In a country with a more assured sense of identity and its place in the world, Malala Yousafzai’s latest accolade would have been cause for an outpouring of national pride. After all, being appointed a UN Messenger of Peace, the highest honour that can be bestowed by the UN secretary general, is no mean feat — even for a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the youngest ever laureate to boot.

This time around too, Malala, now 19, is the youngest ever messenger of peace, and the first Pakistani designated as such. To appreciate the enormity of this achievement, consider some of the distinguished high-achievers currently on the list: among them, astronaut Scott Kelly, anthropologist Jane Goodall and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Why then the deafening silence from the government and the churlish lack of acknowledgement from most of Malala’s fellow citizens — who do not hesitate to play up the Pakistani connections, however nebulous, of people with far less consequential achievements?

Therein lies a clue to our society’s contrariness and the confoundedly perverse lens through which it views the world, indeed to the self-fulfilling prophecy of its perpetual victimhood.

For Malala was an advocate for education long before she was shot in the head by a TTP militant in October 2012 when she was 14; she had even won a certain degree of international recognition for her courageous activism.

But the attack, which required her to be flown to the UK for treatment, elevated her global profile exponentially. It was then, inexplicably, that perceptions about her in her country began to shift. The more praise she garnered from world leaders — which increasingly became the case given that her brush with death did nothing to deter her from tirelessly campaigning for universal education — the more reviled she became at home.

Though but a child, she was labelled a ‘Western agent’, a ‘traitor’, ‘anti-Islam’ etc. The malevolence directed at her since then has been such that Malala who should have been the pride of Pakistan, is forced to live in self-exile, the threat to her life in her country very real and ever-present.

Meanwhile, her Malala Fund continues doing laudable work for girls’ education in several African and Middle Eastern countries. And also in Pakistan, whose people sadly do not have the clear-headedness to see this remarkable young woman for what she is: an eloquent force for good in an increasingly violent world.

Published in Dawn, April 11th, 2017