Post by sheafi116 on Dec 4, 2012 22:40:12 GMT -5
Age Is No Barrier to Greatness
In the Swat Valley of Pakistan resides fourteen-year-old Malala Yousafzai, who has become a symbol of Western culture through her vocalized defiance of societal oppression. Malala has been an advocate of female education in Pakistan since 2009, deriving from her own ambition to someday become a doctor and a fear for the well-being of her generation’s future. At a mere eleven-years-old she wrote for the BBC Urdu a diary of her life, which earned her the focus of a 2009 documentary by the New York Times titled "Class Dismissed." In the film, she delivers a compelling speech in front of her endangered school speaking out against the tyrannical consensus of the Taliban, a Sunni-Islamic group that has held her society under strict control through their violent and savage disciplines since 2003. To date, over 200 schools for girls have been obliterated by the Taliban, and in January of 2009, it was ordered that all female schools in the Swat valley be shut down.
Malala, however, seeing no valid justification for revoking a child’s right to an education, challenged the Taliban to stand up for the Pakistani children and females oppressed beneath this no-knowledge tyranny. Through a dark veil worn to conceal her identity, as revealing her face would brand her with a bulls-eye of nonconformity, she asserted during her speech: “Schools are not places of learning, but places of fear and violence…our dreams are shattered, and let me say, we are destroyed.” Her prominence as a voice for the voiceless continued to escalate, earning Malala an overwhelming amount of international attention and admiration.
The Taliban, however, deemed Malala’s efforts to promote education as an “obscenity” and accused her of being pro-West. On October 9th, 2012, while riding the bus to her successfully re-opened school, the fourteen-year-old activist was singled out by masked Taliban men and shot.
Malala is the quintessential model of what it means to challenge the consensus of an oppressive system, and embodies the role that a mere individual can play in catalyzing movements for change. She refused to accept the restriction of the Taliban on her education, consequently placing her life at risk when no one else, even adults, would. Malala plays the role of a less morally-tainted John Proctor among the people of Swat Valley. Proctor’s defiance of the tyrannical consensus of Danforth’s rule provoked an end to the injustice of the Salem witch hunts, just as Malala’s efforts have spurred similar momentum in increasing female education opportunities. The fact that the voice of one schoolgirl was seen as such a danger to an ideology that her death was deemed justifiable exemplifies the radicality of the Taliban tyranny, and the horrifying desperation of its men to terminate any and all potential threats to their power. Malala did not challenge the Taliban’s violence with more violence. She simply had a vision of promoting democratic principles embodied by American society, witnessing the success of social movements in the states and seeking to achieve the same. Malala Yousafzai is no threat, but rather a necessary anomaly in a society where a thirst for knowledge justifies a bullet to the head.
Word Count: 521
Works Consulted:
Gold, Scott. "Wounded Pakistan Teen Is Now Face of Girls Education Movement."
The Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 13 Oct. 2012. Web. 4 Dec.
2012. <http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/13/local/
la-me-malala-education-20121014>.
Walsh, Declan. "Taliban Gun Down Girl Who Spoke Up for Rights." The New York
Times. New York Times, 9 Oct. 2012. Web. 4 Dec. 2012.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/world/asia/
teen-school-activist-malala-yousafzai-survives-hit-by-pakistani-taliban.html?page
wanted=1&_r=0>.
In the Swat Valley of Pakistan resides fourteen-year-old Malala Yousafzai, who has become a symbol of Western culture through her vocalized defiance of societal oppression. Malala has been an advocate of female education in Pakistan since 2009, deriving from her own ambition to someday become a doctor and a fear for the well-being of her generation’s future. At a mere eleven-years-old she wrote for the BBC Urdu a diary of her life, which earned her the focus of a 2009 documentary by the New York Times titled "Class Dismissed." In the film, she delivers a compelling speech in front of her endangered school speaking out against the tyrannical consensus of the Taliban, a Sunni-Islamic group that has held her society under strict control through their violent and savage disciplines since 2003. To date, over 200 schools for girls have been obliterated by the Taliban, and in January of 2009, it was ordered that all female schools in the Swat valley be shut down.
Malala, however, seeing no valid justification for revoking a child’s right to an education, challenged the Taliban to stand up for the Pakistani children and females oppressed beneath this no-knowledge tyranny. Through a dark veil worn to conceal her identity, as revealing her face would brand her with a bulls-eye of nonconformity, she asserted during her speech: “Schools are not places of learning, but places of fear and violence…our dreams are shattered, and let me say, we are destroyed.” Her prominence as a voice for the voiceless continued to escalate, earning Malala an overwhelming amount of international attention and admiration.
The Taliban, however, deemed Malala’s efforts to promote education as an “obscenity” and accused her of being pro-West. On October 9th, 2012, while riding the bus to her successfully re-opened school, the fourteen-year-old activist was singled out by masked Taliban men and shot.
Malala is the quintessential model of what it means to challenge the consensus of an oppressive system, and embodies the role that a mere individual can play in catalyzing movements for change. She refused to accept the restriction of the Taliban on her education, consequently placing her life at risk when no one else, even adults, would. Malala plays the role of a less morally-tainted John Proctor among the people of Swat Valley. Proctor’s defiance of the tyrannical consensus of Danforth’s rule provoked an end to the injustice of the Salem witch hunts, just as Malala’s efforts have spurred similar momentum in increasing female education opportunities. The fact that the voice of one schoolgirl was seen as such a danger to an ideology that her death was deemed justifiable exemplifies the radicality of the Taliban tyranny, and the horrifying desperation of its men to terminate any and all potential threats to their power. Malala did not challenge the Taliban’s violence with more violence. She simply had a vision of promoting democratic principles embodied by American society, witnessing the success of social movements in the states and seeking to achieve the same. Malala Yousafzai is no threat, but rather a necessary anomaly in a society where a thirst for knowledge justifies a bullet to the head.
Word Count: 521
Works Consulted:
Gold, Scott. "Wounded Pakistan Teen Is Now Face of Girls Education Movement."
The Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 13 Oct. 2012. Web. 4 Dec.
2012. <http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/13/local/
la-me-malala-education-20121014>.
Walsh, Declan. "Taliban Gun Down Girl Who Spoke Up for Rights." The New York
Times. New York Times, 9 Oct. 2012. Web. 4 Dec. 2012.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/world/asia/
teen-school-activist-malala-yousafzai-survives-hit-by-pakistani-taliban.html?page
wanted=1&_r=0>.