Alrighty alright, here we are back with another one of the amazing women who rocked the world. This one is someone I think most people will know, because she has truly rocked the world on its feet and forced it to question a good many of its beliefs and political systems. So welcome out to the stage, today’s star, education activist Malala Yousafzai!
Malala was born in 1997, to a school teacher who taught a school of girls, uncommon in Pakistan and certainly a practice not encouraged. Her father was an education activist, and it was he who induced a love for education in Malala. Named after Malalai of Maiwand, an Afghanistan heroine, her parents likely didn’t realize just how similar to a hero of the old ages Malala would become in her youth.
From a young age, she attended school, and loved it. An education, for many of us who live privileged lives, is not something to treasure. It is something that we have and don’t think of, and even if we do occasionally think of it, we think of it with contempt and merely tolerate its presence rather than treasure it. But for Malala and her classmates, girls in a world where being a girl in it of itself could be a crime, school was something to be loved.
When the Taliban arrived and took over Malala’s home when she was only 11, she was wretched away from her beloved school. At age 15, Malala stood up for her rights, and publicly declared that school was something she, and all girls, deserved.
This made her a target.
She was shot on a school bus in 2012 by a member of the Taliban, who boarded the school bus with a mask and asked, “Who is Malala?”She was shot on the left side of her head. She recovered, but she was no longer safe in her home country. The Taliban continued to haunt her, and a senior member issued a public letter, meant not to apologize for shooting a young girl in the head, but rather to justify it. Many in her country saw her as a “drama queen” though she was hailed internationally as a hero.
But Malala didn’t stop.
On her 16th birthday, she delivered a speech at a United Nations convention in New York, urging world leaders to offer free education to all children.
At 17, she established the Malala Fund, a charity to help girls achieve dreams that may have once seemed impossible. “Because she was once soaked by the rain, she now holds an umbrella for those passing by.”
When she turned 18, she opened a school for girls in Syria, for Syrian refuges.
She garnered both praise and criticism. From her own country, many saw her vilified and especially those who are more pro-Taliban condemn her for her words. She has also won the Nobel prize, the youngest person to ever receive on at 17, and been named Time magazine’s 100 “Most Influential People of the World.”
But at the end of the day, Malala is a girl who has been fighting for one thing all her life, fighting for something that she should have never had to fight for to begin with: the right to an education. Today, there are still 130 million girls out of school, and cultural stigma continues to contribute to the idea that girls do not deserve an education.
Malala is a girl who has fought for her life, because the world has told her that she doesn’t deserve the same chances as boys like her, and for that, she is undoubtedly a woman who rocked the world.
Bibliography
Imtiaz , Saba. “Taliban's Letter to Malala Yousafzai: This Is Why We Tried to Kill You.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, July 17, 2013. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/17/taliban-letter-malala-yousafzai.
Johnson, Chris. “Afghanistan : The Mirage of Peace: Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive. London ; New York : Zed Books, January 1, 1970. https://archive.org/details/afghanistanmirag00chri.
Westall, Sylvia. “Nobel Winner Malala Opens School for Syrian Refugees.” Reuters. Thomson Reuters, July 13, 2015. https://www.reuters.com/article/lebanon-malala-idUSKCN0PM0L320150713.
Yousafzai, Malala. “Malala's Story.” Malala Fund, 2022. https://malala.org/malalas-story.
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