Private schools in Pakistan have chosen to ban Malala Yousafzai's book, "I am Malala". Why that has happened is easy to guess. Fearful of Taliban reprisal, and even more of choosing a heroine who has been revered by the West, Pakistan has rejected one of the foremost symbols of activism in its own country.
There are 40,000 private schools in Pakistan. The ban is a glaring symbol of how Pakistan functions in terms of trying to define its identity. In fact, the President of the Pakistani private school system asserted as much when he uttered that "Malala represents the West, not Pakistan."
At a time when Pakistan is making overtures to its own Taliban faction in the hopes of stemming the bloody spate of terrorist attacks on their home soil, Pakistan is trying to distance itself more and more, at least in the public eye, from the West.
A strange paranoia seems to have spread in Pakistan. It is a country where conspiracy theories are not just born, and adopted, but almost sanctified.
There is almost no event, from the downing of the 9/11 towers to the killing of Pearl, the Jewish journalist who perished in Pakistan years ago at the hands of the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, that is not perverted into some conspiracy theory and turned on its head. These theories then become propaganda that is widely broadcast on the internet in the form of articles and even videos claiming to 'disclaim' the veracity of events that have occurred which are in some way connected to Pakistan.
One of the theories currently circulating is that Malala was not shot by the Taliban, but that the West staged the shooting to make a hero out of her, so as to subvert the local order of things in some fashion, and mobilize girls and women to behave in the way that she is behaving or behaved before the near fatal incident.
Such distortions can create more damage than the one already done by terrorist acts such as the shooting of Malala. By twisting everything into an unidentifiable knot of conjectures and constructions, Pakistan misses the chance to re-enter the world scene as a bona fide forward looking country, free to exercise its will, and unencumbered by the shackles of terrorist forces.
There are even broadcasts in Pakistan of satire belittling the young girl Malala, in which elaborate stories are invented to show that the entire Malala affair was a scheme hatched by the West long ago.
In Iran, the press went even further, by publishing a written 'expose`' called "Truth about Malala: Fraud unearthed." Although the article has since been removed, many sites have copied the banner page and content and republished it as a revelation of the truth about the matter.
The interesting thing, is that the Pakistani Taliban have published a letter explaining why they had targeted Malala and even expressed their will to target her again. But for those who wish to deny that Pakistan is ill with corruption and torn apart by forces that they cannot control, any article or piece or conjecture that removes them from the guilt of having something like Malala on their conscience are welcome news.
Pakistan risks becoming a failing state if it does not reign in the forces that are tearing it apart. A corrupt military taking money from abroad to do what it should do itself, buffeted by an even more corrupt secret service infiltratred and complicit with the most extreme factions of the Taliban and other terrorist organization, and a population increasingly unable to exercise their will to elect politicians that will steer the country to a better future.
Things will remain the same, and worse, if ignorance wins. And banning a book by an activist girl who is the champion of female education is a definite win for ignorance.
Op-Ed
Partial source : Al Jazeera / 11.10.13
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