The great Khuldune Shahid has a satirical piece on Why He Hates Malala Yousafzai.
How much a Pakistani hates someone depends on how easy it is to hate them. And few individuals are easier to hate than Malala Yousafzai.
Here’s a girl, not old enough to have an ID card, taking on Pakistan’s biggest enemy without an iota of fear.
She takes a bullet to her head not fighting for a jingoistic agenda, but for something as universally celebrated as education. For her commendable bravery she gets global acclaim, speaks in front of a global audience at the UN, meets the American president and is pretty much the only positive coming out of this country in recent times.
So what’s not to hate, right? Right??
Do you honestly believe that it’s easy for me to accept that a young girl from our neck of the woods, with all the societal handicaps that one can think of, can singlehandedly orchestrate a global rude awakening? The thought rips the bigoted, discriminatory and misogynistic ideals that I’ve grown up with, into tiny little shreds.
How can I accept Malala to be a hero, when her speeches do not have any Islamic or nationalistic agenda? How can I consider her to be my future leader when nothing she says or does imbues a false sense of superiority in me as a Muslim or a Pakistani? How can I accept that a young girl was able to highlight who our actual enemies are, when grown up men in our parliaments are still hell bent on befriending them?
How can I rejoice at Malala’s global achievement when I’ve been taught all my life that a girl’s place is in the kitchen? I just can’t.
But maybe some day…