About a Girl

So Malala won the Nobel Peace prize. And although everybody in Pakistan may differ on whether she deserves it or not, it's heartening to note that all our people from Karachi to Houston are finally united under the banner of getting their panties in a knot over it. Regardless of whether we're 'Team Malala' or 'Team Edhi', we're very pissed. Meanwhile, Malala Yousufzai happily continues with her good work and Abdul Sattar Edhi with his. 'Team Edhi' cries murder foul while 'Team Malala' goes witch-hunting for anything and everything that moves and thinks Malala shouldn't be president of the Sun and Alpha Centauri and everything in between. As for me? Well, I'm 'Team Edward'.
Seriously though, in all those long Facebook rants about the matter, all I see are charged up, noble-intentioned people with emotional statements and heated words supporting one side or the other, quoting articles that subscribe to their viewpoint like they're gospel truth and demonizing the other side with the old, "Oh-My-God, how could you? I mean… it's so obvious! What are you; stupid or something?"
And that is exactly what I'm going to do as well.
I have two tools to see an issue with relative clarity, the cost-benefit analysis (or the pros and cons of the matter) and the stakeholder method. I will use the latter method in my article. Everything I'm going to say is as opinionated as the next guy or girl, except that I'm going to state my opinion for each stakeholder that I've identified in the Malala Affair. But before that, a word about evidence, its types and their relative validities. I'm putting this part in, despite its seeming irrelevance to the topic because when you come to a decision about anything such as the Malala Affair, rate the evidence that leads to your convictions and change your mind when presented with evidence of a higher order.
Types of evidences (In descending order of strength):

1.     Evidence from many sources that say the same thing: When many people say the same thing and they got their info from their own independent efforts, that thing is more likely to be true. Well okay, you're probably thinking, that's alright then. If hundreds of newspapers the world over are saying that pigs can fly, it must be true. Not so fast. In the age of tight deadlines where everything must be in order before going to press, it's not possible for each paper to investigate each and everything. So papers will quote and parrot whatever news source they think is reliable. So you have a small number of opinions being replicated worldwide.

2.      Evidence that you've seen directly: There is no substitute for your own senses, unless it's point 1. In a nutshell, the lesser the number of links between you and the news source, the more reliable it will be. There will be less static and distortion on the way. Yes, even our senses can be fooled which is why this is point 2, not 1.

3.       Evidence from a direct source that has seen said event happen. 

4.       Everything else.

Coming back to the topic at hand, the following is the stakeholder list. I may have missed a few so do let me know.

1.       Malala the individual

2.       Her people

3.       Pakistan

4.       The issue she fights for

5.       The world

6.       The Nobel Prize itself

1.       Malala the individual: Unless you have sufficient evidence, it's not right to get personal. Even then, if one does have damaging evidence about somebody, wouldn't it be better to hide it? So casting aspersions on Malala's intentions without proof is just a manifestation of our national characteristic: bitchy, cranky cynicism. Regarding the prize, it's a wonderful personal milestone for her and I'm pretty sure Harvard will be nipping at her heels soon and I hope she uses the education she receives to do good.

2.       Her people: Girls' education among the patriarchal Pakhtun (who prefer this term to Pathan), or its lack thereof, is no doubt an important issue. Most rural based Pakhtuns educate their daughters to about middle school at most. Giving her this Nobel Prize definitely furthers her cause. Or does it? Or a third option: does it mean anything for her people at all? I honestly don't know. We can conjecture that it 'sows the seed of revolution in the masses', 'raises awareness', 'informs women of their rights' etc. but what proof do we have of that? I'm sorry if the cynicism that I so vilified earlier on seems to be creeping into my voice but such abstract statements don't really tell us anything. So let's look at it the other way round, would the prize do Pakhtun women any harm? I can't think how so I guess it's all good.

3.       Pakistan: It definitely puts the nation in a good light internationally. After seemingly doing everything wrong, we've got a young girl in the news and for once, she wasn't abused. It is an inspirational story to people everywhere. On the other hand, it also highlights the glaring issue of female literacy…yet again. Is there such a thing as bad publicity? Yet another area where I'm stumped.

