Malala – How Can You Still Ignore Her

Annam Lod­hi

So after I saw Malala’s speech – I was so inspired, I felt this rush of pride for some­one I didn’t even real­ly know. When I thought of trans­lat­ing my emo­tions into writ­ing, I could not gath­er what to write down for some­one whom the world already knows.

Before I could pick up my pen, I was remind­ed by a friend that back then I had a total­ly dif­fer­ent reac­tion to the whole Malala episode. Like many, I had doubts about the verac­i­ty of the inci­dent and I was reluc­tant to extend my sup­port for her. I thought it was yet anoth­er trick to fur­ther defame Pak­istan. But I nev­er remained too much strict in this belief. So mean­while I have been pay­ing vis­it to many of the edu­ca­tion­al ini­tia­tives sparked as a result of her shoot­ing. I sat among the audi­ence lis­ten­ing to peo­ple speak­ing for women rights and edu­ca­tion. But the doubts remained. I sel­dom felt that all these speech­es for women rights come tru­ly from the heart. I also con­jec­tured that these peo­ple might have some per­son­al ben­e­fit out of it, oth­er­wise who does all this for oth­ers in today’s world? Noth­ing was con­vinc­ing until I, with an impar­tial mind, watched Malala speak.

As I watched her speak­ing at the UN, receiv­ing a stand­ing ova­tion, her eth­nic dress, Benazir’s shawl, her father’s ear to ear smile filled with true pride, her mother’s tears filled face, and her brother’s per­plex­i­ty; it’s rather hard not to be moved.

It must be a dream for any striv­ing per­son to stand in front of such a pres­ti­gious glob­al audi­ence and speak one’s mind out. When most of the girls of her age are busy on their mobile phones or surf­ing the inter­net, she, at such a ten­der age, paid such a heavy price for her pas­sion, for the sim­ple wish of being edu­cat­ed with­out any coer­cion and fear of vio­lence.

Many of us still have many pre­sup­po­si­tions against her, like since no one gains so much atten­tion and worth at such an age, this must be some­one behind her orches­trat­ing and whole issue. As a lat­er open let­ter by a Tal­iban leader shows, she did con­front the ter­ror­ists. Though I still have my own share of doubts about the objec­tives and tac­tics of ter­ror­ists but the way she spoke so clear­ly about what Islam tru­ly means and how these ter­ror­ist were just a bad stamp on it, is tru­ly enlight­en­ing.

Malala’s con­fi­dence struck me like a light­en­ing; her words were well con­struct­ed and full of pas­sion. If this spir­it for edu­ca­tion, women empow­er­ment and free­dom from vio­lence sur­vives in our soci­ety, then our coun­try has a future. And if most of the girls in our soci­ety start think­ing the way she does, then there is no stop­ping of growth.
Like it or not, today she is a glob­al sym­bol of edu­ca­tion for girls. Her effort and result­ing suf­fer­ing did open many hearts and minds with­in Pak­istan. Our gov­ern­ment has faced unprece­dent­ed pres­sure for bring­ing bet­ter edu­ca­tion poli­cies into effect. After decades of mis­lead­ing pri­or­i­ties, peo­ple seem to be con­cerned about edu­ca­tion more than ever before.

Edu­ca­tion is tru­ly the might­i­est pen. Let’s make each day Malala Day by striv­ing for some­thing bet­ter. In our lux­u­ri­ous lives, we tend to ignore the impor­tance of things tak­en for grant­ed like edu­ca­tion. We study each day but do we tru­ly under­stand what is at stake? Like she said, “I stand one for all”, we should all stand togeth­er for times to come. Let’s become Malala at least for our­selves for push­ing our­selves for a bet­ter tomor­row.

In case if you still have doubts about Malala, just watch her speech with an open heart.