Joining the World in Prayer for Malala

Children

Image lifted fromhttp://paknews.pk

The first thing that struck me as I read reports on Malalas shooting was the village name: Saidu Shareef. Living in Pakistan, we have been conditioned to hear of shootings, bombings and barbarity across the country and get on with our day; unless you know someone who lives where todays incidents took place. A selfish reaction, yes but required when you hear of so much every day. When drone attacks were at their peak, there was a situation in Pakistan known as the IDPs Internally Displaced Persons much like refugees, but because no international borders were crossed, they were homeless in their own homes.

Campsites were set up across the country to house these people, all hailing from various quarters of the then North West Frontier Province (now KPK) and Balochistan regions. These were the less fortunate who didnt have family or friends they could set up house with temporarily, for an indefinite period. These camps helped them make new friends, formulate new families.

I volunteered at one such camp in Swabi, NWFP, where I met a family from Saidu Shareef. From the minute Nasreen, a mother of three, propped her youngest, 8 months old at the time with Bambi-eyes and sun-burned brown hair, in my lap I fell in love. Their other two children, a boy of 11 and a girl of eight, were equally adorable and very energetic. When it was time for me to leave the camp, I joked with their father to let me take their daughter with me. Laughing, he pulled her close and said, She is my princess, you can take a boy! Growing up in Pakistan, we understood that the unprecedented love for a son is tantamount in our culture more so in our rural areas. This man dispelled all those myths with one swift embrace. He said he wanted his daughter to study to become a big person.

I spoke with that family often after returning from my trip. We remained in touch for a couple of years until last year my phone got stolen and with it, the one number I had to reach them. Of course, I am often reminded of them, but the day Malala was shot my heart sank as I thought of them, and of Arooj, their princess.

The mother had told me tales of how the Taliban had restricted their movement as women, and how often they would sight severed limbs in the alley, lying in a puddle of blood, or heads plastered up against a pole as admonition. Nasreen explained how it was difficult for her to walk to the market and how she didnt answer her front door anymore, out of fear of the Taliban. Her sister had been publicly harassed by the Taliban because she offered some Pakistani soldiers water. And I thought it was our duty, as Muslims, to feed the hungry and provide water to the thirsty, she said.

Maulana Fazlullah gained popularity in the Swat region after the October 2005 earthquakes, not by threatening the masses, but by appeasing them. He helped build madrasas, affording local boys education in the light of having no other educational institutions; he helped the poor marry their daughters and provide them with a respectable dower; and most of all, he helped the residents of Swat valley find serenity in prayer in a time when their entire villages were distraught and ignored by the government. Nasreen told me her mother sold her heirlooms and donated the proceeds to Fazalullahs cause because he was educating her grandchildren. The love for education was a reoccurring theme.

Fazalullah was revered for all the right reasons. It was only later, in and around 2007 that he started imposing a parallel judicial system of the shariah courts where beheadings were commonplace; restricting the movement of women and girls, shutting down their schools and stripping them of their right to vote; banning music and burning music stores; shutting down anti-polio campaigns for being part of a western agenda to promote impotency . A tyrant had replaced the once calm provider of solutions.

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Joining the World in Prayer for Malala