My Choice for TIME:s Man of the Year

This... is... a repost. 

Don't like those words? Try and imagine Morgan Freeman uttering them in a cold, matter-of-fact, disappointed mode.

The Richard Dawkins Foundation - no, this is not going to be a long, dogmatic rant repeating the oft-told arguments against religion - wrote two moons past about the reasons, or pseudo-reasons, behind the Taliban shooting of 14-year old student and - yes - blogger Malala Yousufzai. Allegedly, the girl had openly expressed dislike for the movement in question and praise for secularism and, wow, president Barack Obama of the United States. Those among her ranks in other countries, particularly the somewhat older who have only then attained the preferential degree of insight and confidence in forming one's own opinions, express more profanic and outrageous statements every day. We may not all share the motives behind the current counter-insurgency in Afghanistan which, like most conflicts in this dull and beautiful corner of the world have drained a multitude of lives, mostly of young boys, the same as in the days of Genghis Khan's extermination war against Khwarezm, Alexander's campaign to subdue Sogdia and Bactria and Cyrus' fatal fall-out against the Scythians. 

However, those of us who believe in the invisible, non-material order or prime mover called Enlightenment may share a common outrage such a blatant attack on a free and prosperous society which no country will ever achieve under the auspices of such irrational, grim, scheming brutes who have with this vile attempt on a courageous and independent spirit once more, and more loudly declared their true and unerasable colours. My preferential counter-statement would be, adhering to these principles of Enlightenment as I claim, what this justification would do to us once universalized. What if each one of us were given the right to put a cap of lead - preferrably two, so I won't have to countenance the kind of person I may have in mind ranting any more jibberish from a hospital bed - into every skull that expresses contempt or praise for that which you consider paramount or unacceptably repulsive? In the approximate words of John Stuart Mill; No definition of liberty was ever so monstrous, no act would it not justify to penalize against, except maybe that of thinking undisclosed thoughts without ever uttering them.

Think about it. "She did no like us, she no like god, she like Barack Obama, so she should die." Excuse? A well-meaning lift, a cocked gun and a bump in the road ("Man, there ain't no bumps") would make a less insulting explanation for having shot an unarmed civilian, let be a child, in the face. The mere fact that these rebels (making a disgrace of that word as well) are named from the Arab word for student (talib) is just deplorable.
I do bet many Pakistanis and Afghans have more or less undisclosed thoughts - about the Taliban or the warlords, of Karzai's and Zardari's positively corrupt, non-secular and rather authoritarian governments (fortunately at an end shortly, though their successors are not like to prove better), of the West, the East, of their own vision and preferences for a future country, most of which, I would bet, contains a degree of peace and want of this fear of disclosing their thoughts. Very few of us truly desire restaints on thought, though many may have desire not to hear opinions they do not share, or even approve of measures of violence against such fixed chains of sounds or dots of colour (words and images). Open attacks, verbal and physical and sometimes unprovoked, on everything from Gay Pride marches (in Kabul... 2034?) to corresponding nationalist and xenophobic gatherings in so-called free countries most gravely underline this fact. All of us do not favour the same system of government no more than we share a similar view of the best way of living, though I would insist on the success of democracy (or no government at all), but very few openly rant against this precious and seemingly omnipresent freedom of thought, at most at an "unnecessary" fraction of its expressions.

By chance or extraordinary achievement (of which Obama has already had his) ordinary citizens find their heroes. Pakistan has had a female Prime Minister (who irrationally had to explain the dangers of childbearing when assuming the office), twice, and perhaps one day a President as well? The product of that perilous Bhutto womb is like to try for it soon, regardless.

The Taliban, not alone in this but perhaps more than other forces in the current state of chaos which has wrapped its arms about rural Afghanistan and much of Western Pakistan, desires an emirate of silence and fear, and will arguably stop short of few measures to realize such a state of affairs. Though both coalition and insurrectionist forces try to harness the liking of the populace they mean to shape along their ideological current, they will fail. But as the retreat of NATO and ISAF forces have already commenced and will have reached something of a goal in just two years, with Taliban forces multiplies in strength compared to a decade ago, when the country was freshly delivered from the arms of indiscriminately suppressive, mysterious and technophobic autocrat Mohammed Omar and his al-Qaeda allies, the question of the future is haunting. When the Taliban ruled the nation from Kandahar, it is said, streets South of the frontline were fairly safe from bombings and drive-by shootings and children such as Malala were not sprayed with sulfuric acid in the face as they went to school. 

But those who commit those acts of terror are prescribers of such an order, to the same ends, and to the greater end of a society where their perverse ranting and rambunctuous piety will not be broadcasted to foreign television sets (none were allowed under their rule). Under the Taliban, girls did not openly attend school, nor did most boys; nor did their elders, the women, compose part of Parliament, nor was there a Parliament worthy anything of the definition, or less so than the Etàts-Generáuxof l'Ancien Regime in France, which, as we who recognize the figure 1789 know, did prove an actual restraint to King Louis' kingly powers. The Taliban leadership recognize no such restraint - being absent in their final revelation to their favorite illiterate businessman - only the sanction to rule by any means by an all-knowing, omnipotent dictator of their own, which allegedly has chosen them, of all people, to exact the exact form of government and code of morality they have subscribed to. Are they sure this god doesn't want his little soldiers to try shoot themselves first, in the mouth, at a set date and time, to see if they are really destined to cleanse the chosen lands from the infidels, domestic and foreign? For a true martyr, prepared of sacrifice when there is nothing to gain in the currency of a maimed or dead enemy, it would make a fair test. And, my fair guess, resolve the region of a lot of obstacles in a heartbeat. Make sure to set it at automatic, so you don't screw up as when you take aim at young teenagers' faces. Faces you shouldn't look at, according to your sacred mores. Remember?

Our desire to withdraw responsibility from inflicting further crimes against the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan will not ensure a sustainable future, although it may appear obvious from previous and numerous examples that a country cannot be altered against its will by external forces. The Taliban is to a great extent such an external force, a crusade for willing martyrs and faithfuls, who provides most of those in the movement who can actually read the Quran; doubt it not. The brutes will not cease to torture and torment adults and children, men and women to achieve and uphold the codes of conduct prescribed by their imaginary celestial order even if every single foreigner leaves or subscribes his arms to the local government. I would for one not be willing to stand there once the currentrégime will dissolve. But it must, and it will, though preferrably when these child-murdering profligates has been weakened in their ranks to the edge of a Humpty Dumpty fall. Their attempts and excuses are pathetic, their only strength lying with the common human groundwork of superstition and preference for anything but no-order. Decisively, the hands and mouth of the Taliban golem has screwed up, big time. It is for those of every colour, caste or creed who desire something else than their preferred emirate of silence to seize the moment.

For Malala's comments of a 14-year old's life under Taliban rule, you find them here. To find out what TIME actually contributed to her heroic efforts, click here.