“For heaven’s sake! Give Malala’s story a rest. We all have daughters
and we all make compromises for them.
Don’t you know her name is being
used to plan an attack on North Waziristan?” These were the lines I had
to endure from a colleague, who was incensed by the media’s continuous
focus on the little girl, attacked by the Taliban. In his outrage, he
was not even ready to listen to me as I tried to tell him that I had
just returned from a rather important meeting where I was told that
there were no plans for any operation in North Waziristan.
This response was not new to me. I have continuously seen educated,
seasoned people giving in to conspiracy theories just because they do
not want to believe that our own people can do this to us. Engaging with
these friends becomes impossible, thanks to the likes of Interior
Minister Rehman Malik, who never loses an opportunity to peddle
unsubstantiated conspiracy theories and Imran Khan, who teaches his supporters to blame the US for all ills in this country.
It is the denial of this sort that forces us to ignore the sacrifices
of our valiant soldiers, policemen and political leaders exposed to
terrorism. Have you not wondered why it is so easy for a newscaster to
use the word ‘
shaheed’ (martyred) when narrating a story about
people killed by the Israeli or Indian forces and difficult to call our
own soldiers anything but ‘
jan bahaq’ (killed) when martyred by the terrorists?
Malala Yousufzai’s story is important. Not just because it exposes
the Taliban for the vandals they are, but because of the courage a
15-year-old girl can show when confronted by an armed gunman committed
to denying her the right to education. Only in a weird world can one
resent the attention being given to such heroism. Unfortunately, we
Pakistanis live in the very same weird world.
While growing up, I always wondered why we have such a dearth of
national heroes. Consider this: our national poet died years before
Pakistan was created, never used the country’s name in his poetry and
wrote an anthem for a country that we fought all major wars with. While
many countries have pictures of more than one leader on their currency
notes, ours carry only the picture of the Quaid-e-Azam, who died only a
year after the creation of Pakistan. Don’t get me wrong. Of course,
these leaders have every right to be there. But our national journey
certainly does not end there.
The trouble is that Pakistani nationalism has become a dogma in
itself and we do not want to update it with every passing development.
Our state and some of its deeper parts do not want to meddle with the
sacrosanct notion that the only existential threat to us comes from
India and only those who fight it can be our heroes. To this day, we
don’t have the exact details of the Kargil war but our soldiers who
perished there have been awarded the Nishan-e-Haider, but those who have
written tales of great valour in the fight against terror have been
offered none.
It is time to put an end to all this denial. While we remain confused
about our enemies, our heroes are going to dust. It is time to
celebrate the best for who they are: shining beacons of hope. Let us
start by nominating Malala for the Nobel peace prize and by
acknowledging her as a true national hero.