On October 9, a van taking girls home from school in the Swat Velley in Pakistan was ambushed. Two girls were injured while 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai was shot in the neck and head at point blank range by a Taliban gunman. She has been since then taken to a hospital in the U.K. where her future remains uncertain. Why was a child seen as such a great threat by the Taliban?
When Malala was 11, she first spoke up against the violence caused by the Taliban in her native Swat district, Northwest Pakistan. This troubled region has seen intense fighting between the Pakistani Army and the Taliban forces which has resulted in more than 2 million refugees as registered in 2009, the extent of which is comparable to such refugee crisis as Rwanda in 1994. What Malala wanted specifically was an opportunity for girls to continue their education, which is strictly forbidden under a Taliban rule. In Adam Ellik’s documentary for Al Jazeera English, A Schoolgirl’s Odyssey, we see that one of the things that Malala worries about after having fled the war-torn Swat Valley is whether her notebooks will still be in her house when she comes back home.
Three years later, we find Malala, a recipient of Pakistan’s National Peace Award for Youth, in a British hospital, showing some signs of recovery after the attack. Meanwhile, the Pakistani Taliban has released a statement regarding Malala’s case: If anyone thinks that Malala was targeted because of education, that’s absolutely wrong, and propaganda of the media. Malala was targeted because of her pioneering role in preaching secularism and so-called enlightened moderation. And whoever does so in the future will be targeted again. This is how the news reads. What we can take from this news depends on who is reading it, yet the following paragraphs present you with my suggestion?
As CEU students, we can take a great deal from this news item. From an academic point of view, it serves as an analyzable example of women rights, access to education, intrastate conflict, refugee crisis and a number of other topics. All of them, do not get me wrong, are utterly important as they remain extremely relevant.
At the same time, there is more that we can take from Malala’s story. What it can give us is a perspective, or a really scary reality check. After all the readings on liberalism, psychoanalysis, Weber, Nash Equilibrium, and hegemonic stability, it becomes challenging to keep up with what is happening in the world. Very easily, the world can become markets with rational players guided by institutions. That’s it.
That is why Malala’s case may serve as a painful reminder. A reminder that ultimately, we live in a world where a child can get shot for wanting to go to school. Take Taliban as one of the rational actors playing in both domestic and international arena, take Malala as another actor and…see what happens with the analysis. To make a long story short: if this is our perfectly rational world with its calculated equilibrium, then it simply cannot fit in my head.
As I said, it is a scary reality check. Without a doubt, it is way easier to come back to my readings where no kids are being harmed, happiness is measured in units, and people are seen as inhibiting the markets to achieve their goals. These are good readings as long as they do not claim to have the power to explain – and solve – all the problems.
Now, my last remark. Malala’s wish was to get education. Being students at CEU, we are all living her dream, maybe even something beyond it. Should that change the way we see ourselves in a broader context? Could it make us feel a little embarrassed for complaining over having readings to do? And can we learn from something that is not an academic text? I hope we can, because the sources of this kind are rather vast.
Justina Poškevičiūtė
Political Science Department
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