Pakistan’s daughter inspires global pitch

By Kamran Rehmat/Islamabad

Monday, this week, immortalised Malala Yousafzai. Finally, Pakistan’s 15-year-old icon of courage won what she always deserved ever since she first stood up and defied the Taliban at the tender age of 11 — a global pitch to translate a cherished ideal.

Unesco and Pakistan joined hands in Paris to further the cause of universal education. ‘Stand up for Malala: Girls’ Right to Education’ was a gathering rich in inspiration and collective wisdom and it all sprang from the undying resolve of one girl determined to pursue the goal of education as a fundamental right for every child in the world, particularly girls, who are more deprived.

It was a poignant moment when a message was read out from Malala, who is currently undergoing specialised treatment at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham following a cowardly attack by the Taliban to silence her last October on her way home from school in her native Swat.

Malala thanked her supporters and well-wishers and pledged to keep fighting back. “Today is the happiest day for me because the honourable president of Pakistan and the Unesco are here to help the poor and uneducated children,” the message read.

Malala said she had received thousands of cards full of good wishes and a lot of gifts but a greater honour for her would be education for all girls.

“The sooner all deprived children go to school, the sooner I will get better.”

UN Special Envoy for Global Education and former British prime minister Gordon Brown, who has been in the forefront of the ‘Malala Plan’, says it envisages getting all girls into school by the year 2015 — perhaps, a bit ambitious but which cannot be faulted for its noble intent.

Brown said in time Malala herself would lead the campaign. One of several leading international figures to pay tributes on the occasion, the UN envoy recalled that the Pakistani girl was defying the Taliban in pursuance of educational goals for both herself and other girls at a time when the militia had blown up nearly 600 schools in the region.

“If the Taliban sought to vanquish her voice once and for all, they failed. For today, her voice and her insistent dream that children should go to school echoes all around the world, as girl after girl, each wanting all girls to have the right to go to school, identifies with Malala,” Brown observed.

The global pitch for Malala stands in stark contrast to the questionable reception at home, which apart from the Pakistani nation, bordered on obfuscation where the national leadership was concerned. Few were willing to condemn Taliban by name.

Nearly all the mainstream newspapers in Pakistan carried a wire image of President Asif Zardari meeting Malala on the front pages of their Sunday editions.

Yet the irony was stark: this was the first time the president was meeting the girl whose abominable shooting by the Taliban last October brought Pakistan’s existential fight with extremism into the kind of sharp international focus no diplomatic enterprise previously could.

Furthermore, the president was meeting Malala not on home soil or in the immediate aftermath of an episode that so shocked, angered and eventually, drowned Pakistan in sorrow that it could not have been missed for the world.

Reportedly, the first interaction — a telephone call made by the president to Malala’s father Ziauddin — took place was on the third day of the incident. By then, the president had been superseded by the army chief, who flew into Peshawar (more about that later) and Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf chairman Imran Khan. Sending Interior Minister Rehman Malik — it is not clear if it was his own initiative — was not seen as enough.

Amid nationwide gloom, a visit from the president whose office is a symbol of the federation, would have made a significant statement. She is now, of course, celebrated thanks to the global recognition of her enduring courage in the face of adversity — the parliament even adopted a resolution to declare Malala the ‘Daughter of Pakistan’ the other day!

Nevertheless, the redemption is welcome. The president led Pakistan at the Stand Up for Malala: Girls’ Right to Education conference in Paris, where a slew of international figures and representatives of important educational organisations, foundations, INGOs as well as academicians, donors and religious figures attended.

These included French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayralt, former British prime minister and UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown, former Finnish president Tarja Halonen, former Chilean president and Executive Director UN women education Michelle Bachelet, UAE  Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, Under Secretary General and Special Representative of UN Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict Leila Zerrougui, Director General Isesco Dr Abdulaziz Othman Altwaijri, State Secretary to Minister for Gender Equality and Deputy Minister for Education Maria Arnholm.

The British government was represented by Baroness Sayeeda Warsi — its first high profile Muslim minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) holding the portfolio of Interfaith Relations and Human Rights as well.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the EU’s top diplomat Catherine Ashton sent special videotaped messages of support.

The broader framework centered around the Education For All initiative, which seeks universalisation of education with a special emphasis on the education of girls — this would aim at bringing into the net some 61mn children (most of them girls) who want to pursue education but are deprived thanks to circumstances beyond their control.

The objective of the Stand Up for Malala conference was to sensitise the global community about the importance of education for girls and the enormous challenges and obstacles encountered by those millions of them seeking education.

Hopefully, it will pave the way beyond basic schooling for advance education for girls. Stand Up for Malala is being seen as a pivot to motivate, mobilise support and draw commitment from various participants to accelerate the global agenda for education of girls.

A Memorandum of Understanding to establish Malala Fund to promote education for girls was also signed between Pakistan and Unesco for which President Zardari announced seed money to the tune of $10mn.

♦ The writer is freelance journalist based in Islamabad. He can be reached at kaamyabi@gmail.com