Monday, October 15, 2012

A Teenaged Pakistani Patriot and Martyr: Malala Yousafzai

 
Muhammad believed that seeking knowledge is obligatory upon every Muslim man and woman. The Quran says, "They are losers who besottedly have slain their children by keeping them in ignorance."

The Washington Post (10-10-12) has published an opinion piece about the shooting of the Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai. She was shot because she wanted to go to school.

ON TUESDAY, Pakistani Taliban thugs tried to assassinate a 14-year-old girl. You read that correctly: Masked gunmen from the ultra-purist Islamist group stormed a van full of schoolchildren in an effort to kill Malala Yousafzai, who has won international acclaim for going to school in defiance of Taliban edicts against educating girls in her home region of Swat. [Washington Post (10-10-12)]

Dr. Faheem Younus (10-15-12) asks:

Why would the Taliban shatter the dreams of young Malala to become a student, a teacher or a scholar? It was fear, not faith, which drove them to attack this gallant girl. After all, she was writing a blog for BBC about her life under the Taliban and was the recipient of the national peace prize in 2011. You could see the leader in her. So the Taliban used the old ploy: hide your rotten fears and cultural dogmas in the shopping bag of Islam.

A Washington Post blog post (10-9-12) reports:

In a 2009 video by The New York Times’s Adam B. Ellick, Malala describes the Taliban’s shuttering of girls’ schools and her subsequent exile from Swat:

“I’m really bored because I have no books to read,” she said.

“I think that when I will go to Swat, first I will go to see my [book] bag.”
She also told Ellick about her plans to change Pakistan’s path:
“I thought that I must be a politician to change our country. There are so many crises in this country...and I want to save my country.”

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home