Two years and a day after a Taliban gunman shot her in the head on a
school bus full of children, the Nobel committee in Oslo named Malala
Yousafzai the youngest-ever winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. But while
her victory was celebrated around the world, in Yousafzai's home country
of Pakistan her public image is more complicated.
While most in the country, including leading politicians and public
figures, have reacted with pride at her award and have supported her
over the years for her activism, a vocal segment of Pakistan’s
population has not been so pleased with her global recognition.
Some portions of Pakistani society, leaning on ultra-conservative
ideologies and conspiracy theories, hold onto the belief that Malala’s
assassination attempt was sensationalized, or even faked, in order to
discredit the country and its right-wingers. For them, this victory has
done little to change their views.
“The same people who were opposed to girls’ education or prone to
conspiracy theories are not changing their minds,” Shuja Nawaz, director
of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council, told ABC News.
Malala Yousafzai, Kailash Satyarthi Win Nobel Peace Prize
“Their accusation was that this was all staged, that the injuries were
not real,” Nawaz said. “It was outlandish, but it showed that there was a
lobby in Pakistan that wasn’t interested in an inclusive system where
women had a role.”
Malala spent her preteen years as an education activist in the Swat
Valley during the years of Taliban control. While the Taliban shut down
girls’ schools in the region, she blogged about her experiences as a
young female student. After the Pakistani military broke Taliban rule
there, Malala pushed to expand school facilities for girls.
Her public activism soon landed her on a Taliban hit-list. On the orders
of Mullah Fazlullah, a Taliban leader in Swat, she was shot in the head
while riding home from school on Oct. 9, 2012.
“In those first days there was a lot of confusion, and some of the
reactions were very, very ugly,” Nadeem F. Paracha, a columnist for
Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English-language newspaper, told ABC News. “The
reaction now to [the Nobel Prize] has been far, far better.”
Indeed, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was among the first to
congratulate Malala on her victory, and leading figures from other
parties and the military soon followed.
But there were some aberrations. Imran Khan, who was one of Malala’s
earliest supporters and is leading a popular opposition movement in the
country, congratulated her reservedly on Twitter but did not mention her
at all at a massive rally for his party in the country’s heartland. And
many of Khan’s followers online continued to express suspicion and
resentment toward Malala.
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