The Moral Challenge SECTION F


REMEMBER! Human rights are those things you are entitled to because you are a human being. You need them in order to live a free and full life.


In order to protect her identity, Malala used the name Gul Makai (a Pashto word meaning cornflower).


Malala’s blog began to attract a lot of attention within Pakistan. Then she gained an international following when the BBC began to translate it into English for the global audience.


However, in 2011, Malala lost her anonymity. Her name was revealed to the world when she was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize. That same year she was awarded Pakistan’s National Youth Peace Prize.


At the age of 14, Malala learned that her outspokenness had not only won many admirers but many enemies too. Mullah Fazlullah, leader of the Pakistani Taliban, had issued a death threat against her. She had openly defied his organisation’s ban on female education. Though worried for her own safety, Malala was more worried about her father’s life. He had long been a vocal opponent of the Taliban. Also, she and her family did not think that the Taliban would actually try to murder a child. Events would prove otherwise.


On 9 October 2012, while Malala was travelling home from school, a gunman stopped and boarded the bus she was on and demanded to know which girl was Malala. When one of her friends looked at her on reflex, her identity was given away. The man opened fire, hitting her on the left side of her head. Two other girls were also wounded in the attack.


Malala survived the shooting but was left in a critical condition. She was flown to the military hospital in


Malala Yousafzai’s autobiography, I am Malala


Peshawar, where a part of her skull was removed to relieve the swelling on her brain. When it became clear she needed further treatment unavailable locally, she was transferred by air ambulance to a hospital in Birmingham, England.


Malala underwent several operations, including one to repair a facial nerve that had paralysed the left side of her face. Thankfully, she had suffered no major brain damage. Within six months of the shooting, Malala resumed her studies at a school in Birmingham. However, the Taliban still considers her a target and the very real danger of assassination persists.


Since recovering from her injuries, Malala has continued to speak out on the importance of education and to oppose the Taliban. The European Parliament awarded her the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, and in 2014 she became the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.


In her autobiography I am Malala (published in 2013), she speaks of her love of books and her belief in their importance. She also speaks of her faith in Allah, whom she believes has chosen books as an important way to transmit his message to us. She is surer now than ever that education is the key to giving women a voice in the world. Education gives you the confidence to stand up for your rights. Malala believes that education provides us with the means to change this world for the better.


Like her father, Malala Yousafzai faced serious choices:


n How should she respond to what the Taliban was doing in her homeland? n Should she keep her head down and only look after her own self-interest? n How far should she be willing to go to stand up for what she believed in?


These are the kinds of questions that are dealt with by morality. 357


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