date: 24/10/12 03:37 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 25/10/12 00:31 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 24/10/12 16:02 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 24/10/12 16:07 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 25/10/12 06:21 (UTC)