Mandela and Malala’s forgiveness

I used his honorific tribal title when I wrote of “Madiba” the week South Africa decided to hold a 10-day December wake for Xhozan Rolihlahla, the “troublemaker” who radically transformed his nation from apartheid. We use “Mandela” in our title today for it is by that name that he is better known around the world.

It was while jailed for 27 years that the social activist latched on to the power of “forgiveness.” Even before he was let out of jail, Mandela was already a free, forgiving man. He also managed to free his captors and jailers from inherited social discrimination.

Desmond Tutu, erstwhile Anglican Bishop, nominated last year a forgiving person for the 2013 International Children’s Peace Prize, this time a teenager of Muslim Pashtun descent from Pakistan’s Swat Valley, who at 11 said at a Peshawar press conference, “How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?” For that and her subsequent crusade, she was gunned down to the edge of her breath.

Named Malala (grief-stricken) after a Pashtun woman poet from southern Afghanistan, she survived an October 2012 assassination to capture the world’s attention. She is addressing the plight of many girls around the world denied their right to an education as a consequence of ingrained social prejudice and discrimination.

She addressed the United Nations in July 2013 on her 16th birthday in what is now known as “Malala Day.” She focused once more on access to education worldwide for children, male and female. She said, “The terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear, and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born. …I am not against anyone, neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group. I’m here to speak up for the right of education for every child. I want education for the sons and daughters of the Taliban and all terrorists and extremists.”

In presenting a youth resolution to the august body, she added: “Malala Day is not my day. Today is the day of every woman, every boy and every girl who have raised their voice for their rights.” And she did not mean just wearing or not wearing the burqa in public!

Let’s get two words clarified: Pashtun and Taliban.

Pashtun is the tribal confederation that straddles Afghanistan east and Pakistan west, the predominant ethnic leadership in both countries. Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai is a Pashtun. So are most Taliban. Malala is a Pakistani Pashtun. The Pashtuns played off Russia and Great Britain in “the Game” that pitted one empire against the other when they competed to control the ‘Stans of central Asia. 

“Taliban” is plural of the Pashto word “talib,” an Arabic loan word that means “a student,” though news media often use the term for an individual. “Taliban” means “students of Islamic knowledge” promoting a strict adherence to Islam’s Sharia.

Malala’s family name is the common Pashtun Yousafzai, “son of Joseph,” which leans toward a Semitic lineage from the Levant. Its popularity is akin to having Kim as a family name in Korea. The Pashtuns trace their ancestry back to Israel’s lost tribes, later converting to Christianity and Islam.

“Forgiveness” is how we link Mandela and Malala as figures of emulation. Mandela’s graciousness that marked his later years was a function of age and choice, different from his earlier activism. In the same vein, some attribute a certain unsettling assertiveness, if not abrasiveness, in young Malala as she becomes the most well-known teenager in our time. Dawn, Pakistan’s NYT-Guardian-type publication, rated Malala’s October 2013 autobio, I am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban, with a below “A” rating, with one of the op-ed writers citing in-your-face language and attitude.

As it is with Mandela, Malala has diehard detractors. What is incontrovertible is their attitude toward the past to which we allude to the word “forgiveness” as a relevant point. I do not mean the religious sentiment of turning the other cheek, though both have shown they could. I mean that at any point in history, the past is done! There is no turning back, nor is it possible even to revisit previous events. The issue is how we relate to the past in the present, and how we utilize it to empower us to create a new future. “Forgiven” is “given fore”; the past is rendered in full service to the future!

Malala takes what the Taliban stands for, particularly its opposition to female education, sadly echoed in similar forms around the world, and show similar passion to ask dramatically: Is this how we want the future of our children to continue? A response is required.

Mandela said the same of “apartheid” and flung his whole being into the barbwires of history. The world paid attention. Malala is doing the same on education, and the right of everyone, not just the privileged, to have one. It would be a shame if we do not heed the teenager’s call.