Pakistan’s ‘Malala moment’ has ‘passed’: NYT
By: Special Correspondent | October 21, 2012
Pakistan
NEW YORK - Conspiracy-laden skepticism being spread in Pakistan about Malala Yousafzai, the girls’ rights activist, suggests that the country’s ‘Malala moment’, and the possibilities it briefly excited, has now passed, according to a news analysis published in The New York Times Saturday.
“In the immediate aftermath of the Oct 9 assault, some Pakistanis hoped it could set off a sea change in their society,” NYT correspondent Declan Walsh wrote from Islamabad. “For years, the country’s ability to resist Taliban militancy has been hamstrung by a broad ambiguity that undermined a national consensus against violence.
“Religious groups hesitated to challenge the Taliban for religious reasons. Politicians feared speaking out on safety grounds. And the military, which has a history of nurturing Islamists to fight its proxy wars in India or Afghanistan, equivocated by tacitly supporting selected militant outfits, known among militancy experts as the ‘good Taliban’.
“But after Ms Yousafzai was shot, heart-rending images of the wounded child bounced against coldblooded Taliban statements that the militants would shoot her again, if they had a chance. The country suddenly spoke with a unified, furious voice.”
According to the paper, people in Pakistan now have ‘mixed feelings’ about Malala.
Some people even think that the attack on Malala was nothing, but an ‘American publicity stunt’ to make their point against the Taliban, the paper said.
Several young in the country are ambivalent about the attack on Malala, and believe that people have ignored Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman convicted on charges of trying to kill American soldiers and FBI agents by a New York court in 2010 and sentenced to 86 years in prison, the paper added.
“Such conspiracy-laden skepticism about Ms Yousafzai, who was shot by a Taliban gunman inside her school bus, is only one strand of public opinion here; others have expressed unqualified anger at the attack,” Correspondent Walsh wrote.
“But it does suggest something dispiriting: that Pakistan’s ‘Malala moment’, and the possibilities it briefly excited, has passed.”
The dispatch said “Just two days before the attack, Imran Khan, the former cricket star whose political star has soared in the past year, had led a honking motorcade of supporters to the edge of the tribal belt, where they mounted a protest against CIA-directed drone strikes in the nearby mountains. They received largely favourable news media coverage.
“But after the shooting, Mr Khan came in for sharp criticism, partly because he favours negotiating with the Taliban instead of fighting them, and partly because he refused to condemn the militants in a television interview, citing safety concerns for his followers in the tribal belt”. ‘If today I start shouting slogans here against Taliban, who will save them?’ Khan asked.
Khan, for his part, is sticking to his guns. “Our liberals support military solution despite them being counterproductive,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Each military operation leads to more militancy and fanaticism.”
Commentators said the episode hurt Khan’s credibility. “There had been latent fears about his Taliban policies,” said Fahd Hussain, a television presenter. “This thing suddenly reminded people that he is not really clear on this subject.”
The Times said “A military operation, however, is exactly what was being speculated about early this week, when the country’s top generals held a secretive two-day meeting that stoked speculation they were planning a long-anticipated assault on the Taliban stronghold of North Waziristan — a major demand of the Obama administration.
“By then, however, the backlash against Ms Yousafzai had already started in earnest. The religious right attacked the wounded schoolgirl, circulating images on the Internet that showed her meeting senior American officials and implying that she was an American agent.
“Other politicians showed little conviction. With the exception of the Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi Movement, no party organised mass street rallies against the Taliban — a stark contrast with the violent riots that seized the country weeks earlier in reaction to an American-made anti-Islam video,” the newspaper added.
In Parliament on Wednesday, a government motion in favour of a ‘military operation’ against the Taliban was blocked by the opposition, the paper said. Most commentators now say a military drive into North Waziristan is unlikely anytime soon, it said.
“Whatever window had been opened — for military action, or a new unity against the Taliban — now appears to have closed. “It was a golden moment,” said Fahd Hussain, the journalist. “But that’s what it was — a moment.”
