Aafia, Malala and Western hypocrisy

As Malala Yousufzai delivered her speech in the UN General Assembly, in what is arguably the heart of western civilization – New York – another Muslim woman, Aafia Siddiqui, passed another day of her 86-year imprisonment in a Texas jail, in the model terrorist nation that the US is. Both Aafia and Malala are from Pakistan. But that is about the only similarity between them.

While Aafia was tortured endlessly – physically, psychologically and sexually – by the ‘peace keepers’ of the west, Malala was felicitated. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon commemorated July 12 as Malala Day. It is ironical that among the two, it was Aafia who apparently conformed to western ‘ideals’. Having immigrated to the US in 1990 and completed her PhD in neuroscience, Aafia should have been the perfect selling point for America in advocating feminism and women’s rights and its subsequent attempts in bombing Muslim countries to it. Instead, the exact opposite happened. Aafia was implicated on a series of flimsy charges and tortured in every possible manner to reduce a brilliant individual to a mass of broken bones and torn flesh. Hail the civility of the western civilization!

Malala lived in a place where none could have imagined the ‘mercy’ of Americans to prevail. She hails from the Swat region of Pakistan, a favourite spot for ‘educated’ American drones to show off their skills. Thousands of children have been shredded to pieces by American bombs in Swat and other tribal areas of Pakistan. No doubt children go to heaven even before they can go to school or even fight to go to one. Malala would have expected something similar seeing the beacons of western civilization hovering over her head. However, never could she have imagined that she would become the darling of the people operating the drones over her head and in fact actually visit the place they are operated from – the US. But all this has transpired and from being a potential ‘terrorist’ in the mountains of Swat, she is now the defiant activist in the face of ‘extremists’. And understandably, she refers to the resistance to American oppression as ‘terrorism’ in her speech, though it would not be farfetched to assume who the writer(s) of the speech would be.
Having immigrated to America, Aafia would have never imagined the fate that would befall her. Her religiosity and brilliance, coupled with her being a Muslim at the wrong time in America outweighed the last bits of humanity left in America. Aafia, from being a potential ace for feminists, turned into a poster of female Muslim ‘terror’.

On the other hand, Malala could well have been a victim of American drones – an unknown in the countless unknowns. But instead she turned out to be the poster girl for feminists and champions of humanity in the west. The same champions who were laughing heartily on news channels when western gun powder and metal was slicing through Muslim women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan. This animalistic hypocrisy of the west has etched its name in history as the most oppressive and inhumane civilizations in human history.
Malala, a Muslim (one of the evil Moslems) is suddenly ‘the most conscious girl in the world’. And Aafia, prisoner number 650 in FMC Carswell in Texas is the ‘jihadist immigrant repaying opportunities with terror’.
Such was the quality of treatment given to Malala that the first thing she asked for after regaining consciousness was pen and paper. This was in sharp contrast to the ‘treatment’ given to Aafia, who could not even recognize her own son while roaming about the streets of Ghazni in a staged arrest.

Of course, no justice can be expected from such criminal states of the west. It will continue to use Malalas to promote its supposed universal hedonistic values and ethics. And at the same time continue to torment Aafias in its quest for delivering oppression in the garb of ‘freedom’. Nations and civilizations built on the blood of innocents will never prosper, but will collapse under the weight of its own crimes and the defiance of the oppressed.

Malala delivered her speech from the same place where open and tacit nods were given by the congregation of the ‘civilized’ to invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. And absurdly at the same place, they cheer on Malala and contend that she is now a part of their ‘struggle’ too.

The story of Aafia and Malala is a classic case of a carrot and stick approach. West continues to use Muslims, both to demonstrate its inhumanity as well as its ‘freedom’. But while Malala appeals to west, Aafia appeals to God.

By Junaid Ahmad