Malala Complex

As an educationalist, it is natural that I should support Malala Yousafzai's right to have an education. This is further reinforced by our common Pashtun heritage. She is also from Swat, so this resonates even deeper. I am genuinely proud to see her stand on a world platform - at the UN General Assembly in New York - and confidently address an international audience. My first reaction? Very impressed. She is one of us and her campaign is a morally justified one. She is a Pashtana. She is a Swati. She is still only young (having turned 16 on July 12th). She is a survivor of one of the most horrendous crimes to have occurred in recent times. She is truly inspirational when it comes to a positive Pashtun image on the international platform. I support this wholeheartedly. Malala is so right when she says: "One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world. Education is the only solution. Education First."

Beyond this, however, it becomes more complex. The doctors and nurses who treated her, are not mentioned and Kainaat and Shazia, who were shot with her have not attracted the same media attention, whilst there are others who are leaching off the 'Malala effect'. The celebs gathering around her, are often simply promoting themselves. Madonna, stripped to her bare skin last year in one of her concerts in solidarity to the girl. The paradox? Malala, like most Pashtanas appears modestly dressed in public. Gordon Brown is not the only politician to have made mileage out of her tragedy. The contradiction? Four years ago, whilst still in Swat, she wanted to be a doctor, not a politician. Sure she was young and politics has a place in bringing about wider change, but it is now much more complex than a case of girl who single handedly took on the Taliban.

As a Pashtun, my first reaction is to want to protect her - not 'smother' her, as could happen in our male-dominated set-up. As an educationalist, I want to take her campaign and make it universal. As an individual, I want her to succeed and grew up to be a contributing member of society. As a political cynic, I wish the politics around her would go away, and this is where I see the difficulty in her campaign. The well-crafted speech that Malala delivered at the UN had many, many merits but the conservative reaction in Pakistan and Afghanistan continues to be part of the challenge. The Taliban still draws sympathy from those who have not benefited from the US presence in Afghanistan and the damaging ripple effect this creates in Pakistan.

They will see personalities - actors, singers, politicians, liberals etc. who will use their own Malala campaigns - as something very alien.  It serves to cloud the cause for universal education - and for the Yousafzai's delegitimizes their position and potentially damage the long-term good. Ziauddin Yousafzai, Malala's father, was - in the end - forced to distance her from her own people and take his family out of Swat. They are now in the hands of outsiders; outsiders with their own agendas.

I hope I am wrong and that the education is not entirely lost to the politics because the cause remains noble. 

Read Malala's Speech in Full.

I Want To See The World United ...

The song comes from the UN's 7 Billion Actions series, and gives us a chance to look forwards with a simple message of unity.  It is a good way to start the New Year.

Hope and wishes.

Human Rights; Human Wrongs

For a couple of days now I have wanted to explore a thought or two on the subject of human rights. Coinciding with the official UN Day that celebrates the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights I have a question that asks if the UDHR applies to all. Would it be right, given the tile, to describe the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as truly universal?  

This is where perceptions matter on the intention of Human Rights matter. Perhaps in many traditional societies, the human rights movements associations with individualism don't always fit with the social importance placed on the collective (that is, families and communities etc.). Should we be surprised therefore, that in the heart of Africa and Asia, and across the Muslim world, public sensibilities mean that the interpretation of aspects of the UDHR often it lines up with 'western' social attitudes? This is perhaps why governments 'get away' with violations.

And what of those societies that supposedly espouse the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but that ignore the rules themselves? The UK's obsession with electronic surveillance and the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, for example, operate in a human rights 'grey area'. Both these are examples when, presumably, the 'collective' interest is put before the 'individual' interest.

Considering that many years have passed since 1948, and most the world still remains tied to cultures that reject individualism, can the notion of Universal Human Rights truly have universal support?

United We Stand

Peace on Earth

In this mini-series on postings tied to a common theme, here's one that both amuses and bewilders. The idea that Peace on Earth might somehow be tied to "alien intervention" (see this posting) is one that was taken seriously enough to get a mention at the United Nations. When he was in power US President Ronald Reagan made several speeches with regards to the challenges humans would be met with in the face of an alien invasion. Open interpretations, of course and take with a pinch of salt or several if you need to, but also consider the latter part of this message:

"... when you stop to think that we're all God's children, wherever we may live in the world, I couldn't help but say to him [Gorbachev], just think how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held if suddenly there was a threat to this world from some other species from another planet outside in the universe. We'd forget all the little local differences that we have between our countries and we would find out once and for all that we really are all human beings here on this earth together." 

