The lesson of Malala rises above east-west sensitivities It is a cop-out to conflate her case with legitimate Pakistani grievances against the west If, as many expect, Malala Yousafzai is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, the news will be greeted with less than national euphoria in Pakistan, her country of birth. Since she was shot by Taliban gunmen on her way home from school a year ago today, her fame has multiplied in the west, where she is almost universally accepted for what she is - a fearless young advocate of girls" education. In Pakistan, however, where she was also once lauded as an unimpeachable heroine, the mood has swung against her. While many still admire her, in some quarters an extraordinary hate campaign has taken hold. In this parallel world, she is portrayed as a drama queen, a stooge of the west and even, in extreme versions, as a CIA agent who faked her own shooting. Even among those who admire her courage and stance on girls" education unequivocally, there is a queasiness about what some regard as the distorted image of Pakistan her fame is projecting. "If she gets the Nobel Prize for getting shot, for seeking education, it doesn't put Pakistan in the best of light," says Bina Shah, a novelist living in Karachi. From my experience that's not the everyday story of Pakistani children going to school. Why has there been such a backlash? Writing in The New York Times, Huma Yusuf, a Pakistani columnist, identifies three main criticisms against Ms Yousafzai, who recently turned 16. First, her case draws attention to Pakistan's most negative aspect, namely the rampant militancy that grips parts of the country. Second, her campaign echoes what is deemed a western agenda. Third, and most damningly, the west's near sanctification of Ms Yousafzai is regarded as hypocritical since it ignores the plight of many other innocents who have been targeted by western drone strikes and invasion forces. So sullied has the story become in Pakistan that when someone says "Malala," a common rejoinder is "Salala." That is a reference to a village in the northern Mohmand tribal region on the Afghan border, in which Nato forces killed up to 25 Pakistani soldiers in 2011 - an incident seen by many as proof of Washington's treachery and disregard for Muslim lives. Ms Shah says that so disoriented are people that it has become a national reflex to question the official line. "Cynicism has become Pakistan's default reaction," she says. Tahira Abdullah, a human-rights activist, says that since Ms Yousafzai has become a global star - "getting all those awards, having tea with the Queen," is how she puts it - Ms Abdullah finds herself almost daily on television and radio defending her. Why are moderates like me put in the unenviable position of having to defend Malala? What has she done wrong that she needs a defence attorney? Ibrahim Khan, a senator and leader of the Islamic Jamaat-e-Islami party in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where Ms Yousafzai was shot, is on the other side of the debate. He told The Washington Post: "She is now being used - rather, misused - in the west by portraying a wrong image of Pakistan as a violent and anti-woman society. If Malala is given awards or rewards for using her name to defame Pakistan and Islam, then I will have to condemn it. Pakistan, despite what Mr Khan implies, is a violent country, whoever we care to blame. As many Pakistanis themselves are keen to point out, they - more than anyone - have suffered the grisly effects of terrorism. Some 50,000 lives have been lost since September 11 2001. Whether or not Pakistan is "anti-woman" is less clear-cut. It is true that women play an integral role in the public life of the country. They can be found in every profession. Pakistan, unlike the US, has had a female leader in Benazir Bhutto. On the other hand, it does not fare well when it comes to girls" schooling. Female literacy is 40 per cent against 69 per cent for males. In a 2004 study measuring girls" access to education, Pakistan came bottom of 17 Asian countries, scoring 20 on a scale of 100. Japan, South Korea and Singapore achieved top marks. Taliban violence is not the main obstacle. Schools without roofs, schools without toilets, schools without teachers, are a much bigger impediment. So is the reluctance of some parents to send their girls to school because they fear for their safety or cannot see the point of them "wasting their time." Pakistan spends an abysmally low amount on education of any kind - 2 per cent of gross domestic product, about half the global average. The conflation of Ms Yousafzai's case with grievances Pakistanis might legitimately have with the west is a cop-out. Ms Yousafzai herself quite perfectly describes the falsity of seeing her campaign through the prism of east versus west. "Education is neither eastern nor western," she told Panorama, a UK documentary programme, this week. Education is education and it is the right of every human being. Those who admonish westerners, Pakistanis or anyone else for admiring Ms Yousafzai should ask themselves this. If one does not gush over a young girl prepared to face bullets for her right to go to school then, pray, what else is there in this world to gush about?