Misplaced Excitement About Malala
Making the proverbial Faustian bargain for fame
Developing Just LeadershipKhadijah Ali
Sha'ban 15, 1439 2018-05-01
News & Analysis
by Khadijah Ali (News & Analysis, Crescent International Vol. 47, No. 3, Sha'ban, 1439)
Malala Yousufzai was in Toronto on April 12 as guest of Islamic Relief Canada, a Canadian Muslim charity, ostensibly to raise funds for girls’ education. She has become something of an international celebrity thanks to Western media projection.
Despite being a weekday, the hall was packed to capacity (800 plus). There were not only the fawning Muslims but also many Canadian politicians including Members of Parliament that ordinarily shun Muslim events. Getting too close to Muslims invites the wrath of the Zionist cabal and right-wing fascists that are quick to paint everyone with the broad brush of terrorism.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s wife, Sophie Gregoire was also there. She was the MC for the evening. The format was straightforward — no long boring speeches. Both Sophie and Malala spoke for about 10 minutes each and then for about half hour, Sophie interviewed Malala on stage.
Questions had been invited from participants beforehand but Sophie’s background as television host got her carried away. At one point she asked Malala, “How does it feel to live in a male-dominated society?” Obviously she meant a Muslim male dominated society. This drew gasps of disbelief from the predominantly Muslim audience. Malala handled the question well but Sophie ought to enroll for Islam-101. To be the prime minister’s wife is no excuse for ignorance about a major faith. Or is it her French background? There is a great deal of prejudice against Muslims in Quebec. The list is long: anti-hijab and anti-niqab policies; and then Alexandre Bissonnette’s cold-blooded murder of six Muslims on January 29, 2017 while they were engaged in nightly prayers in a Quebec City masjid. This was the first terrorist attack on a place of worship in Canadian history in which worshippers were killed. Kil-lings do not occur in a vacuum.
Islamic Relief Canada, the host, has a huge annual budget and boasts on its website to be the “largest” Muslim charity in Canada. It has a staff of at least 20 with the lowest salary at around $36,000. Assuming that its top executives draw twice as much, the salaries alone consume about one million dollars annually. Add to that the huge building the charity uses for its operations and it is not difficult to figure out that its expenses are around $2 million annually.
While both Islam and Canadian law allow such expenses to be withdrawn from the funds collected, this is a huge amount. Further, all Islamic charities in Canada operate in the safe zone. If a particular victim group — the people of war-torn Yemen, for instance — are not in the government’s good books, then these charities would not go near them regardless of their suffering.
There is little doubt that people in Yemen, especially children, are suffering terribly, yet no Canadian Muslim charity is willing to help them despite appeals to do so. These charities would rather help the “Syrian refugees” from East Ghouta — that would be noble — except that no refugees from Ghouta have left Syria and none of the Muslim charities has any presence in Syria whatsoever. The Syrian Red Crescent Society and the International Committee of the Red Cross are looking after all the refugees from Ghouta. At least 60,000 have returned home since the terrorists were driven out from there.
So why do charities, even Muslim charities indulge in false advertising? In its April 12 event with Malala, Islamic Relief said it was raising funds for girls’ education. It did not say precisely where. Besides, there was little fundraising done at the event that definitely cost a pretty penny given the opulence of the hall, the décor, and the food.
But let us return to the issue of Malala. She claims to be promoting girls’ education. The UN has even designated her as its ambassador for education. This is admirable but how does that square with her response to a group of female Muslim teachers who asked to be photographed with her during the Toronto event? The teachers said this would encourage their female students to excel. The request was brushed aside. Why? Is Islamic education for girls, even in Canada, something to be frowned upon?
What kind of education is Malala promoting and whose agenda is she following? She had no problem being photographed with blasphemers like Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasreen. Her father said Taslima’s insulting attacks on the Prophet (pbuh) are “freedoms of expression” (nastaghfir-allah).
At the Toronto event, there was a huge phalanx of vicious-looking bodyguards around her. They kept everyone at bay except a select few. While precautions for her safety are important, surely the Taliban have not invaded Canada!
In the Taliban attack on Malala (October 9, 2012), two other girls were also hit. Most people do not even know their names (Shazia Rahman and Kainat Riaz) and they have not received the kind of publicity that Malala has. Similarly, attacks on girls elsewhere have hardly evoked a yawn from the same Western do-gooders. President Barack Obama, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, all condemned the attack. Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie suggested Malala should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (she got it in 2014) while Madonna put Malala’s name on her bare back!
