Reflection #4

The recent attack of Malala Yousafzai by the Pakistani Taliban has been upsetting and distressing for me. The ninth grader gained fame in the past for a diary she wrote about the Taliban and the harsh Islamic law it imposed in her city of Mingora until 2009. Malala was shoot yesterday on the school bus on the way home; a Taliban gunman entered the bus asking where she was, and she is now in a hospital in Peshawar. The bullet in her spine has been removed and her condition is improving, and many people are praying for her full recovery.

Though Pakistan is not considered part of the MENA region, I still feel like the incident is relevant to this class and the conflict in the MENA region as a whole. It is distressing to me that a girl of only 14 years would be so brutally attacked. But what is even more disturbing is that most major religious parties and mosque leaders have been silent about the shooting, too fearful of Taliban retribution to come out against the group for such a cruel attack. I understand that these religious groups do not want to provoke the Taliban, because it is a powerful group capable of killing and injury many. However, it is important for religious groups to support the people and condemn the actions of the Taliban. Since religious groups can be considered part of civil society in Pakistan, it is important for them to act as allies to the people. When these groups stay silent about acts like the one on Malala, it could be misconstrued as them sympathizing with the Taliban instead of the victim.

In regards to sympathizing with the Taliban, it is also dangerous for religious groups to stay silent about such attacks because the western media focuses on their silence, which in turn shows religion in Pakistan in a bad light. What with all of the other prejudices and stereotypes westerners make regarding religion in the Middle East, situations like this can only make it worse.