Pak women will kick your arse: Mohammad Hanif replies to Taliban's Malala letter

While it is difficult to see reason in anything the Taliban does, their Pakistani chief writing a letter to Malala Yousufzai asking her to return to the country must have been the most difficult of their deeds to digest. Adnan Rasheed, in his letter, goes on to justify their shooting Malala and asks her to come back to Pakistan, enroll in an Islamic school and advocate Islam.

While such audacity has appalled many across the world, writer and journalist Mohammad Hanif, considered one of the foremost liberal voices in Pakistan has written a letter back to the Taliban.

The letter, published in Guardian, in Hanif’s trademark sarcasm points out the ludicrousness of the Taliban’s claims. Hanif says in the letter that the reason the Taliban failed to reign the Swat Valley was because they issued a directive asking working women of the region to stay at home. He also points out how Pakistan’s emerging struggle for education and against extremist views of gender will make sure that their autocracy doesn’t last for too long.

He says:

There was only one lesson to be learned: you can fight the Pakistani army; you can try and almost  kill Pakistan’s commander-in-chief , as you so heroically did; you might wage a glorious jihad against brutal imperial forces. But you can’t pick a fight with the working women in your neighbourhood and hope to win. Those women may never get an audience at the UN but everyone – from cotton picker to bank teller – cannot be asked to shut up and stay home, for the simple reason that they won’t.

He points out how Islam theology itself doesn’t approve of tyranny against women. He says that according to theological texts, 1400 years back, new born baby girls used to be buried alive by people as they were considered a burden. Islam theology claims to have ended that brutal practice. So the religion that the Taliban trumpets so loudly doesn’t in any way approve of what they did to Malala.

He ends his letter saying that while the Taliban might continue with their violent campaign against women, the day Pakistani working women decided to fight back, they’ll have nowhere to run.

Read Mohammad Hanif’s excellent article on Guardian  here.