Malala & Issues Related to It
Two days after Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by militants from the Pakistani Taliban, Her shooting went not only against the teachings of Islam, but also against Pashtun traditions, in which you would never think of hurting a woman — let alone a 14-year-old girl on her way home from school. As a father, naturally I pictured one of my own children lying in that hospital. What happened to her was against all human emotion.
But now Malala has become a symbol of Pakistan. She is a role model, someone who stood up for education at a time when schools were being blown up. The area in which she lived, the Swat Valley, had been taken over by the Taliban, who opposed Western education. They thought it was polluting the minds of girls, in particular, and banned them from going to school. Malala opposed this. And for doing so, she was singled out and shot.
What the attack on Malala shows us is the sheer brutalisation and radicalisation of Pakistani society.
What the attack on Malala shows us is the sheer brutalisation and radicalisation of Pakistani society. Eight-and-a-half years ago we were taken into a war by General Pervez Musharraf when he sent the country's military into the region of Waziristan that borders Afghanistan. That was the beginning of the downward spiral. Until then we had no militant Taliban in Pakistan, although we did have sectarian militant groups, created during Afghan jihad in the eighties by Pakistan's intelligence services, the ISI, and financed by the CIA.
It took two years, from 2004 to 2006, for the creation of the Pakistani Taliban. Today, under the generic name of Taliban, there are six different types of militant groups fighting the Pakistani state - and it is crucial to understand who and why.
First there is the ideological Taliban, who want to set up a state based on their concept of Sharia law, enforced through the barrel of a gun. This group makes the religious parties involved in politics in Pakistan look moderate. But it is
But now Malala has become a symbol of Pakistan. She is a role model, someone who stood up for education at a time when schools were being blown up. The area in which she lived, the Swat Valley, had been taken over by the Taliban, who opposed Western education. They thought it was polluting the minds of girls, in particular, and banned them from going to school. Malala opposed this. And for doing so, she was singled out and shot.
What the attack on Malala shows us is the sheer brutalisation and radicalisation of Pakistani society.
What the attack on Malala shows us is the sheer brutalisation and radicalisation of Pakistani society. Eight-and-a-half years ago we were taken into a war by General Pervez Musharraf when he sent the country's military into the region of Waziristan that borders Afghanistan. That was the beginning of the downward spiral. Until then we had no militant Taliban in Pakistan, although we did have sectarian militant groups, created during Afghan jihad in the eighties by Pakistan's intelligence services, the ISI, and financed by the CIA.
It took two years, from 2004 to 2006, for the creation of the Pakistani Taliban. Today, under the generic name of Taliban, there are six different types of militant groups fighting the Pakistani state - and it is crucial to understand who and why.
First there is the ideological Taliban, who want to set up a state based on their concept of Sharia law, enforced through the barrel of a gun. This group makes the religious parties involved in politics in Pakistan look moderate. But it is