Malala Yousufzai
The Taliban in Pakistan shot a fourteen-year
old blogger and outspoken activist for women's education
rights as she was coming home from school. Malala
Yousufza was taken to England for medical treatment, but
remains in critical condition.
The shooting of Malala Yousufzai on Tuesday,
October 9th, 2012
in the town of Mingora in the volatile Swat Valley
District
of Pakistan's
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province
horrified Pakistanis across the religious,
political and ethnic spectrum.
Small rallies and prayer
sessions were held for her in Mingora, the eastern city of
Lahore, the southern port city of Karachi and the capital of
Islamabad. In newspapers, on TV and in social media forums,
Pakistanis voiced their disgust with the attack, and
expressed their admiration for a girl who spoke out against
the Taliban when few dared.
In early 2009,
at the age of 11/12, Yousafzai wrote a blog under a
pseudonym for the
BBC detailing her life
under Taliban rule, their attempts to take control of the
valley, and her views on promoting education for girls. Her
blog was published under the byline "Gul Makai" ("corn
flower" in Urdu), a name taken from a character in a Pashtun
folktale. Blog link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7834402.stm
In the days immediately
following the attack, she remained unconscious and in
critical condition, but later her condition improved enough
for her to be sent to a hospital in the
United Kingdom for
intensive rehabilitation. On 12 October, a group of 50
Islamic clerics in Pakistan issued a
fatwā against those who
tried to kill her, but the Taliban reiterated its intent to
kill Yousafzai and her father, Ziauddin.
Malala Yousafzai
was born into a
Muslim family of
Pashtun ethnicity in July
1997 and given her first name, Malala, meaning "grief
stricken",
after
Malalai of Maiwand, a
Pashtun poetess and warrior
woman. Her last name,
Yousufzai, is that of a
large Pashtun tribal confederation that is predominant in
Pakistan's
Swat Valley, where she grew
up. At her house in
Mingora, she lived with her
two younger brothers, her parents, and two pet chickens. She
is affectionately referred to in the region as "my Swat."
Yousafzai was
shaped in large part by her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, who
is a poet, school owner and an educational activist himself,
running a chain of schools known as the Khushal Public
School, named after a famous
Pashtun poet,
Khushal Khan Khattak. She
once stated to an interviewer that she would like to become
a doctor, though later her father encouraged her to become a
politician instead. It has also been indicated that she may
have wanted to be a pilot. Ziauddin referred to his daughter
as something entirely special, permitting her to stay up at
night and talk about politics after her two brothers had
been sent to bed.
Yousafzai
apparently started speaking about education rights as early
as September 2008. Her father took her to
Peshawar to speak at the
local press club. "How dare the Taliban take away my basic
right to education?" Yousafzai told her audience in a speech
that was covered by newspapers and television channels,
throughout the region.
Malala Yousufza,
remains stable and comfortable at the Queen Elizabeth
Hospital Birmingham, England. The hospital issues daily
reports about her medical progress at this link:
http://www.uhb.nhs.uk/news/malala-yousafzai-status-updates.htm
