[Religious groups
hesitated to challenge the Taliban for religious reasons. Politicians feared
speaking out on safety grounds. And the military, which has a history of
nurturing Islamists to fight its proxy wars in India or Afghanistan, equivocated
by tacitly supporting selected militant outfits, known among militancy experts
as the “good Taliban.”]
By Declan Walsh
 |
Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham,
via Reuters
Doctors at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England, said |
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — The smartly dressed Internet entrepreneur basked in the sun
outside a McDonald’s, down the road from Pakistan’s military headquarters,
considering the furor over Malala Yousafzai, the
schoolgirl who had taken on the Taliban only to be shot in the head.
“We have mixed feelings
about Malala,” said the man, Raja Imran, 30, his eyes shaded by sunglasses,
fiddling with a pack of Marlboros. “Was it the Americans who shot her or was it
Al Qaeda? We don’t know. Some people think this is all an American publicity
stunt to make their point against the Taliban.”
And what did he himself
think? Mr. Imran shrugged.
Several young customers
at the restaurant were similarly ambivalent. Others asked: What about the other
two girls wounded in the shooting? “And what about Aafia Siddiqui?” asked one
young woman, referring to the Pakistani woman convicted on charges of trying to kill
American soldiers and F.B.I. agents by a New York court in 2010 and sentenced to 86 years in prison.
“Nobody mentions her,”
said the woman, who gave her name as Maria, with a pointed glance before
darting away.
Such conspiracy-laden
skepticism about Ms. Yousafzai, who was shot by a Taliban gunman inside her
school bus, is only one strand of public opinion here; others have expressed
unqualified anger at the attack.
But it does suggest
something dispiriting: that Pakistan’s “Malala moment,” and the possibilities
it briefly excited, has passed.
In the immediate
aftermath of the Oct. 9 assault, some Pakistanis hoped it could set off a sea
change in their society. For years, the country’s ability to resist Taliban
militancy has been hamstrung by a broad ambiguity that undermined a national
consensus against Islamist violence.
Religious groups
hesitated to challenge the Taliban for religious reasons. Politicians feared
speaking out on safety grounds. And the military, which has a history of
nurturing Islamists to fight its proxy wars in India or Afghanistan, equivocated
by tacitly supporting selected militant outfits, known among militancy experts
as the “good Taliban.”
But after Ms. Yousafzai
was shot, heart-rending images of the wounded child bounced against coldblooded
Taliban statements that the militants would shoot her again,
if they had a chance. The country suddenly spoke witha unified, furious voice.
Politicians and
religious leaders condemned the Taliban with unusual passion. The army chief,
Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, visited Ms. Yousafzai’s bedside and released a rare
public statement that the military would “refuse to bow before terror.”
Writers compared the
teenage blogger to Anne Frank. Conservative politicians came under harsh
scrutiny.
Just two days before the
attack, Imran Khan, the former cricket star whose political star has soared in
the past year, had led a honking motorcade of supporters to the edge of the
tribal belt, where they mounted a protest against C.I.A.-directed
drone strikes in the nearby mountains. They received largely favorable news
media coverage.
But after the shooting,
Mr. Khan came in for sharp criticism, partly because he favors negotiating with
the Taliban instead of fighting them, and partly because he refused to condemn
the militants in a television interview, citing safety concerns for his
followers in the tribal belt. “If today I start shouting slogans here against
Taliban, who will save them?” Mr. Khan asked.
Commentators said the
episode hurt Mr. Khan’s credibility. “There had been latent fears about his
Taliban policies,” said Fahd Hussain, a television presenter. “This thing
suddenly reminded people that he is not really clear on this subject.”
Mr. Khan, for his part,
is sticking to his guns. “Our liberals support military solution despite them
being counterproductive,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Each military operation leads
to more militancy and fanaticism.”
A military operation,
however, is exactly what was being speculated about early this week, when the
country’s top generals held a secretive two-day meeting that stoked speculation
they were planning a long-anticipated assault on the Taliban stronghold of
North Waziristan — a major demand of the Obama administration.
By then, however, the
backlash against Ms. Yousafzai had already started in earnest. The religious
right attacked the wounded schoolgirl, circulating images on the Internet that
showed her meeting senior American officials and implying that she was an
American agent.
Other politicians showed
little conviction. With the exception of the Karachi-based Muttahida Qaumi
Movement, no party organized mass street rallies against the Taliban — a stark
contrast with the violent riots that seized the country weeks earlier in
reaction to an American-made video insulting the Prophet Muhammad.
In Parliament on
Wednesday, a government motion in favor of a “military operation” against the
Taliban was blocked by the opposition. Most commentators now say a military
drive into North Waziristan is unlikely anytime soon.
Whatever window had been
opened — for military action, or a new unity against the Taliban — now appears
to have closed. “It was a golden moment,” said Mr. Hussain, the journalist.
“But that’s what it was — a moment.”
Others doubted the
moment ever existed. “Remember that we are a confused and psychologically
divided society,” said Ayaz Amir, an outspoken opposition politician. “So it is
too much to hope that our national thinking could turn in the other direction
so quickly.”
In some senses, the
clearest policy comes from the Taliban. This week the militants published a
seven-page justification for their violence against Ms. Yousafzai — “Malala
used to speak openly against Islamic system and give interviews in favor of
Western education, while wearing a lot of makeup,” it read — and threatened to
kill journalists who criticized its tactics.
Others, however, see a
silver lining: that Pakistanis have drawn one major red line when it comes to
Taliban aggression. “You can be a devout Muslim, hate America and be more upset
than Imran Khan about drones,” said Nusrat Javed, a television commentator.
“But if you have daughters who want to go to school, there is universal
condemnation of something like this.”
The whole episode shows
that Pakistanis have an urgent need to “be clear” about the Taliban, said Mr.
Amir, the politician. “There needs to be an intellectual consensus that we have
gone far enough,” he said. “We must draw a line.”
