A shot that should be heard round the world

TEHRAN, Oct. 23 (MNA) -- “The extremists are disbelievers,” said Imam Reza (AS). On October 9, 14-year-old Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai was shot by Taliban militants in the town of Mingora for speaking out against the extremists and promoting education for girls and women in the Swat Valley. The Taliban tried to justify the attack by citing verses from the Holy Quran and hadiths. The West immediately seized upon this despicable crime and pointed an accusing finger at Islam. This act may have been committed by someone who claims to be a Muslim and belongs to a fundamentalist group that professes to be Islamic, but Imam Reza (AS) would not even have considered whoever pulled the trigger a Muslim. Hence, Islam should not be blamed. The Taliban does not represent Islam any more than Rabbi Kahane’s Jewish Defense League of Zionist settler thugs represents the divinely revealed religion of Judaism or the Ku Klux Klan represents Christianity. Islam places a heavy responsibility on parents and stresses that their children are entrusted to them by Allah. Parents must be thankful for their children and make every effort to educate and care for them, teaching them proper conduct and guiding them on the right path toward Allah. Islam warns parents that if they fail in this endeavor, they will be punished. Daughters hold a special place in Islam since, according to Hazieh Yamani, the Prophet of Islam (S) said, “Your daughters are your best children.” Imam Sadeq (AS) said, “Daughters are good deeds and sons are blessings. One will be rewarded for good deeds, but will be questioned about blessings.” “We have all failed Malala, and it just may be too late to make amends,” wrote one commentator, and we all must assume our share of the responsibility for this unfortunate event. Examining what happened and the context in which it took place, we cannot view it as an isolated, anomalous incident. Certainly, the gunmen who pulled the trigger bear the most responsibility, but then the person from whom the shooter acquired the weapon -- probably an AK-47 -- also bears some, as do the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leaders who authorized this brutal act. Ultimately, the superpowers that used the Afghan and Pakistani people to fight their wars like pawns on a vast imperial chessboard share the blame, as do those citizens of the superpowers who did nothing to protest their governments’ policies. That Malala is a student activist, a winner of Pakistan’s National Youth Peace Prize, and a nominee for the International Children’s Peace Prize plays into the Western narrative of liberating women, so the shooting received wide media coverage. However, little has been written about the day-to-day deaths of other Afghan and Pakistani children who are the “collateral damage” resulting from U.S. assassination drone attacks. For example, three Afghan children, two boys and a girl gathering firewood, were slaughtered in a NATO airstrike on October 14, just days after Malala was shot by the Taliban. The event received scant coverage in the Western media and there was no public outcry over the children’s deaths. Historically, killing children has long been a byproduct of U.S. policy in the Middle East. It is estimated that 500,000 children died as a result of U.S. sanctions on Iraq. Recall the words of former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright who when asked about the deaths of the children caused by those sanctions said, “We think it was worth it.” Many more suffered and died as a result of the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the U.S. proxy wars in Libya and now Syria. Thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese children have met the same fate as a result of the United States’ unilateral support of the Zionist regime. The United States used the Afghan people in their proxy war against the Soviet Union and now is using them again in a futile attempt to secure a broader foothold in the energy-rich Central Asia region. The CIA began funneling aid to Afghan rebels in July 1979 and continued at a greatly increased level after the December 1979 Soviet invasion until their withdrawal in February 1989. The 9-year U.S. proxy war left over one million Afghan civilians dead, with numerous children among them, but the violence continued between combat-hardened rival mujahedin factions vying for control of the government, resulting in even more deaths and suffering for the Afghan people. It was against this backdrop of non-stop fighting and destruction, which killed 30,000 citizens of Kabul in the winter of 1992-93 alone and left 70 percent of the city in ruins, that the Taliban arose in 1995. Largely ignorant of Islamic law and traditions but influenced by Saudi Wahhabi extremists who arrived in the 1980s and 1990s, these “students” managed to gain control of most of Afghanistan by September 1996. Opposition militias remained, however, and rival commanders united in 1997 to form the Northern Alliance that later became the bulwark of the October 2001 U.S. invasion, which has brought 11 more years of strife, misery, and bloodshed. From 1978 to 2012, the contagion of conflict has caused over 6 million men, women, and children to flee from Afghanistan, creating the largest single group of refugees in the world for over three decades. Of the more than 2,500 people killed since 2004 by U.S. assassination drone attacks in Pakistan, 176 were children and a mere two percent of the victims of these strikes were suspected terrorists. Moreover, the U.S. policy of “double-striking” a target -- following up with a second strike shortly after the first -- ensures casualties among the first responders. Fear of U.S. drone strikes is so great in some areas of Pakistan that “kids are too terrified to go to school, adults are afraid to attend weddings, funerals, business meetings, or anything that involves gathering in groups.” So after 32 years of U.S.-induced conflict and chaos in the AFPAK theater, such an incident as the regrettable shooting of Malala should not come as a surprise to anyone. Rather, it is a direct consequence of the viciously brutal violence which the U.S. and other major players continue to inflict upon the region. The shot that dispatched the bullet that struck Malala, fired by the Taliban gunmen, should be a shot heard round the world. It should awaken us to see the killing of children as a crime against humanity, whether the atrocity is committed by extremists who profess to be acting in the name of Islam or by soldiers acting under the auspices of the U.S. or NATO who profess to be targeting terrorists. The shot should compel us to end violence against children and bring the perpetrators to justice, regardless of who they are, for Imam Sajjad (AS) warned us, “If you act viciously against [children] it will come back to you.” (By Yuram Abdullah Weiler)