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The Malala moment: 6 Pakistani views on the girl shot by the Taliban

5. 'An open letter to Imran Khan'

  • By Ben Arnoldy Staff writer

The right-leaning Nation also printed an essay from an Imran Khan supporter urging the populist politician to not connect the drone issue with Malala. 

The moment you and your supporters say “we condemn the attack on Malala and also those who shot her, but…….”, the moment this “but” enters the rationale, the duplicity of thought, the ambiguity of intent, the ambivalence of attitude and the confusion, yes confusion of vision bubbles to the surface like a toxic pollutant.

The writer, Fahd Husain, argues that the Pakistani Taliban and the US drone strikes can both be condemned, but found Imran Khan's condemnation of the former to be lacking. He chastises Mr. Khan for raising drones at the same time as Malala, thereby sending a message that it is an either-or issue when "both are wrong."

The drones are killing us, and the murderers are sitting thousands of miles away. And murderers who have killed forty thousand of our men, women and children; who have slit the throats of our soldiers and videotaped this barbarity, they are here, within our reach.

You, Mr Khan, should vow to take both of them on with everything that you have.

Then Mr. Husain mounts a rarely-heard attack on the central premise of the popular case against the US in Pakistan:

You say extremism will fade away once the Americans leave Afghanistan. How? Have you and your party leadership war-gamed the future scenario? Will Hakimullah Mehsud lay down his arms in 2014 and run for Parliament? Will he and his men renounce violence, retract all their claims about Sharia, invite the army and the political administration into North Waziristan and de-weaponise voluntarily? Do you really think so Mr Khan? And if you do, would you care to elaborate this line of thinking?

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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