We are (annoyed by) Malala!

[niaz]

Mr Oria Maqbool Jan is a professional columnist. He has to be adept at twisting & spinning the facts to present his point of view because that is how Oria earns his living. I am a retired Chemical Engineer and would never presume to compete with his articulation.

Mr Oria Maqbool Jan appears to be against Gordon Brown, Malala Yusuf Zai, Women’s rights people and the Nobel committee in the same breath. Additionally he is also criticizing all of the nation and its media for supporting Malala. He is trying to confuse the reader but quoting totally unrelated facts and telling us that we should set up a prize to rival Nobel Prize.

However, I can point out that his article is nothing but hogwash. By diverting reader’s attention towards unrelated events, he is trying emotional blackmail.

Oria starts with denigrating the Nobel Prize by declaring that it has been given to many cruel murderers. First let us examine what Nobel Prize really is:

Alfred Nobel was a Swedish Chemist & Engineer who amassed fortune thru inventing & patenting Ballistite, a mixture nitrocellulose and nitro-glycerine. In 1888, he was astonished to read his own obituary in a French newspaper titled ‘The merchant of death is dead’. This prompted Alfred Nobel to specify in his will that his fortune should be used to create a series of prizes for those who confer the "greatest benefit on mankind" in physics, chemistry, peace, physiology or medicine, and literature.

You can't nominate yourself or others for the prize and you can't campaign to be chosen the winner. According to the Nobel Peace Prize website, nominees are only accepted from a select few people, including members of national governments, members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and of the International Court of Justice at The Hague, former Nobel Peace Prize winners, and so on. Organizations can be nominated, as well as individuals. In fact, you won't even know if you've been nominated

Malala was nominated after she became a celebrity in Pakistan after her interview with Hamid Mir and came into international limelight after being shot by Taliban. Since her recovery, she has been campaigning for education for all. There must be thousands of innocent girls like Abeer, who have been deprived of education, and we fully sympathize with such victims but this has nothing to do with ‘deserving’ Nobel Prize.

Selection of the Nobel Laureate is highly subjective primarily because Nobel Prize winners are selected by the five members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee . They are appointed by the Parliament of Norway and roughly represent the political makeup of that body. The committee was established in 1897, and has awarded the prize most years since 1901. Therefore it is quite possible that Nobel Prize is awarded to less deserving candidate.

Despite the fact that there are thousands of awards by different organizations and different countries; Nobel Prize is universally accepted as the highest honour that a living human being can be awarded by his/her fellow humans.

You can disagree with the selection but to denigrate the same; as Mr Oria Maqbool Jan has tried; indicates an extremely bigoted mind set. There are many extremely rich Muslims. Some Saudi, Kuwaiti, Qatari & Abu Dhabi Sheikhs are far wealthier than Alfred Nobel could even dream. Let Mr Mqabool Jan find someone to donate all of his wealth to a worthy cause such as Alfred Nobel has done.

Oria’s criticism of Gordon Brown, mention of Sabra & Chattila etc. are totally irrelevant things and an attempt to cast slur of Malala thru making one of her supporters look bad. Gordon Brown is an ex Chancellor & Prime Minister of UK. In 2012 he was named United Nations Special Envoy which is an unpaid appointment. Gordon’s presence with Malala is by coincidence not by design.

Oria then goes on to denounce Malala that she portrays Pakistan as if we are living in jail. Speaking as a female; she is hundred per cent right.

Majority of women in Pakistan are living in jail like situation. In quite few places women were barred from voting. Women are often killed on suspicion as ‘Karo Kari’. Married off to Quran and sentenced to gang rape. Taliban blow up girls school and in Swat women were banned from going out of the house alone even for shopping. Is Mr Oria Maqbool Jan totally blind or living in a different country that he denies all this?

How are we going to improve women’s condition in Pakistan if we have pseudo intellectuals such as the myopic Mr Maqbool Jan?

