By: Hidayat Khan

PESHAWAR: At 10am on Tuesday morning, Imran Khan tweeted that he was at a loss to understand why Malala’s Peshawar book launch was stopped. He said his party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) believed in freedom of speech and debate, not censorship of ideas.

It was supposed to be a big day for Malala Yousafzai, Dr Sarfaraz Khan and Peshawar University’s area study centre.

They were going to launch her autobiography, I Am Malala, in her home province and instead, Dr Khan spent most of the morning in the hospital dealing with high blood pressure.

Khan, who is the director of the centre, was at the hospital due to stress from the night before when he received phone calls allegedly from two provincial ministers – one from the PTI and the other from its coalition partner, to not proceed with the launch.

He had still planned to go ahead as planned but when the police called and said that they would not be able to provide security, Dr Khan had no option but to cancel.

Initially, I Am Malala, was going to be launched in Peshawar at 10am on Tuesday by the Bacha Khan Trust Educational Foundation in collaboration with the Strengthening Participatory Organisation at the University of Peshawar.

While speaking to The Express Tribune via email, Malala’s father, Ziauddin Yousafzai said that even Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Rahmat Shah Sail’s work had been banned in the country before. “I feel as if we are being dragged back to the caves,” the email read.

The vice chancellor of the university, Dr Rasul Jan, said that he should have been informed of details regarding the event but was not in this case.

He added that due to the current situation in the province, the administration avoids mass gathering on campus. “The launch of this book, however, is of great importance and could have helped create awareness among the students,” he said. “If they [the organisers] had given us prior notice, we would have arranged for maximum security and other details.”

The official version

Provincial Minister for Information Shah Farman issued a handout claiming that the university was not a proper venue for the book launch. “I Am Malala has nothing to do with the curriculum or extra-curricular activities,” it read. “The book should be launched at a proper venue. It is her autobiography and has nothing to do with education.”

The home and tribal affairs department added that the administration had not imposed a ban on the book and the provincial government was a firm believer in the right of speech and information for its citizens.

Khadim Hussain, the director of the Bacha Khan foundation, said that they had been planning this with the university’s area study department for the last 10 days. He added that the event had been cancelled due to direct intervention from the provincial government.

According to Hussain, Farman and Jamaat-e-Islami MPA Inayatullah had called Dr Khan and told him to cancel the event. He said that when Dr Khan refused to do as they said on the pretext that the university came under the federal and not provincial government, the police superintendent called up saying he could not give them security cover.

Express Tribune

Malala interrupted and the Khan surprised Mohammed Tahseen, whom I fondly call Paa Taseen, is known to me since childhood despite us never having lived in the same city. Fundamentally, that is because of a shared political heritage between our families.

He is a seasoned community development practitioner, peace campaigner and human rights activist. He is a few years senior to me and, therefore, his ideals about the country and society in which we live have been shattered for a few more years. He has been betrayed as a citizen of Pakistan for a little longer than people my age. However, somehow he has been able to retain that hope for goodness in all and, consequently, continues to get surprised when people act differently.

The latest is his shock and anger over the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s decision to not allow the launch and discussion on the book ‘I am Malala’ in the University of Peshawar. In his email to friends, he is also unhappy with the way Prof Sarfaraz Khan, a noted academic was pressurised – almost coerced – by the sitting ministers (he mentions Sirajul Haq and Shah Farman), to call off the event scheduled for January 28. When Prof Khan refused to budge, the government intervened and took administrative measures through the vice chancellor and registrar of the university to stop the event.

Since I have also known some of the organisers in Peshawar, what doesn’t surprise me is the resolve of Prof Sarfaraz Khan and his fellow academics and students to hold the book launch with support from the local civil society. Their struggle for an independent academia and a free media is spread over decades. Likewise, I am not surprised at all with the actions of the right-wing government in power in the province and its ministers – who are not just bigots of varying degrees but offer us a blend of hypocrisy and bigotry. What surprises me is Paa Taseen still being surprised by the PTI and the Jamaat-e-Islami.

Let us understand this blend of hypocrisy and bigotry. To be fair, it is not just the PTI and the JI, but some significant sections of our society that suffer from twisted thinking. Irrational and emotional, unable to connect or correlate happenings and events, craving to enjoy the luxuries of the modern world while clamouring to create a medieval theocracy – we are becoming distinct for all the wrong reasons. It is our affluent and not-so-affluent middleclass that is the most confused.

I have a number of teenaged nephews and nieces. I had a chance to speak to two of them, one in Karachi and one in Rawalpindi, some weeks ago. When Malala, the simple schoolgirl from Swat who championed the right of girls to be educated in the face of their schools being blown up by the Taliban, was hit and instantly became a hero on national media, like others their age these teenagers from our family started wearing pins on their chests saying, ‘I am Malala’.

While she became a hero for the rest of the world, our bigots – playing upon the cultivated insecurity and paranoia that isolates us from the rest of the world – began to churn out venom against the poor girl. Blaming the victim is the favourite pastime for our right-wing opinion makers. When Benazir was assassinated they questioned her coming out of the sunroof of her car to wave at her supporters. Denouncing our heroes gives our bigots some kind of perverse psychological pleasure – from Dr Abdus Salam to Malala Yousafzai (when her book appeared, mudslinging increased further and she and her family were branded agents of western imperialism).