The question is: why is Malala given so much prominence while other girls attacked in Pakistan and Afghanistan are ignored? For the record, Shazia Ramzan and Kainat Riaz were enrolled at Atlantic College in South Wales, courtesy of Gordon Brown (more on him later). There is clearly a much broader plan at work.
Let us recall the background to Malala’s rise to global fame. It was a BBC reporter Abdul Hai Kakkar who discovered Malala in early-2009. His assignment was to find a “courageous” schoolgirl willing to share her experiences of the threats by Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) against girls’ education. Led by Mullah Fazlullah, the TTP was shutting down schools in Swat Valley as it flexed its muscles. Kakkar happened to approach Malala’s father, Ziauddin Yusufzai, for help and he willingly offered his own daughter’s experiences (Mullah Fazlullah and his gang of TTP terrorists are sheltered in Afgha-nistan’s Kunar province).
The plan gelled into Malala, then 11 years old, “writing her diary” (it was written for her) that the BBC World Service would put on its website under the title, “The Diary of a Pakistani School Girl.” In order to protect her identity, Malala was given the pseudonym “Gul Makai” (corn flower). The diary detailed Malala’s “life” under Taliban rule, their attempts to take control of the valley, and her views on promoting education for girls. One cannot help but question the BBC’s motives in projecting Malala under the cover of promoting girls’ education. What hands were guiding the BBC from behind the scenes?
Malala’s cover, however, was blown that summer when Adam B. Ellick of the New York Times featured her in two videos describing her family’s life as well as showed her at school (operating on the ground floor of their house in Mingora). This was the time the Pakistani military was about to launch an operation in Swat Valley. What was the reason for the Times to go public with this information and who is Adam Ellick?
Scott Creighton, a war veteran who writes for the blog, The American Everyman, had this to say about Ellick on October 17, 2012. “Meet Adam Ellick, the Council on Foreign Relations member and apparent CIA mockingbird stationed at the New York Times. He’s the guy who helped create the Malala Psyop in the first place, the plan to bring for-profit school systems to all of Pakistan.” The Times’ videos led to Malala gaining instant international fame.
The videos also brought the Western-doting Pakistani media flocking to Malala’s door. She began giving interviews in the print and electronic media. We need to keep in mind that she was barely 11 or 12 years old at the time. Nobel laureate, Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, nominated her in October 2011 for the International Children’s Peace Prize (a year before the Taliban attack). But there was something else that was even more striking. Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan who died on December 13, 2010, also found the time to meet Malala and her enterprising father. Their picture together went viral on the internet. Why would Holbrooke, a no nonsense diplomat, be interested in non-entities like Malala and her father when he had little time for prominent politicians and diplomats?
Malala was blunt and provocative in her television interviews. It seemed as if the young girl was deliberately being pushed to say things to provoke the Taliban. Here is what she said in one TV interview, “In a situation where a lifelong school break was being imposed upon us by the terrorists, rising up against that became very important, essential.” Considering that even Pakistani politicians surrounded by a phalanx of bodyguards and other security detachments spoke more guardedly, Malala’s statements, however true, were bound to evoke a strong reaction. This is not to suggest that the Taliban are justified in intimidating people but the reality is that unless there is adequate security against such threats, it would be prudent not to provoke them unnecessarily.
Where does the former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown fit into this picture? He launched a United Nations petition using the slogan “I am Malala” demanding that all children in the world should be in school by 2015 (this has not materialized so far!). Brown’s activities on behalf of Malala and other children would sound more noble were it not for the fact that he heads the “global campaign for charter, for-profit school systems.” There is tons of money to be made in this enterprise.
Let us be clear: Western rulers and corporations are not in the business of doling out cash to Third-World countries or care much about children unless they have a hidden agenda behind the facade of “good work.”
Brown’s campaign is supposed to work in tandem with the UN scheme run under the alluring title, “Education First.” This is a global public/private partnership scheme whereby not-for-profit institutions would be privatized. The “not-for-profit” institutions are run under the label, “Global Business Coalition for Education,” and set up by such Western — mainly American — corporations as Accenture, Hess, Chevron, Pearson International and others. Their targeted countries are Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and Nigeria.
One is constrained to ask, what interest do these multinationals have in promoting education in the Third World, especially Muslim countries? The first is clearly to re-route the billions of dollars to their own pockets. The other equally sinister plan is to promote Western culture, thoughts, and values by using the label of education (read that: to de-Islamize the people who have been Muslims for over a millennium).
Malala is being used for the West’s criminal enterprise notwithstanding visits to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace or the honorary Canadian citizenship bestowed upon her (April 12, 2017). She has already stated she would like to become the prime minister of Pakistan. Naturally, Western elites choose and groom rulers for Muslim countries: in some through coups, bombs, and missiles and in others through education!
