BySCEME
We Are All Malala
by Tamara Albanna
On Tuesday October 9th, Taliban gunmen stopped a vehicle carrying girls home from school; they called out the name Malala Yousafzai and opened fire, shooting the fourteen-year-old girl in the head and injuring two of her classmates.
As Nicholas Kristof wrote in his piece for the New York Times, Malala’s only “crime” was that she loved school. She fought for the right of girls to go to school in the city of Swat Valley, located in Northwest Pakistan. At the age of eleven, Malala wrote an online diary published by the BBC at the time when the Taliban issued an order demanding that all girls’ schools be shutdown. Malala’s father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, kept his school open despite the threats.
In 2011, Malala was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize and that same year she was awarded Pakistan’s National Youth Peace Prize.
Malala, only a child, stood up to the Taliban when politicians could not, she has captured the hearts of so many across the globe. As she fights for her life, we all must take up her cause, stand with her and fight for the fundamental right of education for all girls, everywhere.
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