"I am Malala" inspires with girl's well-known story

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Kerry Pettis

"I am Malala" by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb

The story of this remarkable Pakistani teenager has been publicized throughout the world — how she vocally promoted education (especially for girls), how she was shot in the head by a Taliban fighter, received emergency surgeries in England, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and spoke at the United Nations on her 16th birthday. Because all this is so well-known, I will focus on some facts from her story that were surprising or unknown to me.

Malala was born in the beautiful

Swat valley in northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border. Throughout the telling of her story the reader learns a lot about her country's history. It is relatively new, founded in 1947, when the British divided the Indian subcontinent. Its history and governance have always been troubled — wars, assassinations (Benazir Bhutto among others), militancy, Islamic fundamentalism, the rise of the Taliban and so on.

Treatment of females has always been oppressive there, so the fact that Malala's father was an advocate for educating girls was unusual. He founded the school she attended. Her mother cannot read or write. Malala has two younger brothers and their teasing, scolding and sibling rivalry humanize her story.

Though current accounts make it seem that Malala rose to prominence after she was shot, both she and her father were actually well-known and sought after as speakers long before. At age 11 she began keeping an audio diary for a BBC affiliate in Peshawar, and her family was filmed for a television feature on the day her father's school was closed. She told the documentary makers: "They cannot stop me. I will get my education if it's at home, school or somewhere else."

After the Taliban closed the Swat valley schools, the family was forced to leave and became IDPs (internally displaced persons). Malala had to abandon her backpack full of treasured books, so she recited verses from the Quran over them for protection. When they returned after three months, their home (and the book bag) were untouched, though the school had been used as a base by the Taliban fighters and was a mess. Malala won several peace prizes, both nationally and internationally. At age 14 she and her father began receiving death threats. They took them lightly, since they didn't believe the Taliban would attack a child. Then an insurgent fighter boarded her school bus and shot Malala point blank, changing the family's life forever. By all accounts it was miraculous that Malala recovered so well. Today she is fully functioning and continues her fight for the education of all young people worldwide.

"I realized that what the Taliban had done was make my campaign global." By attempting to silence her they had given her an even more powerful voice. "I am Malala. My world has changed but I have not."