Nareesa K.
The Swat Valley in Pakistan was once a peaceful and nonviolent region, until 2007, when the valley became Taliban territory. In the few years of Taliban rule, Swat had turned into a heartland for Pakistan Islamic militancy. In 2009, in the Swat Valley of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan, the Taliban banned girls from going to school and obtaining an education. Malala Yousafzai was one of the girls who was told that getting an education would not be a part of her future.“I want to get my education, and I want to become a doctor,” Malala told the reporters at the New York Times. “In the area where I live, there are some people who want to stop educating girls through guns.” So, Malala began to write for BBC under a pseudonym, in a diary called “Gul Makai”. She wrote about life as a girl in the Swat valley, and how difficult it was to handle the gender inequality that women in Pakistan confronted daily. Amid patriarchy and terror, she gave a voice to a cause that needed it. Malala stood by as the Taliban bombed over two-hundred schools for girls, and denied an education to over fifty-thousand girls in Swat, and she hoped that her writing would someday make a difference.
On January 15th, the Taliban told girls across Swat that if they returned to school, they would be killed. Malala’s father wished to remain in Swat for as long as possible, but in May, much to Malala’s dismay, her family fled Swat to rural Pakistan in order to stay safe. Her father, a social activist, lived separately from their family in attempt to disassociate himself from them. In mid-July, after approximately three months of living in hiding, her family was reunited. “It was a very precious day for me,” Malala says about the day she was reunited with her father in an interview. In August, the school that Malala previously attended reopened. She began to fulfill her dream of becoming a doctor once again.
In 2011, Malala was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize, and she faced a dilemma that could have potentially threatened her and her family. Accepting the nomination required Malala to rid of her pseudonym, and reveal her identity to the world and to the Taliban. The Pakistani girl accepted, and was officially known to the world as Malala Yousafzai.
Malala and her family chose to keep living in Swat, and she continued to obtain an education and fight for those who could not, until the day of October 9th, 2012. Malala was riding the school bus home with her best friend, Moniba, when the bus suddenly halted. A man with a scarf covering his nose and mouth climbed aboard, and he asked a question: “Who is Malala?"
In an interview with BBC, Malala says, “Nobody said anything, but several girls looked at me. I was the only one with my face uncovered. He lifted up a pistol, and I squeezed Moniba’s hand. I can’t remember anything from that point, but my friends tell me that he fired three shots, and the first one hit me in my left temple.” The bullet scarcely missed Malala’s brain, and she was transported to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England, where she miraculously recovered after nearly three months.
Malala recently wrote an autobiography explaining her life in Swat as an educationally oppressed girl, and how she refuses to be silenced by the men who believe that she does not deserve to be equally erudite. Malala continues to advocate for equal gender rights across the world.
“I am Malala, and they cannot stop me.”
