By Venuri Gangodawila
Are you a fan of autobiographies? Then I guess that the autobiography, “I am Malala” should be a must read on your list. So who is this Malala or who exactly is this Pakistan’s daughter? Let’s find out.
Beginning her life
Malala Yousafzai was born on 12th July 1997 to Zia Uddin Yousafzai, a Pakistan diplomat and Tor Pekai Yousafzai, a typical Pakistani housewife. Her hometown is Mingora in Pakistan and they were surrounded by a beautiful valley known as the “Swat valley” in which she has greatly adored in her book. Malala, in her autobiography has deliberately described about their hometown as a very green, very peaceful, beautiful tourist attraction and also as a place with a great religious value, where several religious philosophies like Islam and Buddhism existed side by side.
Malala’s education as a girl
She attended the Khushal School in swat valley which her father had founded before her birth. It was a magical place for all the girls who went there to gain education. Malala mentions, “For us girls that doorway was like a magical entrance to our own special world” in her autobiography, which clearly defines her love for education and how she greatly values it. This becomes special because as we all are aware that Pakistan was and is not a country which encourages education for girls where it is taboo in their age old culture and even despises the birth of a girl child where it is totally different with a boy. It is mainly because that in their patriarchal society, they believe that only men should run the economy while girls who eventually become women should be “hidden away behind a curtain, their role in life simply to prepare food and give birth to children.” While “rifles are fired in celebration of a son”. This was greatly opposed by Malala and it nearly cost her life where she claims that she had an immense dream of becoming an inventor or a politician in which Pakistani girls were not allowed to at least think about whereas she was a born radical girl who lived to the Pashto couplet, “Rather I receive your bullet riddled body with honor…..Than news of your cowardice on the battlefield.”
Her inspiration
This can be totally imposed on her father. He was a radical thinker who believed that girls too need education and was a hard worker to gain girls’ right of education. Little Malala was greatly influenced by her father’s diplomatic works and his effort to establish a bright future for the ladies of the future by producing female intellectuals equally to the point of men. Khushal School in swat valley was one great example of his works. And she too was interested in joining her father’s social works, where she publicly addressed many people on the topic of “right of the girl child for education” since she was eleven years.
Above all, Zia Uddin Yousafzai was a great father according to Malala. She was the apple of his eye while other two younger siblings were brothers. Malala was the “Jani Mun” (which means “soul mate”) of her father, she claims. And in fact, she was named by him after the great Afghan heroine, “Malalai of Maiwand”.
The rule of Taliban in Pakistan
Taliban is a military group which emerged originally in Afghanistan in 1994. This group mainly consists of Pashtuns who are an ethnic group which contains Muslims. According to their rule, men were supposed to grow long beards while women were ordered to wear burqas covering their whole body. Talibans were strong believers of Sharia law and wanted to enforce their own version of it mainly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
However Malala’s family too belonged to the sect of Pashtuns which they possessed their own kind of laws known as the “Pashtunwali code”. This has to be strictly followed by every man in their state. Taliban never wanted girls to go to schools as they believed that it would westernize their women. And also they referred girls who went to school as buffaloes and sheep. So there certainly were threats against Ziauddin because he was a man who encouraged girls’ education. These life threats effected little Malala too as she strongly believed that every girl deserves a proper education and she openly criticized Taliban’s unlawful acts of banning their rights.
The influence of Taliban didn’t stop at the concept of education. It was spread to the fields of entertainment too, where TVs were prohibited and specially the Bollywood movies which they thought were un-Islamic were banned to be watched inside houses and people of Malala’s whereabouts were only allowed to listen to the radio which broadcasted only Taliban music and Taliban friendly shows hosted by extremists. Nevertheless, their cruelty developed to the point of killing people where suicide bomb attacks and shootings in Malala’s village were soon followed, which was once very peaceful.
Fateful day
It was October 2012 and Malala was 15 years old. She had her exams at school. Since it was a time when she had a life threat due to her social appearance against Taliban, Malala had to ensure her own security. Therefore she had to travel back and forth through a school service along with her schoolmates.
Malala was travelling back home along the familiar road when the van was suddenly stopped by some men. There was no time to think. She states in her autobiography, that the only incident she remembers is some man asking “who is Malala?” Then it was the sound of killer gunshots in the school van and then her whole universe blacked out within a blink of an eye.
The effect
She was rushed to the hospital and it was diagnosed that a bullet has passed through her forehead, missing the brain in a second and Malala was subjected to severe blood loss where a surgery was carried out immediately as her brain and body started swelling dangerously. Her life was clearly at sake. It was then that the hospital decided that she should be sent to England for further medications.
The Pakistan government had immensely supported her medications where she was sent to Birmingham to be well looked after. After some grievous time period, Malala was luckily able to get up from the ashes truly like a phoenix. But the medical complications still held her up, where the left half of her face was not serving well, as it was from the left side where the bullet had passed through. A facial nerve, which is essential for the proper functioning of the face was accidently cut during the surgery done to her skull. So she couldn’t smile properly as the left side of her mouth was not functioning, her hair lost and also her left eye bulged says Malala in her book. It was like her beautiful smile was snatched away.
Due to this, she was again subjected to a surgery to make her face right, which showed progress. She was gifted life again.
Work aftermath
In spite of being shot and was forced to be silent, Malala never stopped her journey towards her ultimate goal of speaking for the children’s rights. This brought her to the point of achieving the Nobel Peace Prize in the year 2014 on her sixteenth birthday as the youngest person to achieve such a huge recognition from the world and it was when her famous quote “One child, one teacher, one book, one person can change the world” was stated. She, now at the age of 20, is studying at the world famous University of Oxford.
Not only that, Malala together with her beloved father has established the “Malala Fund” in 2013 to bring forth the right for a complete twelve years education period for the girls worldwide. She continues her great social work. Even a separate day for her has been named as “Malala Day” on every 10th of November.
Loving her motherland
Eventhough Malala got an opportunity of enjoying the luxurious life in Birmingham, England, she always wanted to go back to her roots in swat valley. She always longed to re-belong to her own country rather than living a “caged life” as she says, in England. She in her book has stated thus, “Some people say I will never return home but I believe firmly in my heart that I will. To be torn away from the country that you love is not something to wish on anyone.” Which undoubtedly expresses her ardent love for her Nation.
That is why she has decided to travel back to Pakistan, back to her Swat Valley in Mingora to re-experience her rooted culture of the Pashtuns and to feel her belongingness again as she refers herself as one of the EDP(Externally Displaced People) in England. This happened on 20th March 2018 for a duration of four days says, BBC. And also states that it is after eight years since she was shot by Taliban.
So hail the girl power, hail Malala!
