Maria Toor Squash Champion Hailing from Waziristan
While researching on the sport of squash on the internet, there was an article about a young female squash player who hails from Waziristan in Pakistan’s troubled northern areas. The areas on the north of Pakistan are and have been for many years under the strict rule of Islamic law and the notorious Taliban are prevalent in that area as well. The Taliban are of the school of thought that women are not allowed to work and allowed to be educated after the age of eight. However, this courageous young woman defied all odds and breaking tradition became a squash player. She rose to the top of her game and she managed to do this amazing feat in an area where women rarely go to school let alone become a squash champion, is an amazing story.
The article this story was taken from appeared on the online website of Dawn.com. The full link is here for those that want to read the full story; http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/sport/08-female-squash-player-from-waziristan-defies-the-odds-ts-03. This very talented young woman’s name is Maria Toor and she hails from Waziristan in the northern part of NWFP which has now been renamed as Khyber-Pukhtoonwa. The Taliban appear to have had this area in a stranglehold for many years now and the area is generally not too big on women’s rights and equality of the sexes that so many take for granted. It was under these conditions that Maria started to shine, she started to show talent for the sport of squash at a young age and the biggest ally on her side was an open minded father and a supportive mother, both of which are rare in those parts when it comes to a woman expressing the desire to become something other than a wife and mother.
The family moved to the more modern and open city of Peshawar and it was there that Maria really started to shine by winning contest after contest and raising her squash playing abilities to new heights. From those early days she has now started to win national competitions and is getting ready to make a name for herself on the international squash scene.
What is great about this story is that usually whenever anyone mentions the northern areas of Pakistan all that comes to mind are the Taliban, extremism and suicide bombings. But here is a bright shining star in the world of squash and she came from this same backward area and fought to achieve her dream in the face of certain adversity. What is sad though is that the area did not have any sort of facilities where the young squash star could train and nurture her talent and the only way for her to get any practise was for her whole family to move to a bigger city. Waziristan is a very neglected and impoverished place to live and the fact that a squash star was born there is amazing. A lot of top squash players from Pakistan have come from the province of Khyber-Pukhtoonwa, namely Jahangir Khan and Jamsher Khan. There seems to be something in the air in that province or maybe in the water for it to be able to produce so many great squash players and continue to produce them.
Maria Toor seems to be the force behind a different image of the troubled country of Pakistan that is fighting a war against militants, battling corruption at all levels and trying to overcome crippling poverty and power cuts. She will try to sell a newer image of Pakistan by showing that it is not all terrorists that reside there and even a place like Waziristan can produce some world class athletes. It will force people to question their set views about the area and maybe after seeing this wonderful squash talent play and supporting her, people will want to find out a little bit more about the country she comes from. They will then experience the wonderful and rich country for themselves and hopefully slowly but surely mindsets will change and stereotypes will end.
We should all applaud this wonderful squash player that defied the odds and took on societal norms, defeated them and walked away a champion. Now all we have to do is get more women like her to come out of other troubled areas of the world in order to showcase the softer side of these countries in order to become a more connected and peaceful place to live for us all.
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