Brave Malala

Do you remember Iqbal? Yes, that little child we talked and read about in our English class yesterday. He was from Pakistan, and became famous because he fought hard for children's right for education.

We also talked about Malala yesterday, but not much. I had already read about Malala, but I thought it would be interesting to find out more about her and, by the way, to inform you about this very interesting person.


Malala is from Pakistan, like Iqbal. She's also famous because she defends girl's right to education.

Malala became an activist at the age of 10, when the Talibans came to Swat, the village where she lived. The Talibans forbade girls to go to school, destroyed buildings, burned televisions and introduced new laws and prohibitions according to their religion, the Islam, punishing or directly killing those people who didn't obey them. People in Swat lived with fear, hearing each night the noise of artillery fire from their houses. Many of them went away from Swat as soon as they could; they wanted to live in safer cities. But Malala's family stayed.

Ziauddin, Malala's father, was practically the only person to protest against this oppression. Later, Malala followed his footsteps. She kept going to school although it was forbidden and the Talibans insulted her. She also began to speak in television and radio programs with her father, and wrote a diary in the internet telling how bad this situation was and how were they suffering. She signed it with a false name, because she didn't want the Talibans to recognize her. This diary became quite famous and finally everyone knew that Malala was the one who wrote it.


One day, two men went into Malala's school bus asking for her. When they found her, they started to shoot her with a gun and then run away.

Malala was inmediately hospitalized in a military hospital and quickly moved to Birmingham hospital, in England. She had been shot in the head and neck and had to be operated a few times. After that, she started, slowly, to recover.

Although she wasn't completely recuperated, she didn't rest: she gave many speeches and interviews and even published a book. "This is my life, not only a part of it. I can't give up. I think it's my duty to claim for the girl's rights, for my rights, for the right to go to school", she said, in an interview Rosa Montero made her.

On 12th July, the day of her birthday, she gave a speech at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. This day was declared "Malala's Day". She was now sixteen years old.

Malala has received over 18 prizes, between them the National Youth Peace Price (in 2011), the Pakistan's third-highest civilian bravery award (in 2012), the Mother Teresa Memorial Award for Social Justice (in 2012) and so many others.  She has also been nominated to this year's Nobel Peace Prize! You can imagine how hard and important her work is. She's the youngest nominee ever.

I welcome Malala from here. I admire her: I think that she was very brave, because she dared to speak against the Taliban cruelty, even knowing how could she end. The shots didn't silence or stopped her from claiming for justice. As she said in her speech in Malala's day:

"The extremists are afraid of books and pens, and of the power of education. (...) Let us wage a global struggle against illiteracy, poverty and terrorism and let us pick up our books and pens. They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world".



____________________________________

To know more:

The page were Malala's interview (by Rosa Montero) is:

http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/10/12/eps/1381613349_778121.html

Obviously, it's in Spanish, but I think that it can be also interesting.



The wikipedia post about talibans:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban



Wikipedia's post about Malala:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malala_Yousafzai


Malala Yousafzai's profile:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23241937



Malala's speech at the United Nations:

https://secure.aworldatschool.org/page/content/the-text-of-malala-yousafzais-speech-at-the-united-nations



Malala's diary:

Diary of a Pakistani schoolgirl 1 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7834402.stm

Diary of a Pakistani schoolgirl 2 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7848138.stm