Taliban rhetoric = epic fail

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Image: Huffington Post

Image: Huffington Post

Article: Ravinesh Sakaran – Contributor

Malala Yousafzai needs no introduction. If you don’t know who she is, please leave your imaginary bubble and learn from this inspiring Pakistani teen who was shot in the head for trying to promote education to girls, a special privilege for the people in the Taliban controlled rural areas of Pakistan.

In an assassination attempt on the Oct 9, 2012, the Taliban shot her on her way back from school because her activism for education and women rights received international attention. The shooting sparked national and worldwide support for her.

Since her miraculous recovery, she has been fervently advocating for education and women’s rights all over the world. She has gained a huge following and, in my opinion, has done more for feminism than all the other feminists put together in the past ten years.

With all that fandom (myself included), haters discrediting her are an inevitable force of idiotic human nature. Her prime hater is none other than a senior Taliban commander who penned an open letter in response to Malala’s otherwise mesmerizing speech at the UN.

Her speech delved into the importance of education and pacifism. She conceded that she had no hate for the Talib that shot her and forgives him for his egregious act.

Adnan Rasheed, a senior Taliban commander who escaped in a prison break last year, responded in an outlandish and shockingly apologetic manner.

He begins his response wishing that she had not endured the physical pain inflicted on her. He also expressed that he had wished to write to her while he was in prison, to warn her against her anti-Taliban activities. He then went on to defend the Taliban by stating that the Taliban did not attack her because she pursued education but because the Taliban believed that she was intentionally writing against them and was running a smear campaign to malign their efforts to establish an Islamic system.

He also goes on to quote Henry Kissinger and Bertrand Russell to solidify his case that Malala is fighting a cause for the New World Order that is controlled by an elite few, who may or may not be freemasons.

I find these baseless arguments extremely humorous and insane. I think he might also believe that 9/11 was an inside job, Tupac and Biggie are still alive and that UFOs are real.

He concludes that Malala should return to Pakistan and to join a female madrassah (Islamic school) to learn the Koran and to pen for Islam.

I believe that he has proven himself to be a sick, tormented, fanatical psychopath who has a shallow understanding and perception of education and Islam. Islam values education more than anything else, and not only Islamic studies.

It was the Muslims, who saved ancient Greek literature and philosophy during the dark ages, when Christians started to burn philosophical and scientific books and only succumbed to the Bible for education. If it were not for the Muslims’ pursuit of education, western thought would have been lost altogether.

It seems to me that the Taliban are following the footsteps of their Christian counterparts of the dark ages and this is a step backward as the Muslims flourished during the dark ages with their fiery passion for knowledge.

In my humble opinion, education should not be stifled by religion, be it Christianity, Islam or Hinduism. It does not bother me, whichever faith that one believes to overcome his/hers’ fear of death, but when one starts to rule and educate the young with archaic and mythical scriptures, then these kind of anarchic terrorists will continue to exist.

Thus, Malala, you are fighting the good fight. You go! Although I do not support the notion for a moderate liberal Islamic country, or any religious state, for that matter, I’d rather have that than an ultra-conservative religious state of ethnocentric and tribal politics; politics devoid of ideological debate.

I, like John Lennon, can only imagine a world with no country and religion but I’m just dreamer and maybe I am not the only one.

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