Mr Oria Maqbool Jan is a retired Civil Servant. The whole article is nothing but ranting of a confused narrow-minded person trying to earn his living by commenting on things far beyond his intellectual competence.

 

[Rafi]

@niaz couldn't agree more, this so-called columnist and apologist for the takfiri scum should be ashamed of his straw man argument.

 

[Solomon2]

I disagree. Keeping quiet about wrongs and keeping your head down isn't righteous, it is both cowardice and wrong. If you see wrong stop it, if you cannot stop it then speak out against it, if you cannot speak out against it then curse the wrongs in your heart.

In Rome [after the Vandals' rape and rapine] some wealth still remained...but in 470 a general impoverishment of fields and cities, of senators and proletarians, depressed the spirits of a once great race to an epicurean cynicism that doubted all gods but Priapus [pagan god of erections and fertility]...that shunned the responsibilities of life, and an angry cowardice that denounced every surrender and shirked every martial task. Through all this...ran political decay: aristocrats who could administer but could not rule; businessmen too absorbed in personal gain...generals who won by bribery more than they could win by arms; and a bureaucracy ruinously expensive and irremediably corrupt. The majestic tree had rotted -

- The Age of Faith, Will Durant, Simon & Shuster, 1950, p.42.

 

[niaz]

Regret to admit that my English is not good enough to translate the following article from Urdu. This however gives an excellent analysis of the the arguments employed by my fellow countrymen to prove their irrational views.

Yasir Pirzadah- zara hat ke- Pakistanion ki mantaq ke 5 andaz - Jang Columns

 

[niaz]

I humbly request that all members should read this very rational & cool headed article about Malala Yusafzai.

Malala is the message


Ghazi Salahuddin

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Malala is the messageThe spectacle of how a 16-year-old girl has restored the pride of a country that is otherwise deemed to be a failing state is something we need to carefully examine. Yes, Malala Yousafzai was not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But the glory she has earned internationally is still unique in many ways. So, what does it mean for Pakistan in our present circumstances?

At one level, the big question is whether Malala’s shadow would fall on the negotiations that our government is holding – or about to hold – with the Taliban? That would naturally depend on the capacity of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his advisers to decipher the issues that are embedded in the message that Malala has delivered.

This may as well be a divine intervention to awaken the conscience of a nation confronting a threat to its survival. After all, it was Malala versus the Taliban when she was attacked in Swat exactly one year ago. This, then, has been a competition between two different and antagonistic world views. But where do our rulers belong in this fateful conflict?

Unfortunately, the Taliban’s attempt to murder a young girl who had become a symbol of girls’ right to education could not become a catalyst. The then government, which professed to be liberal and progressive in its political stance, was unwilling to launch an operation against the Taliban who not only accepted the responsibility for the attack but also vowed to kill Malala. A larger failure was the inability of the rulers to resolutely challenge the Taliban mindset in the battlefield of ideas.

We do have some clarifications in that respect because Malala is now a greater and globally acknowledged symbol of education for all children and the Taliban have reiterated their resolve to get her. Meanwhile, the world has seen that this teenager is truly exceptional. The fact that she was the front-runner among nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize is in itself a matter of great pride for us.

But the manner in which she has conducted herself on the world’s stage where leaders of nations do sometimes stutter is God’s gift to a people desperately seeking hope. That, perhaps, is the gist of it all. Malala represents hope for Pakistan. Our salvation lies in education, particularly of girls. That Malala’s talents bloomed in the troubled valley of Swat that the Taliban were able to plunder for an excruciatingly long period is also a parable to consider.

She did not belong to a rich, privileged and superficially westernised family. She did not go to exclusive, high-priced English-medium schools in Karachi or Lahore. In fact, she came into the limelight after writing her Swat diary in Urdu for the BBC, under a pseudonym. At the same time, her articulation in the English language is so impressive. And it is not restricted to a prepared speech that could also be rehearsed.

