Malala Yousafzai

For this assignment, I chose to write about Malal Yousafzai, a Pakistani activist fighting for girl’s education. While we are all familiar with her, recently I read an article about how Malala’s narrative was twisted in order to justify the War on Terror and criminalization of brown men, painting the Middle East as backwards and barbaric in order to justify intervention. I thought this was very interesting. As a child, I remember learning about Malala, but always through the lens of the West coming in and rescuing her, less from an actual analysis of the work she did for women’s education. Malala works hard to ensure that all girls and women, pretty much everyone but specifically those groups, have access to education, understanding that that is the building block for liberation. No matter what, she has always touted a policy of nonviolence, not wanting revenge on those who harmed her, referring to them as misled boys rather than the aggressive grown men and criminals Western media tries to portray them as. As we all know, Malala faces extreme risks with her work, with her life being put on the line as she worked to speak on women’s right to education and continue to access that education herself. It is her resilience and willingness to put herself in harm’s way, yet continue to work and persevere that inspires others, continually working to better the world around her. After leaving Pakistan, Malala has gone to Oxford and continued her education there, hoping to accomplish girl’s education for everyone. Malala is also inspiring because despite the way that the West has tried to twist her story, she has retained her agency, showing us the importance of analyzing media and taking information about her story directly from her rather than from the Western media that has an incentive to mislead us.