What a remarkable book this is! I was expecting; and not
looking forward to; a lengthy tome about Malala Yousafzai’s shooting at the
hands of the Taliban in Pakistan. Her crime was two- fold; she was a woman, and
she wanted to be educated. There are very few people who haven’t heard of this
brave young woman with the idealistic father. Her accomplishments in the area
of Women’s Rights are already legendary, and she is just barely 18 years old.
What makes this book a standout is that she has written a
seamless history of contemporary Pakistan; from its birth as a nation in 1947;
through the troubled early years, and the turmoil which has made Pakistan an ally
of both the Eastern and Western powers at various times since. Even more
remarkable about it all is that she seems to grasp the significance of that
history as it relates to the Pakistan in which she was raised. How many
Americans, of any age, can make that claim about our own nation?
After a few pages at the beginning, in which she describes
the immediate event of being shot on a bus coming home from school, she moves
backward in time, describing both her parent’s history as well as the political
strife in which they were born. She examines how those times shaped both her
parents in different ways.
Her father became an outspoken advocate of education for
both boys and girls; which put him in the crosshairs of radical Islamists early
on. Her mother, on the other hand, became more concerned with not rocking the
boat and keeping all around her happy.
After a few false starts in opening a school in the Swat
Valley; that area on the Pakistan/Afghan border which became a hotbed of
violence during the American-Iraq War after 9/11; her father manages to found a
school which eventually had 3 buildings and 100 students; both boys and girls. He
teaches them in a secular way; everything from science to mathematics and even
literature. He firmly believes that the future well-being of any society lies
in the education of its youngest members.
Malala begins to fall in step with her father from an early
age; delighting in pleasing him by winning contests in school for speaking in
public. Ate age 11 she was already speaking on issues such as the right of
girls to receive an education. By age 12 she was questioning why women were
considered to be less than equal to men. She was already disputing the claims
of Radical Islamists that the Quran mandated such treatment.
Encouraged by her father she began to amass a collection of
prizes; some even monetary; for her work. This was all happening as the war in
Iraq was heating up and spilling over to Pakistan, where the Taliban were
hiding from our forces in Afghanistan. As the war progressed the Taliban were
making more and more incursions into the Swat Valley, disrupting life there.
This is the same area as the one where the Taliban were blowing up the ancient
statues of Buddha. Malala used to play amongst those statues; a fact which
served to make more real something which, for most people, had only been an abstract
item in the press. That perception changes when you hear how it affected
someone else’s life, especially a child’s.
The author vividly recounts the confusion attendant to
living in Pakistan at the time after 9/11. As the Taliban ramped up their
efforts against the “Great Satan” of the United States, they used religion as a
means to extract money from the Pakistani people. Often these contributions
took the form of women donating their precious wedding bangles. Those pieces of
gold became bullets used in battles from which many of their own men never
returned while fighting Jihad.
Malala was 16 when she was shot. Her story might have ended
that day with her death. The fact that it didn’t has a lot to do with politics,
as well as people who were committed to not letting this young woman die. She became
a symbol of the contempt in which most of the world holds the Taliban.
Her description of
life in England, where she was relocated for medical reasons, is interesting in
that with all that has happened to her at such a young age, she still wants to
go home. She still wants to fight for justice for her fellow Pakistani’s and
women in particular. She still considers herself a good Muslim and wants to
help Islamic people everywhere reclaim their religion from the fanatics who
have; for the most part; hijacked it.
This is a remarkable book written by a
remarkable young woman, caught up in extraordinary circumstances. And, more
than that, it is the story of the triumph of the human spirit over the forces
of darkness; which would swallow us whole if we let them.
