MALALA YOUSAFZAI: ONE CHILD, ONE TEACHER, ONE PEN AND ONE BOOK CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.

We've got a good book to recommend today and a great story to tell you. We read I AM MALALA,  the biography of young Pakistani activist, Malala Yousafzai and we are sure everyone should read it.  Her story is moving, inspiring and thought- provoking. She is a real heroine!

“I TELL MY STORY, NOT BECAUSE IT IS UNIQUE, BUT BECAUSE IT IS NOT. IT IS THE STORY OF MANY GIRLS.”

Malala's story

Malala was born in the Swat Valley in Pakistan. She has become famous for her fight for female education and because she is the youngest ever Nobel Prize laureate.

 

She started her fight when she was a child.

With her father she opened a school only for girls but in her country Talibans had forbidden education for women. She also wrote a blog about their troubles and life under the Taliban's regime for BBC and that was prohibited too. So one day, while she was travelling to school, a Taliban gunman shot her in her head. She was only 15. She was in a coma for a while, but she survived and after a long period of rehabilitation in an English hospital, she moved to Birmingham where she still lives. 

She won the Noble Prize for Peace and she has become very popular for her committment to the cause of the education for women in muslim countries. For example, on  her 18th birthday on July 12, 2015, also called Malala Day, she didn't celebrate with a great party with her teenage friemds but she continued her action on global education by opening a school for Syrian refugee girls in Lebanon.

 

Women and The Quran

We all know the condition of Muslim women,  but not everyone know according to the Quran, women are completely equal to men in front of God in terms of their rights and responsibilities. The Quran states: "Every soul will be held in pledge for its deeds". 

The Quran indicates that marriage is a union between two important halves and that its objectives are emotional well-being and spiritual harmony. Its bases are love and mercy.

The  subjection of women, in fact, has not always existed. In 1970, when ISLAM entered politics the situation of women was dramatically worsened. The fate of women is linked to the political situation of the Islamic countries. 

The discrimination and the subjection of women are consequences of the wrong application and interpretation of the words of the Sacred Text.

So what Malala fights is extremism and ignorance. 

She wants Muslim girls to have an education so that they can know and fight for their own rights. She was shot by a Taliban for her stubborn defence of her right to go to school.  They could not stop her and now she has become a heroine for all Muslim girls.  And for all of us too! We love her bravery and her commitment. 

Thank you, Malala!

 

Martina & Alice