New Generation Starts Asserting in Pakistan?

I was planning to write on the incident involving the shooting of Malala Yousafzai, a 14 year old girl for her taking on the Taliban.

I posted a blog on a Blogger attempting to change the perception of the world of the stereotyped Pakistani.

I am posting Excerpts from an interview from Christian Science Monitor.

We will know how the youngsters are reacting and it is a welcome sign.

Will the elders ,Pakistani Media follow suit?

The omission of Politicians is intentional.

If the present generation asserts itself,the hardliners will be sidelined.

Excerpts.

“Which one of you is Malala? Speak up, otherwise I will shoot you all,” a hooded, bearded Talibanmilitant asked a bus full of schoolgirls on their way home earlier this week. “She is propagating against the soldiers of Allah, the Taliban. She must be punished,” the Taliban militant shouted louder. Then, recognizing her, he shot her at a point blank range…

“I wanted to scream, shout and tell the whole world what we were going through. But it was not possible. The Taliban would have killed me, my father, my whole family. I would have died without leaving any mark. So I chose to write with a different name. And it worked, as my valley has been freed,” she told me when I invited her for an interview for the TV station I am heading now, ..

Malala’s friend, Shazia, who was also injured that day, recounted the event to me as her eyes filled with tears.

“They stopped our school van. They were riding on a bike. The masked man kept pointing guns at us and the other was shouting ‘where is Malala?!’ I froze with a flashback to the old dark days: I remembered the headless bodies, slaughtering of rivals – merely on dissent or slightest doubt of spying –the grotesque violence.”

Just a few moments before, she said, the girls had been singing a traditional Pushto folk song on their way back from school, its lyrics vowing sacrificing their lives for their motherland, the beautiful valley of Swat.

“With a drop of my sweetheart’s blood, Shed to defend the motherland, I will put a beauty spot on my forehead, Such would put to shame the rose in the garden,” they sang.

Her father, Zia Yousafzai, a Pashtun left-wing educator, almost always accompanied her on outings and interviews. He runs a chain of schools in Swat valley, the Khushal Public School, named after a famous Pashtun poet. I met father and daughter many times, and discussed with Malala the possibility of her hosting a show to interview leading politicians and dignitaries for the TV channel where I work.

“That will be fun, countering mullahs,” she replied, but said she wanted to focus on her studies. Her father, bursting with pride, was cautious. “It’s not the right time. She has already been in limelight in the national and international media. Her life can be under threat and she has to go a long way,” her father told me.

The last time that I was with Malala, my 9-year-old daughter, Risa, called me to ask when I was coming home.

“I am with a hero, a very courageous girl. She has defeated the Taliban,” I told her.

“The horrible Taliban? She must be so brave. Can I talk to her?” my daughter asked, and the girls chatted on the telephone for a few minutes.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2012/1011/My-conversations-with-Malala-Yousafzai-the-girl-who-stood-up-to-the-Taliban

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