'They
thought that the bullet would silence us. But they failed,' says Malala, 16, at
UN to push campaign for girls' education
guardian.co.uk,
Ed Pilkington in New York, Friday 12 July 2013
When the Taliban sent a gunman to shoot Malala Yousafzai last October as she rode home on a bus after school, they made clear their intention: to silence the teenager and kill off her campaign for girls' education.
Malala Yousafzai spoke at the UN in New York on her 16th birthday, a day now dubbed Malala Day. Photograph: Mary Altaffer/AP |
When the Taliban sent a gunman to shoot Malala Yousafzai last October as she rode home on a bus after school, they made clear their intention: to silence the teenager and kill off her campaign for girls' education.
Nine months
and countless surgical interventions later, she stood up at the United Nations
on her 16th birthday on Friday to deliver a defiant riposte. "They thought
that the bullet would silence us. But they failed," she said.
As 16th
birthdays go, it was among the more unusual. Instead of blowing out candles on
a cake, Malala sat in one of the United Nation's main council chambers in the
central seat usually reserved for world leaders.
She
listened quietly as Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, described her as
"our hero, our champion"; and as the former British prime minister
and now UN education envoy, Gordon Brown, uttered what he called "the
words the Taliban never wanted her to hear: happy 16th birthday, Malala".
The event,
dubbed Malala Day, was the culmination of an extraordinary four years for the
girl from Mingora, in the troubled Swat valley of Pakistan. She was thrust into
the public glare after she wrote a pseudonymous but later celebrated blog for
the BBC Urdu service describing her experiences struggling to get an education
under the rising power of Taliban militants.
By 11 she
was showing exceptional determination, calling personally on the US special
representative to Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, to use his influence to combat
the Taliban's drive against education for girls. By 14, she was on the radar of
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who put her forward for the international children's
peace prize, and by 15 she became the youngest Nobel peace prize nominee in
history.
But such
dizzying global attention came at a price. Death threats followed her growing
recognition, and on 9 October 2012, following a meeting of Pakistani Taliban
leaders, the gunman was dispatched to remove what they called the "symbol
of infidels and obscenity".
Multiple
operations in Pakistan and the UK followed the attack on the bus, including the
fitting of a titanium plate on her left forehead, and a cochlear implant to
restore her hearing. She now lives with her family in Birmingham and does what
the Taliban tried to stop her doing: goes to school every day. "I am not
against anyone," she said in the UN chamber, having taken this day out
from the classroom. "Neither am I here to speak in terms of personal
revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group."
Malala
responded to the violence of the Taliban with her own countervailing force:
words against bullets. "I do not even hate the Talib who shot me. Even if
there is a gun in my hand and he stands in front of me, I would not shoot
him."
She spoke
confidently, with only an injured eye and a slightly drooping left side of her
face to hint at such fresh traumas. There was one other unstated allusion to
the horror of her past: she wore a white shawl belonging to a woman who was
also targeted by extremists but who, unlike Malala, did not survive to tell the
tale: Benazir Bhutto.
"The
extremists are afraid of books and pens," the teenager continued.
"The power of education frightens them. They are afraid of women. The
power of the voice of women frightens them."
She cited last month's attack on a hospital in Quetta, capital of Baluchistan, and
killings of female teachers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. "That is why they are
blasting schools every day – because they were and they are afraid of change,
afraid of the equality that we will bring to our society."
And she
gave her own opposing interpretation of Islam to the Taliban's. "They
think that God is a tiny, little conservative being who would send girls to the
hell just because of going to school. The terrorists are misusing the name of
Islam and Pashtun society for their own personal benefits. Islam is a religion
of peace, humanity and brotherhood. Islam says that it is not only each child's
right to get education, rather it is their duty and responsibility."
Such
ability to articulate what normally remains unarticulated – to give voice to
young people normally silenced – has generated its own response. The
"stand with Malala" petition, calling for education for the 57m
children around the world who do not go to school, has attracted more than 4m
signatures – more than a million having been added in the past few days.
At the
start of her speech, Malala said: "I don't know where to begin my speech.
I don't know what people would be expecting me to say."
She need
not have worried.
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