Malala Yousafzai is a voice of peace that cannot be silenced
But the one thing the Taliban fear most is a 16-year-old girl whose powerful message and extraordinary courage has galvanised a far less bloody jihad than theirs — a war on want, ignorance, and oppression.
The world first became aware of Malala Yousafzai when the Taliban shot her in the head at point-blank range as she headed to school in Pakistan’s Swat province. She had defied their edict not to attend class.
“They thought the bullet would silence us, but they failed,” Malala declared in an historic address last month to the UN. “Out of that silence came thousands of voices.”
Just 15 at the time of the assassination attempt, she was flown to England and treated at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, where her recovery has been almost as remarkable as her courage, and she has resumed campaigning for the education of girls. She now attends school in the Birmingham area and her father has been given work with the Pakistani consulate there.
Malala’s trials began in 2009 when, at the age of 11 and under the pen name Gul Makai, she began to write a blog in Urdu for the BBC World Service, detailing Taliban abuses.
In an extension of their rule in parts of the Afghanistan, the Taliban enforced systematic segregation in the Swat valley. Women were not allowed to work, they were not allowed to be educated after the age of eight, and until then were permitted only to study the Koran.
The Taliban have killed women for “unIslamic behaviour” and have forcibly married off girls after publicly flogging them for “illicit relations”.
In her blog, Malala expressed fears that Taliban threats would shut down schools for girls in the Swat valley.
A video interview shot in 2009 shows a young girl with an impressive grasp of language and a mature sense of purpose. In it, she describes life under the Taliban.
“We used to go to school in our home dresses instead of school uniform and we used to hide our books under our shawls to pretend we that are not students,” she said.
Education, she added, was essential for turning people away from extremism: “I want to say to the world that you must try to get education because it’s very important. The second thing is that if the new generation is not given pens, they will be given guns by the terrorists.”
The interview made her a well-known face locally but also brought her to the attention of the Taliban, who were determined that girls be prevented from going to school.
Malala’s defiance of their instruction meant she and her family were subject to several threats, one of which was carried out on Oct 9, 2012, as she travelled to school on a bus with friends.
She was shot in the head at point-blank range. Remarkably, she survived and, even more remarkably, less than a year later, she was well enough to continue her mission on a grand scale.
Malala celebrated her 16th birthday on Jul 12 by giving an electrifying speech at the UN, calling on world leaders to guarantee free education for every child.
“The terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in my life, except this: Weakness, fear, and hopelessness died,” she told assembled world leaders. “Strength, power, and courage was born.”
That was also the day her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, recognised that his daughter was not just special to him but to billions of people worldwide.
Her family never dreamed that she would recover, let alone address a world body as they saw her struggle for life after the attack.
“Her life is a miracle,” Yousafzai told America’s ABC news channel.
“Her standing up again with her full stature is a miracle. Henceforth, I think I’m not the only person who owns her as a daughter. She’s owned by everybody. She’s the daughter of the world.”
Her doctors had told him that, were she to survive, the right side of her body would most likely be paralysed.
“When she was shot, one of the fears her doctors had was she would lose her ability to speak,” said Shiza Shahid, executive director of the Malala Fund, who has known Malala since she was 10 years old. “When I heard her speech, I thought that’s the most powerful thing about her: To see her so fully recovered and raise her voice with so many girls across the world. It’s magical.”
Her father believes Malala has not only recovered but is more articulate and more confident after her attack. Her life-changing experience has also guided Malala away from plans to become a doctor to focus on continuing her activism.
“I think your circumstances teach you what’s to be done,” her father told Diane Sawyer on ABC. “And visionary people, leaders, they think about the priorities. So after being in a conflict zone and raising her voice, she came to the conclusion that if she becomes a doctor she may help some patients in a hospital. But she wanted to be the doctor of society, the doctor of her country, and the doctor of so many around the world waiting to be helped in so many ways. And a politician can do that.”
The interview was conducted in conjunction with a BBC interview by Mishal Husain. Both will air in October to coincide with the launch of her book, I am Malala, marking the first anniversary of the shooting.
Malala has already inspired millions of children around the world with the catchphrase “I am Malala”, shouted at rallies in her support.
Earlier this month, she was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people of the year. She was also on one of the seven special edition covers released by the magazine.
In an interview last year, Malala also set out her ambition to work for peace as a politician, citing as her inspiration Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s former prime minister, who was assassinated in 2007.
“I’ll study law and then I’ll go into politics and become a politician to change the policies of Pakistan,” she said.
“We want to make friendship with India — a good friendship — and we want to solve the problems with India and Pakistan. I want to be a good leader in the future.”
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