Does This Give Me Hope Or Take It Away?

You see that? That's tens of thousands of people in the streets of Karachi, Pakistan. They are not being assholes about a dumb video. They are not protesting anything about the United States, not even our drone war. There are no burning stars and stripes, no Obama effigies.

It is a protest against the Taliban for the shooting of 14 year-old Malala Yousafazi because she was an activist for the right of girls to get an education. It is a protest that contains Muslims, Christians, and Hindus. We can say that it's pretty obviously a sign that the Pakistanis are sick of this shit and are not gonna take it anymore.

The question is who is going to take advantage of this and how. Will it be reformers who want to stop the radical elements from taking over the nation? Will it be the majority party politicians, who see this as a distraction from protesting the U.S. and NATO (and let's be clear: we deserve the protests when it comes to the violence we have brought to that nation)? Pakistan's foreign minister offered that Malala "has put it as a black and white question. She has put it as either you are with the future that she represents or the future they [Taliban] are trying to impose."

Yes, this is a clarifying kind of moment, on many levels. Muslim clerics across the country have declared the shooting "un-Islamic" and have issued, yes, a fatwa against those responsible for it. And the protests, which started small, have only grown.

Meanwhile, Malala has been taken to the UK for medical attention. She has been on and off a ventilator, the bullet having been removed from her neck at a military hospital. There is hope, yes, however slim, for her life and the life of her nation.

 

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