Malala Yousafzai: The girl who could not be silenced

Malala Yousafzai making a speech at a political seminar (credit: Daily Express)

Equality is something that we all strive for, as a society we have recognised that trying to equal the playing field is the best way to nurture a fairer and more egalitarian society. Equality is not handed to us, but rather something that we must fight for; as the things we see as normal today, not to long ago people advocating for these changes were seen as crazy or out of touch. We accept in our modern day the fact that people are no better or lesser simply because of their sex, sexuality, race, or religion, yet these ideals are ones which were fought for by those willing to stand up and be advocates for change. Not too long ago, it was commonplace to be able to segregate people by race, to treat others differently for their skin colour, not allowing women to vote in democratic elections or even not allowing women to garner an education. Luckily enough people have stood up against, these types of inequalities, and in much of the world these inequalities have been mitigated for the most part. But there are still groups of people who push back the other way, people who still want to build a world were people are still treated poorly or locked out of sections of society simply for being a woman or of a certain race.

Taliban members stood on a street in an unknown town (credit: The independent)

This brings us to someone who stood up against such inequalities and defied all the odds to prove to the world what activism can do. That person was Malala Yousafzai, a girl from the Swat district in Pakistan; born in 1997, Malala was born into relative wealth, her family was not rich by any means, but Malala lived a relatively comfortable life with her parents and 2 brothers. Malala’s father Ziauddin was a poet and school owner, who ran a chain of private schools, and was a strong advocate for education for all; growing up with such as father, Malala learned to be Fluent in Pashto, Urdu, and English. From a young age Malala wished to become a doctor, but her father would often encourage her to pursue becoming a politician. Malala’s father often said he thought his daughter was special, and would often let her stay up late at night with him to talk politics after her brothers had gone to bed.

Malala and her family at their home in Swat, Pakistan (Credit: Sky News)

Malala’s father continued to encourage her, until in 2008, he took her to Peshawar to speak out at a local press club. To give context, this was a time of unprecedented strife for Pakistan, a large movement was taking place in Pakistan and Afghanistan regarding an extremely fundamentalist group known as the Taliban, who were attempting to strip away the rights of women. While at the press club, Malala took this opportunity to speak out against the Taliban, stating "How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?" and would go on to be shown in national newspapers and news channels for her speech. A year later, Malala joined the institute for war and peace reporting, which aimed to work with schools in order to have open discussions about social issues through the lens of journalism. This early exposure to journalism nurtured Malala’s already curious mind, and she gained quite the proficiency four journalism, public speaking and debating. Malala was becoming quite the small celebrity, giving talks at schools, and writing small articles to be published as blogs online. However, as Malala was proving to the world that she had something to say, the terrorist organisation the Taliban was gaining traction in Pakistan.

A girl’s school in Afghanistan under threat of the Taliban (Credit: NY times)

The Taliban are an Islamic fundamentalist organisation with deeply conservative values, values that they felt were not to be debated or voted upon, but values that where to be forced through violence, and fear tactics. The Taliban believed in a much older form of Islam, with aspects of Salafi Jihadism (created by Osama Bin Laden) with much more radical and more militant beliefs and practices than modern day Islam practiced by the vast majority of Muslims. To compare, think of it as the difference between 16th century Catholicism compared to modern day Christianity. As one can imagine, these deeply conservative beliefs with a militant motus operandi, led to some appalling outcomes. Girls and women were seen as little more than things to be owned and controlled by men, people who broke away from normative conservative Islamic culture either through differing beliefs, or differing sexual orientation, were seen as pariahs, and often were exiled or brutally executed publicly as a fear tactic.

With the rise of the Taliban, the BBC branch in Pakistan, reached out to numerous schoolgirls in an effort to garner some journalistic blogs from those directly impacted by the Taliban’s rise to power. Most people declined out of fear of persecution, yet when the BBC reached out to the school owned by Malala’s father, he could not get any of the girls in his school to volunteer, as at the time, the Taliban where gaining more and more traction in the region; banning television, preventing women from leaving their home, banning girls from school, even public beheadings where beginning to take place in Malala’s town. Malala was the only person her father could think of, concerned for her safety, the BBC insisted she use a pseudonym when writing the blogs for the BBC; Malala agreed and went on to write her first blog post (BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Diary of a Pakistani schoolgirl).

The aftermath of a Taliban attack on a school in the Peshawar region (Credit: Al Jazeera)

The day the blog was published, Malala’s school was shut down by Taliban edict; following the edict, the Taliban moved swiftly, blowing up schools, and waging an all-out conflict in the region. Malala wrote in her following blogs of being awoken by perpetual artillery fire, walking deserted streets, and gun shots in her street. The following years where difficult for Pakistan and for Malala, with a constant push by the Taliban and those who opposed them, the region was torn apart by conflict; sometimes there was enough push back to re-open schools but often this rest bite did not last. Despite all this, Malala continued to fight against the oppression of the Taliban, speaking out at conferences, writing blogs and articles, attending seminars, lectures, anything in her power to counter the agenda pushed by the Taliban. Malala’s public profile climbed even further when she was awarded the Liberty medal of Pakistan and Pakistan's first National Youth Peace Prize by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani.

Malala stands with her Liberty medal (Credit: Dawn)

The problem with this higher notoriety, meant that the Taliban began to notice Malala, and realised that her activism was a threat to their ideology; they believed women to be inferior, and here was a young girl, despite all their power and violence, who was saying no. Malala began to receive threats of violence against her, notes were past under her door, posted on her Facebook page and even articles in national newspapers were published calling for her death.

On 9 October 2012, Malala was riding the bus home from school when the bus was suddenly stopped by armed men, the men boarded the bus and stated "Which one of you is Malala? Speak up, otherwise I will shoot you all." Upon being detected, one of the gunmen approached Malala, and shot her in the head. Amazingly, Malala was not killed, and rushed to the nearest hospital where they managed to remove the bullet; once stabilised, Malala was moved to Germany to receive some of the best treatment, following on from this, Malala was moved to Birmingham where she received some of the best rehabilitation therapy for her injuries designed to help soldiers recover from war injuries in the Queen Elizabeth hospital.

The bus where the attack on Malala took place (Credit: NY times )

Astonishingly, Malala made a full recovery, after months of intensive rehabilitation, Malala was back on her feet, and not only was she not undeterred, but developed a newfound fire that spurred her even further. Malala continued her activism to stand up against the oppression she faced, and her story garnered international attention; Malala met with world leaders and spoke at the United Nations about her experiences and activism. With this international attention, Malala’s story gained tractions, and calls for justice where widespread across the globe. The interior minister of Pakistan launched a full country wide investigation and found the gunman and those involved in the incident, sadly the gunman himself has evaded capture ever since, yet the Taliban cleric Mullah Fazlullah, the one who orchestrated the attack was killed in a U.S airstrike in 2018. Malala is still a vocal activist for women’s educational rights across the globe, giving speeches at events with world leaders and still standing up to archaic organisations like the Taliban to this day.

Malala at a United Nations press brief (Credit: Zimbio)

Malala’s story is that of bravery and defiance, through her actions Malala shows us all what it means to be a true agent of change, standing up for what’s right, no matter the cost. The cost for Malala was immeasurable, yet Malala defied even death to continue to fight for the rights of women and girls across the world and stands up to those who use fear and violence to try to exact their edicts. With allot of injustice in our world today, it’s important that we learn from Malala’s story, she shows us that power does not only come from government and guns, but it can come with words, giving people the ideals to change their own lives, and hopefully help change the lives of others.