Education: A Human Right

I begin this posting with a quote that I used this summer for my thesis:

"Hope dims for universal education by 2015 … The total number of children out of school is … 69 million in 2008. Almost half of these children (31 million) are in sub-Saharan Africa, and more than a quarter (18 million) are in Southern Asia." (see The Millennium Development Goals Report, United Nations, 2010).

In their 2010 analysis, The Global Campaign For Education reported that if “current trends continue, the slowdown in progress in enrolments will mean that in 2015 there will be more children out of school than there are today. In addition, too often the quality of education on offer is very poor, leading to early drop-out and illiteracy”.

As we lead up to International Literacy Day, UNESCO report that in 2008, 796 million adults (15 years and older) could not read or write. The Right to Education Project state what many of us have come to expect from education, but one that we don't always see in real numbers.

"As well as being a right in itself, the right to education is also an enabling right. Education ‘creates the “voice” through which rights can be claimed and protected’, and without education people lack the capacity to ‘achieve valuable functioning as part of the living’. If people have access to education they can develop the skills, capacity and confidence to secure other rights. Education gives people the ability to access information detailing the range of rights that they hold, and government’s obligations. It supports people to develop the communication skills to demand these rights, the confidence to speak in a variety of forums, and the ability to negotiate with a wide range of government officials and power holders."

Every 3.6 seconds

More than 30 per cent of children in developing countries – about 600 million – live on less than US $1 a day and every 3.6 seconds one person dies of starvation. Usually it is a child under the age of 5.

Poverty hits children hardest. The first, 2015 Millennium Development Goal is to work towards the reduction by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and to reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

Some of these are very much connected. For example, there is a natural connection between the goal to improve maternal health care and child health care and movements towards the reduction of poverty focussing on children would be connected to access to universal primary education.

This still remains a Millennium Promise by the UN. Is it possible?

Five years will tell.

International Mother Tongue Day - پښتو ژبه

پښتو ژبه

وايي اغيار چي د دوزخ ژبە دە
Wayee aghyar chi da dozakh jaba da
The enemies say that it is the language of hell
زە بە جنت تە دە پښتو سرە ځم
Zu ba jannat ta da Pakhto sara zam
To heaven I will go with Pashto

حمزه شينواري بابا، ١٩٩٤-١٩٠٧
Hamza Shinwari Baba, 1907-1994

On another forum, as part of my MA course, the issue of English language imperialism happened to come up a couple of days ago. I'm a non-imperialist, and a supporter of the right to learn in Mother Tongue. It so happens that today is the United Nations International Mother Language Day.

Here's the link to the document that details the General Assembly's Resolution on the protection of multilingualism.

A Lesson in Pashtunwali (پښتونوالی )

Melmastia

Up to 85% of people displaced by the war in Malakand are not in refugee camps. They have been taken in by host families acting on a code known as Pashtunwali, which shapes the behaviour of Pashtoons. It places critical importance on hospitality and the sheltering of guests, melmastia; it is the same principle, in a dark irony, that has prompted Pashtoon communities in Afghanistan and Pakistan to host al-Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden, long past the point that this became a rash and destructive thing for them to do. The humanitarian crisis in Pakistan, the biggest in the world right now, has attracted only a minuscule amount of help. The United Nations says it has just a third of the $500 million it needs to care for the displaced; other aid agencies report even greater shortfalls.

“We can barely meet the basic humanitarian need right now – access to water and sanitation,” said Graham Strong, a Canadian who heads the World Vision program in Pakistan. “People need food. People need shelter. One family I met put 90 people in two rooms.”

There is a predictable scramble to provide tents and food across 27 refugee camps. However, it is much more difficult to reach those who have gone to what are called “host families,” even though their needs are every bit as urgent. Mr. Strong called theirs “an invisible emergency.” The host families strain their own often-limited resources to feed and clothe the new arrivals. Most, Mr. Strong noted, were poor to begin with.

“It's amazing that these families are taking this on,” he said. “I can't think of anywhere else you would see two million people displaced and they go to families.”

In this case, the Pashtunwali code has bailed out the weak Pakistani government, which seems not to have anticipated the human flood that surged away from its military operation, and had neither funds nor facilities to respond.

Responsibility

Mr. Strong and others in the aid community are struggling with the question of who is responsible. “Conflicts are always harder than a natural disaster, but this one is exponentially harder,” he said of his weeks of largely fruitless pleading for more resources. “Is it because there are perceptions that this is a mess of their own making? It is not of their own making. The two million displaced are not responsible for the fighting between government and insurgents.”

تور خان

Adapted for this blog.
For original article see: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1203684/