What does this mean? Exceptional she is but there are bound to be many more Malalas out there in the desolate villages of Pakistan. We need to find them and nurture their potential to liberate our society from the curse that is represented by the Taliban, in a generic sense. This is the main issue for our rulers, irrespective of how they are in thrall to the religious extremists. Lack of education and enlightenment has infected the Pakistani mind with primitive ideas and intolerance.

The situation on the ground is not really encouraging. I am reminded of the hostility that was expressed against Malala by a number of young boys at the Children’s Literature Festival held in Peshawar in November last year, just a few weeks after Malala was attacked. I had attended that festival and was shocked by some slogans scrawled on a wall designed to acclaim Malala’s courage and contribution to the cause of education.

Even now, there is no dearth of Malala’s detractors – including in some corners of what may be described as the modern sector. A number of them suspect her of being some kind of a CIA conspiracy. Such suspicions need to be aired in objective discussions. Partly, these views are rooted in the widespread disapproval of the American foreign policy. We do not often realise how this attitude gets reflected in our irrational aversion to western ideas of democracy and human rights.

In any case, if they in the west are rooting for education for girls in Pakistan, what should we do? Should we bomb the girls’ schools as the Taliban have been doing? Should we hide ourselves in medieval darkness so that the sinful enchantments of the modern world are not able to find us? Should we deny our society the inspiration that comes from brave, educated and gifted women?

This aspect of how Malala represents the power of the Pakistani women I am unable to pursue in this brief column. I am thinking of some examples of how women of Pakistan have gained international recognition for their courage and commitment. There was Benazir Bhutto. I may mention Asma Jahangir and Mukhtar Mai. Now, we have Malala.

I cannot, also, go into any details about why the present government should put the Malala issue on the table in their negotiations with the Taliban. It is also necessary for the government to spend more time in thinking about who is the legitimate stakeholder of Pakistan – the militant who holds a gun or a little girl going to school? There is a lot of debate about conditions on which talks are to be held. If the Taliban remain unwilling to allow girls to go to schools and if they still want to try to kill Malala, as they have openly stated, would the government still want to talk to them? Be a man, Mr Prime Minister.

Malala was passed over by the Nobel committee. Still, she is continuing to be applauded by the world. She has won so many other awards. On Thursday, she won the European Union’s prestigious Sakharov human rights prize. On the same day, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim called Malala a symbol of hope and courage for children across the world.

A columnist in the Washington Post, writing after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the UN-backed Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, said that “the world has, in a sense, already given Malala Yousafzai the prize for peace this year”. A reference is made to her remarkable interview with Jon Steward. “You watch Malala for only a few minutes and you can see why oppressive power is afraid of educating girls and women”. Brother, can you spare a few minutes?

The writer is a staff member. Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail. com
Malala is the message - Ghazi Salahuddin

 

[MrShabi2010]

 

[Patriots]

The Pakistanis who love their country LOVE MALALA.

Zardari loves ... Bilawal loves ... Altaf Hussain loves ... Imran Khan loves ... Kayani loves ... Marvi Sarmad loves ... Nawaz Sharif loves ... Musharraf loves & Pakistani media loves to Malala

 

[smstahir]

who is malala yousafzai ?

tell me why every nation give her so honoured ?

how this nonsense question come into your mind have ever heard Malala name??

 

[runa moosani]

Malala is nowadays most famous drama in Pakistan and one of the most hated person in Pak too.

Why you asking this question in airforce thread

 

[Patriots]

 

[niaz]

A thought provoking article about the confused mental state of Pakistani public.

Ajmal Khatak Kasar- wazir Azam- Malala ka Malal - Jang Columns

 

[Gentelman]

She is so immature and just talk about such Isamic topic about which she herself don't have knowledge.
She just show Islam like it is talibans creation.

 

[Vinod2070]

Respect to the brave girl.