Living Up to Mom

My mom was outspoken. It was embarrassing at times. My mom sat at the head table with my new husband and I at our wedding reception in 2006. The pastor who married us also sat at that table. My mom was very interested in the fact that he was affiliated with the southern Baptist convention and as we ate dinner she asked him why the southern Baptist convention was against having women in the ministry. Yes, she did. She asked this at my wedding dinner.

Mom may have embarrassed me at times, but she also gave me courage. I am not afraid to express myself, and I am not afraid to ask tough questions, and I am not afraid to drag the skeletons out of the closet. That is very easy to say when I live in a country that ardently supports freedom of speech. Today, I want to talk about the freedom to express yourself and the courage that sometimes takes. I want to talk about Malala Yousafzai.

Malala’s story begins with her parents. Malala was named after Malalai of Maiwind, a young Pashtun woman who fought victoriously alongside the Afghan leader, Ayub Khan against the British in 1880. Today Malalai is a national folk hero, a sort of Jeanne d’ Arc to the Afghans. Malala was given a warrior’s name. I don’t know anything about Malala’s mother. Cultural restrictions prevent her from appearing or speaking in public. Surprisingly, these same restrictions have not stopped Malala from expressing herself. Her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai has had a huge influence on her. He is a poet, school owner and social activist. He owned and ran one of the last girl’s schools to defy Taliban orders to end female education in the valley of Swat.  Ziauddin encouraged his daughter to blog about her experiences when she was just 11 years old. She blogged anonymously and her story was picked up by everyone from the BBC to the New York Times. At 11, Malala said, “I want to become a doctor. It’s my own dream, but my father told me that you have to become a politician, but I don’t like politics.” Her father replied, “But I see a great potential in my daughter, that she can do more than a doctor. She can create a society where a medical student would be easily able to get her doctorate degree.” I think most medical students would take an exception to the word “easily,” but that is because most don’t know what it is like to fight for the right to an education–even a fifth grade education. Malala had a peaceful life when she was eleven. She lived in the Swat Valley, an area of Pakistan that tourists came to for its high mountains, beautiful lakes and waterfalls, and lush greenery. Swat is populated primarily by ethnic Pashtuns or Afghans. It is also a region dominated by fundamentalist Muslims who are pro Taliban. In the summer of 2009 the Pakistani army tried to stabilize the area by clearing out the Taliban, and the Taliban retaliated. The result was the uprooting of about 1.2 million Swat residents. Ziauddin did not want to leave Swat. He had taken in his extended family who lived in the countryside in an attempt to keep them safer. He did not want to leave his people and felt called to stand with them. He said, “It may be my idealism and you may call me a crazy person, but when I am asked by my friends, why are you not leaving Swat, so I usually tell them that Swat has given me a lot. Now when there are hard days in Swat, and Swat is in trouble, so as a good friend, I should not leave Swat.”  Ziauddin spent many nights away from his family, because he had been targeted by the Taliban for his social activism and felt his family was safer without his presence. Ziauddin’s school had supported his family for 14 years, but he was forced to close it and eventually, Ziauddin and his family were also forced to flee, but in separate directions. Ziauddin fled to Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan and Malala and her siblings lived in 4 cities in 2 months as they traveled between relatives. The Taliban took over Swat. In a 2009 documentary, Malala is filmed saying, “They cannot stop me. I will get my education, if it is in my home, school or any place. This is my request to all the world, that you save our schools, save our world, save our Pakistan. Save our Swat.” It is easy to forget that this poised young girl is still so young. In the same documentary, her father says, “As we say, that a mother does not give milk to a child when it doesn’t cry, you will not have anything, especially in the third world countries like us. You have to scream for everything.” Six months after Ziauddin had to close his school, and 3 months after he had to separate from his family, they were reunited and returned to Swat. The Taliban destroyed more than 200 schools, but their school was still intact. Their home was also intact. The school was reopened and Malala continued her education. Malala and Ziauddin continued to speak out. “I have the right of education,” Malala said in 2012 during a CNN interview, “I have the right to play. I have the right to sing. I have the right to talk. I have the right to go to market. I have the right to speak up.” Malala was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize in 2011, and then was awarded Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Prize by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani. She led a delegation of children’s rights activists sponsored by UNICEF, and has made presentations to politicians in her own country. She changed her aspirations for becoming a doctor. “I have a new dream to become a politician and serve my country,” she said. She has also said she still feared the Taliban, because the leaders had not been caught. Malala is now 14 years old. Last Tuesday she was on her way home from school. A Taliban gunman walked up to her school bus, asked for her by name, and then shot her in the head and neck. She remains in critical condition. Ehsanullah Ehsan, a Taliban spokesman is quoted as saying, “She has become a symbol of western culture in the area; she was openly propagating it.” He then added that if she survives, the Taliban will certainly try to kill her again, “Let this be a lesson.” Pakistani Prime Minister, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf is urging his countrymen to battle the mind-set behind this attack on Malala, “She is our daughter.”