Posted on July 12, 2019
Recently, Trevor Noah of The Daily Show told Malala Yousafzai that many people think of her as a saint. She is the youngest Nobel Prize laureate (she won a Nobel Peace Prize when she was just 17 years old!). Although one might assume that the Pakistani Prime Minister is the "most prominent" (that is, most important and best known) person in Pakistan, former Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said that Malala was Pakistan's most prominent citizen! And some have said that, from 2012 to 2014, she was the most famous teenager in the world.
But Malala Yousafzai said of herself that she tells her story, not because she's so special or her story is so unique, but because she's not and it isn't. "It is the story of many girls," she said during her Nobel Peace Prize speech.
And...what story is that?
Malala Yousafzai lived in the Swat district of Pakistan, and in 2009 the Taliban had occupied that region. Malala began to write a blog - using a pseudonym, for her own protection - for the BBC Urdu. She was able to write about life under the Taliban, a Sunni Islamic fundamentalist group that has, at times and among other things, forbidden women and girls to attend schools and universities.
Malala's blog became widely known, especially when a New York Times documentary was made about her. Malala began to give interviews.
When I say that she was "widely known," I don't mean AT ALL that Malala was famous. Not yet. Her fame came because of a terrible event:
Someone tried to kill her.
In 2012, Malala and two other girls were on a bus, after a school exam. Malala was 15 years old. Suddenly, shots rang out, and Malala was struck in the head by a bullet.
The Taliban gunman was attempting to kill her in retaliation for her activism, her truth-telling to the world. But this attempted assassination sparked a HUGE amount of positive attention and sympathy for Malala and other girls dealing with oppression - and a huge amount of negative attention and condemnation for the Taliban.
It wasn't just leaders of Western nations and feminist groups that denounced the attempted murder; 50 leading Muslim clerics in Pakistan issued a fatwā against the would-be assassin.
Miraculously, Malala survived the shooting, and she was galvanized to do way more activism. Most of her activism is pointed toward helping girls gain educations; her right-to-education movement includes the Malala Fund and a bestselling book.
Currently living in England, Malala Yousafzai is attending Oxford University and turns 22 years old today!
For more on Malala, check out this earlier post.
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