From Malala Yousafzai to Aitzaz
Hassan — a tale of bravery but…!!!
By ALI HUSSAIN
A 15-year Dabang guy, Aitzaz Hassan, who
sacrificed his life for the sake of hundreds of others lives of his schoolmates,
has undoubtedly proved that there is no dearth of Malalas who are always ready
to take on those hell-bent to threaten our peace and dominate their self-style
ideology.
Now as the country is debating
whether to negotiate with the militants or not, is the question the people at
the helm of affairs can better answer but one thing is very clear that like the
15-year Aitzaz, everybody is ready take on them fearlessly. It’s on the
leadership either to drive a nation to heights of pride or threw them before
the handful non-state actors.
For a nuclear country which
luckily has the world best professional armed forces with total number of 617,000
active personnel and 513,000 reserved forces, only need a genuine leadership
who can take bold decisions for the sake of the people and their prosperity.
The situation in which we are
living today is demanding to take bold steps as someone has rightly said “a
coward dies hundred times a day, the brave meets death but once” otherwise
sacrifices of people like Aitzaz Hassan and a police officer Chaudhry Aslam
Khan will go in vain – God forbid.
When we talk about Aitzaz heroic
action to contain the suicide bomber and save hundreds of lives while
sacrificing himself also remind me another character of the history — a 16-year
Malala Yousafzai from Swat valley who was shot by Taliban at her head but
luckily survived.
Unfortunately, she has become the
centre of criticism from a segment of Pakistani society just because she
survived the attack which was followed by tremendous complements from across
the globe for her campaign for girls’ education in an area where the militants
had threatened all the girls stay at their homes.
The criticism intensified after
she was nominated for the prestigious World Nobel Peace prize, which she did no
get “fortunately” — a setback for her admirers but “blessing” for Malala.
One may be definitely in a state
of confusion while reading bulk of articles that have been written in favour
and against Malala with countless pages on the social websites depicting pro
and anti-Malala views. Some describing her as an ‘agent of the change and hero
of the nation’ while others dubbing her as “agent of the west to malign Islam
and Pakistan”.
I’m not going to indulge myself
in the unending debate as “What Malala stands for”. But what can I say
explicitly is; “It is between two different mindsets entangled in defeating
each other”.
One specific aspect of Malala
episode can be the concept of heroism among others, which the people in the
sub-continent especially in Pakistan and Afghanistan which host a large Pakhtun
population, having a rich history of their warlords as their heroes like
Mehmood Ghaznavi, Ahmed Shah Abdali and
etc.
Ages back, there was Malalai of
Maiwand of 19th century, born in 1861 at a small village called Khig, about
three miles southwest of Maiwand in the southern Kandahar
province of Afghanistan.
She is a national folk hero of Afghanistan who
rallied local Pakhtun fighters against the British troops at the 1880 Battle of
Maiwand. She fought alongside Ayub Khan, son of Afghan Emir Sher Ali Khan and
was responsible for the Afghan victory at the Battle of Maiwand on July 27,
1880, during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. There are many schools, hospitals,
and other institutions named after her in Afghanistan. Her story is told in
the Afghan school text books.
During the late 1880s, for the
second time, Afghanistan was
occupied by British-Indian forces attempting to colonize the area and annex it
with what was then British India (now Pakistan
and India).
The main garrison of the British was located in Kandahar,
which is the closest city to the town of Maiwand.
The Afghan military was
represented by commander Ayub Khan. Malalai's father, who was a shepherd, and
her fiancé joined with Ayub Khan's army in the large attack on the
British-Indian forces in July 1880. Like many Afghan women, Malalai was there
to help tend to the wounded and provide water and spare weapons. According to
local sources, this was also supposed to be her wedding day.
She was Malalai of Maiwand of
19th century who was a source of inspiration for Pakhtuns fighters of Afghanistan to
defeat the British troops and now is Malala Yousafzai of 21st century, an
activist for girls’ education.
Raised in a typically
conservative Pakhtun society, Malala Yousafzai challenged the radical forces
that want girls to stay indoors when militants had virtually established their
writ in picturesque Swat valley.
Now entire world is showering
praise on a 16-year old Malala for her courageous struggles for girls’
education and has emerged an “agent of the change” in a society where according
to a World Bank Report (2008) of the 6.8 million currently estimated to be out
of school in Pakistan,
at least 4.2 million are girls.
Her critics may be reasons —
valid or invalid, but one thing is obvious that there is also a factor of
jealousness not only among the common man but also in our so-called
intellectuals. And there comes the threat to male-dominated society in the form
of a girl receiving world-wide applause for her bravery.
And we, the Pakistani nation —
grown up in the womb of conspiracy theories, regard her as an agent of the
west, the biggest joke. But we should not be ashamed of this mentality because
it has become our national nomenclature to go for absurd things.
With a apologies to Aitzaz Hassan’s
family, he was lucky to have embraced the title of Shahadat [martyrdom] and
receiving the nationwide complements but I can expect a bulk of conspiracy
theories had he been survived as we saw following Malala’s attack.
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