LUMS Students Say Don’t Want Malala As Keynote Speaker At Convocation
LAHORE: Some students of Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) have reportedly asked the administration to ‘dis-invite’ girls rights activist and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai from the varsity’s annual convocation, saying that she is ‘anti-state’.
The students wrote to the Vice Chancellor of the university expressing their reservations over having her as the keynote speaker at the convocation.
According to social media reports, the members of the graduating batch of LUMS want singer Bilal Khan to grace the convocation ceremony as the keynote speaker instead of Yousafzai. An Associate Professor at LUMS tweeted that the students have said that they “come from army families and that Malala is anti-state”.
One reason put forth by some of our students for disinviting Malala is that they come from army families and that Malala is anti-state. What does this even mean? Didn’t the same army eventually operate against the very people Malala stood against?
— Sanval Nasim (@SanvalNasim) June 29, 2020
However, he clarified that the students who wrote to the VC do not speak for the entire student body and these sentiments have been expressed only by a few students.
Folks: I want to clarify that only a small cohort of students expressed this opinion. Please don’t think that these sentiments extend across the entire student body.
— Sanval Nasim (@SanvalNasim) June 30, 2020
Meanwhile, social media users including LUMS alumni are appalled by the students not wanting Malala Yousafzai to speak at their convocation.
LUMS batch of 2020 has been quite an embarrassment.
It would be an honour for anyone to have Malala as their convocation speaker.
— Shehzad Ghias Shaikh (@Shehzad89) June 30, 2020
LUMS graduates not wanting Malala as their keynote speaker are the logical consequence of the unbroken, sustained campaign to post anyone as anti-state that dares asks questions in the country.
Some classes in liberal arts arent going to help much.— Mao'lana Spits (@antifatwa) June 30, 2020
Hateful rhetoric against Malala Yousafzai is often peddled in Pakistan even by some seemingly educated individuals who accuse the celebrated activist of having links with the American establishment among other things. Some even term the 2012 attack on her a ‘drama’ despite the fact that she was initially treated at a military hospital after being shot at, and was later flown to the United Kingdom (UK) by the Pakistan government.