So when I asked the two young people in the family if they had read her book, both of them had interesting answers. The one in Karachi who is younger had read the book but said, “You see Abba, I wonder what she has really done for Pakistan? My teacher and some friends also say that.” The one in Rawalpindi had not read the book. But he said, “If Malala is such a good girl as we were told earlier, why she is being celebrated in western countries? She must be doing something against Islam and Pakistan.”

Now that’s interesting – and somewhat reflective of how we think and how we have made our children think. This is what you get if history is either not taught or selectively taught or its distorted versions are taught in schools. We also tend to forget that it was the Pakistan Army helicopter that brought Malala from Swat to Rawalpindi for emergency treatment.

And, no surprises there, both these teenagers see Imran Khan as the messiah for Pakistan. I didn’t argue much with them. I simply reminded them of their leader’s statement when Malala was shortlisted for the Nobel Peace Prize and didn’t receive it. He said that he had wanted her to win the prize.

The PTI represents the confusion of the young and old in parts of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Karachi about faith, identity and our relationship with the rest of the world. It also represents the hypocrisy of the landed and business elite who saw that this knight in shining armour had a chance to win and so jumped on the bandwagon after his successful Lahore rally in October 2011. It also shows an inherent desire of the leader himself to become the ruler of this country – as hastily as he can.

On Prof Sarfaraz Khan being restricted from holding an event on Malala by the PTI-JI government in Peshawar, why I am not surprised but Paa Taseen is? Because I remember Imran Khan making a statement in India condemning Salmaan Taseer’s assassination while his spokesperson, who now happens to be the leader of the opposition in the Punjab Assembly, spoke at a rally held in favour of Taseer’s assassin in Lahore. Because I am still reminded of the once principled stand taken by Imran Khan against the MQM – and then completely backtracking from pursuing these cases on the advice of his aides. Because I can recall Imran Khan wanting the then ANP government to resign for the Bannu jailbreak and then not asking his own government in the province to resign after the bigger DI Khan jailbreak.

The PTI largely maintains that extremism and sectarianism in Pakistan are an outcome of the war on terror and drone strikes in North Waziristan. Apparently, local history for them begins with the foundation of their party and international history with 9/11. As a result, the PTI has blocked Nato-Isaf supplies for some weeks now while having always stood for dialogue with the Taliban. They clarify by saying that the party has blocked supplies and that the government run by the party has nothing to do with it.

That’s like PPP activists blocking transportation from the Karachi Port while running the provincial government in Sindh. Or PML-N activists blocking trade through the Wagah-Attari border while running the Punjab government. But hang on. Interestingly, Khan has just recently said that he stands with the Pakistan Army but only if he is taken into confidence properly if an operation is to be launched against the Taliban.

It is time for Imran Khan to be surprised. As I write these lines, he has said through social media that he is surprised why the book launch was stopped by the provincial government. Just a couple of weeks ago, he was equally surprised when his provincial government coldly responded to the martyrdom of the school boy, Aitizaz Hasan, in Hangu. It is perhaps time Khan started paying heed to what his critics have been telling him for some time now.

Trying to tie a knot between a supermodel from metropolitan Lahore, who enjoys the same lifestyle as Khan, and a rugged religious warrior of Pakhtun origin, romanticised by Khan out of his love for the imaginary greatness of ancestors, will not work. He needs to bring clarity into his own thinking and in the thinking of the rank and file of his party.

The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. Email: harris.khalique@gmail.com

The News

IT is never advisable for governments to get into the business of banning books. And if the literature in question is written to counter the extremist narrative that is beginning to dominate, as Malala Yousafzai’s I am Malala attempts to do, then official obstructions to prevent the launch of such material can only be termed utterly appalling. As reported, the authorities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have thwarted the launch of Malala’s book which was supposed to take place yesterday at the University of Peshawar.

The PTI-led KP government apparently got cold feet as ministers and university officials pressured the organisers to cancel the event. The police, too, said they would be unable to provide security. This sets a disturbing precedent, especially when we consider that a seat of higher learning was involved. As one of the organisers observed, “It is against the spirit of freedom of expression and promotion of education”.

But there is an even graver problem. The KP government’s buckling under pressure reflects a sense of fear that is palpable across Pakistan — the fear of ‘offending’ the militants. The state is ceding more and more ground to the extremists, allowing them to decide what is and is not okay for public consumption. Such resignation and retreat on part of the state is unacceptable.

Malala has been feted by the world for her courageous stand against extremism and activism for women’s education. She has been welcomed in world capitals and august global forums. Should we not hang our heads in shame because she cannot be appreciated in her own country and province? Let us be clear: Malala is someone the people of KP can be proud of, a symbol of the potential of the troubled province’s youth. PTI chief Imran Khan has expressed disappointment at the cancellation of the launch. He would do well to convince the KP government to reschedule the event and facilitate it so that it goes ahead without a hitch.

DAWN