4.       The issue she fights for: Female literacy is important. But who is the biggest hindrance to it? The alleged Taliban who shot her? Interestingly, it isn't the Taliban who are stopping women from going to school. It is the fathers, the brothers, the uncles etc. It is them who need to be fought. Next, we need to be clear on two points: a) What do we mean by education and b) Is the issue giving girls an education or sending them to schools? Regarding a) If we mean teaching girls the ABCs and teaching them to do the math, no one would really have an issue with that as the main reason Pakhtun girls aren't sent to school is because men have egos and need to 'keep the woman in her place' or they feel that an educated woman will become 'morally loose'. No, it is civic sense, a religious education and health literacy that are more important. A mother, even in the most repressed society is by default the most powerful person as she controls the future. If she feeds her child cow's milk before the age of one because she's not educated and the child has seizures, that is failed education. And in such areas, even the upper echelons of society need schooling. Yes, basic math, English, Urdu etc. are important but teaching our girls, boys, men and women only that won't change a thing in our future. Regarding b) we expect Pakhtun society to 'get with the programme' and send their girls to school and that's where our responsibility ends and feeling good about ourselves starts. Rome wasn't built in a day and no society will change its values in such a short time either. Pakhtun men will not become born-again liberals tomorrow because a girl, someone who talks and looks exactly like the very daughters they're trying to repress, is telling them to send their kids to school. If we realize the goal is female education, then we can think creatively. Distance learning for literacy is an option. Our much maligned health system's Lady Health Workers can impart health education as they've been doing since forever. Get Imams to impart civic sense. Focus on the men as well as the women so that they get their heads out of their butts. Meet these men halfway. Otherwise there is no difference between them and you as both are refusing to budge an inch. They aren't hell's hounds. These men are just like everybody else, with egos and feelings etc. Don't be the 19^th century Christian missionary who came to Africa and expected the entire continent to dance to his tune.

5.       The world: Oh, the world is just over the moon. A victory for women everywhere! The international community has done its due diligence and can now feel good about itself! Face it, one Nobel Prize doesn't mean you've done your job as global citizens and it isn't right for the public who have never seen a Pakhtun (or Pakistani, for that matter) household and understand the cultural nuances of our society to sit in judgement of us. As I said in point 4, meet us halfway. Understand us, instead of making us carbon copies of yourselves. As for foreign governments, making Malala their poster girl doesn't hurt their chances at the next elections at all, if ya know what I mean.

6.       The prize itself: I lost faith in the prize a long time ago. Putting aside all the controversial recipients of the prize in the past, it is neither as prestigious nor as fair as I believed growing up. For one, the selection process is flawed (Check it out at http://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/peace/). For example, only certain people can nominate for the prize, such as University professors, lawmakers etc. You and I cannot. That is impractical you say, as then nominations would number in the millions. That isn't my point. What irks me is that professors and lawmakers aren't in touch with what's going on at ground zero. Lawmakers will nominate whoever serves their purposes. Professors will sit in judgement from miles away. And at the end of the day, who votes? Some Norwegians. What makes their vote more prestigious and 'right' than that of the Swedes? Or the Japanese? Or members of the 188 other nations on this planet? What makes the Nobel Peace Prize so Goddarn special?

Another important aspect of the issue is the age-old problem of recognition of activity vs. inactivity. Remember, the lawmaker who pushes for a good law to be passed is always paraded but no one remembers the lawmaker who fought to prevent a bad law from being passed. That law is buried forever and forgotten so no one takes note, even though his/her job may have been as difficult and important the law maker who got the good law passed. Malala was the lawmaker working to prevent a bad law from being passed- until she got shot and until she won the Nobel Prize. Then she was suddenly the lawmaker who passed the good law. Similarly, there are countless others working as hard as her (not to take away from her achievements at all) and some more so. It just that they haven't been shot yet. That means that we shouldn't give much importance to the prize as it doesn't really say anything about life, the universe and everything. I'm sorry to break it to you this way but Malala has won something that means diddly squat.
See, I'm ending on a very different note from where I started. So many ways of looking at the issue where there's no clear cut answer. I wasn't as opinionated as I thought I would be. I didn't lose my cool but I did realize that I don't have to compartmentalize everyone and everything into good or bad. Being on the fence is okay too. Saying I don't know is fine, even if I come across as dim-witted. It is easy (and fun) to pass judgement but not necessarily the best option. It's is great to support education but supporting female education doesn't have to translate into supporting Malala. She isn't the Holy Grail, the issue itself is. She seems to know that and is toiling away. Edhi seems to know that too. All the hundreds of people doing good know that as well. Then who died and made us the guardians of her Nobel Prize? Stop giving two hoots about her prize or about her character or whether she's a stooge of some foreign power and become so awesome yourself that you bring about change, regardless of whether there's a Nobel Prize waiting for you at the end or not.