November was a tension-ridden month in Karachi, with the security narrative commanding attention of people from all walks of life. Never before in any potentially insecure season, such as the festival of Diwali and the ten days of Muharram, has a siege like ambiance prevailed as November this year.
During the Diwali festival there was heavy deployment of police at the temples and in about one-mile radius around them, but during the Muharram ashra there was a clampdown on the whole city, the last three-days of mourning being the worst, when the city died. The silence was deafening and even the crows seem to have caught the tension as they did not set up their morning and afternoon complaining caw-caw. It was not surprising, therefore, that November 10 Malala Day, commemorated throughout the world, passed unnoticed except for a few photo-op, stage-managed scenes of schoolgirls holding up her picture.
Our response to Malala Day can be read in many different ways. The United Nation decision to mark November 10 as Malala Day was celebrated wholeheartedly in the whole world, while in Pakistan officialdom was grumbling that it was the world's way of focusing on what is bad in the country to give us bad press. Pathans, by and large, believed the Day was an attempt to show they were cruel and narrow-minded when it came to the education of their girls. These are two most unbalanced reading for why the world body decided to mark November 10 as an annual celebration.
Please note, the Day is supposed to be a celebration of the importance of educating girls and changing peoples way of thinking to be sympathetic and enthusiastic for female education. The sidelining of females in the matter of education is a world-wide problem. Even in advanced countries until after the second world war, there was little interest in educating girls. Malala Day is like Labour Day, which began from the attack and killing of labourers in America. In short, it is a Day to end backward mindset.
Taliban attack on girls schools in the Swat Valley has been going on since January 2009 without let or hindrance. But they had not targeted children. The attack on Malala with intent to murder her shocked the nation. The attack showed Swat Taliban had moved from damaging buildings to causing collateral damage. It is not that the Sawat Taliban have grown stronger, it is that the government is not interested in destruction of girls schools and by default education of girls. Successive governments by failing to provide girls access to education allowed the monster called Taliban to grow bolder. It is four years since the launch of Taliban attack on girls schools in Swat. Yet even after the Malala incident the matter of girls' education remains ignored.
The whole of Pakistan thinks the Pathanwali culture is the most female-repressive. It is not a fact however. It is a negative image created by ignorance of the Pathan way of thinking. A USAID initiative for adult female education in villages was welcomed by the men in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The USAID's SGAFP report says so.
Pathans comprise the demographic majority in Karachi. One day I asked a Pathan rickshaw driver why Pathans disapproved of female education. He surprised me by saying they did not. I was surprised because like everyone else I too thought they were anti-female education. He told me his daughter and his niece were sent to school, but now that his niece had grown up (he meant reached puberty) she was not allowed to go out and had been taken out of school. When his own child grew up he would have her removed from school. "That is our way," he said. So for starters one ought to provide education to girls till age 12 at schools and set up an education programmes for at-home education for teenagers. This is possible. Burqa-clad teachers could go to homes, there is the television which can be an effective teaching tool. If not in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa at least in Karachi we could launch such programmes. It is better than simply condemning Taliban or criticising Pathan patriarchs.
During the Muharram ashra the frenzied plans for security in Karachi did not prove that the government cared for the city but for their own future. A terrorist attack just a few months before the general elections would not work in favour of the Pakistan Peoples Party-led government or its chances of returning for another term. Every shop along the route of the Muharram procession was inspected and sealed by the police. The ban on pillion riding on motorbikes, though challenged, was enforced. The ubiquitous mobile phone service went off. CNG and Petrol stations closed. The city was immobilised and many cursed the government. I wonder if that will improve their rating at the next general election.