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Tag: Malala

  • Jonathan, Malala and Chibok girls

    Jonathan, Malala and Chibok girls

    Newspapers missed both the strident tone and essence of the message Malala Yousafzai passed on to President Goodluck Jonathan during her visit last Monday. The Pakistani girls’ education advocate was in Nigeria for a two-day visit to further her global campaign, advocate urgent efforts to rescue the 219 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram militants, and ask the president to meet with the anguished parents of the abducted girls. She, however, managed in the process to lecture the president in surprisingly severe tones on his duties and responsibilities to his country and the girls in particular. Somehow, everyone seemed to have focused on her reprise of the discussions she had with the president, during which she donated $200,000 to girls’ education in Nigeria.

    Immediately after Malala met with the president, Dr Jonathan extended an invitation to the Chibok parents who had travelled to Abuja to meet the girls’ education advocate. But this invitation immediately became controversial because the Chibok parents declined to meet with the president due to extenuating circumstances. Prickly presidency spokespersons however misconstrued this snub as a plot by opposition forces who it claimed had hijacked the BringBackOurGirls protest. But it turned out that the few parents in question needed time to receive a fresh mandate from other Chibok parents to meet with the president. The meeting, it now seems, has been rescheduled.

    Two major issues come out of the Malala meeting with Dr Jonathan. First is the unfortunate fact, already highlighted in the ongoing controversy surrounding the presidential audience granted the girls’ education advocate, that it took Malala’s visit for the president to appreciate his obligation to meet with the Chibok parents. Second is the even sadder fact that the president does not appear to appreciate the irony, if not irresponsibility, of asking to meet a few of the parents in Abuja. Does he think a crash meeting in Abuja would obviate the need for him to visit Chibok? And does he hope that such a meeting, if it takes place, would atone for his unstatesmanlike behavior in abandoning Chibok?

    At the time of this writing, the Chibok parents do not appear to mind visiting the president in his office. But unlike the president, they give indication they know it is wrong to meet anywhere else but in Chibok. The Chibok parents travel to and fro Chibok, with all the security issues surrounding the trips. Why has it been impossible for the president to plan even a one-hour visit to the troubled town? The Chibok parents may be ashamed for the president and might honour his invitation, but they really do not owe him any obligation to save him from the global embarrassment of failing to visit the town, like any president would have done.

    More and more, Dr Jonathan proves himself unworthy of the country he presides over. First he didn’t believe there was any abduction, as if Boko Haram gave him the impression the sect was incapable of such overwhelming monstrosity. Then he rules out a swap arrangement to free the girls without replacing that option with anything tangible. Furthermore, citing security concerns, he has refused to visit the town or the anguished parents of the schoolgirls, and did not think it fit to invite those parents until Malala emotionally and almost disrespectfully spoke with him. Finally, he has started to blame his failure and negligence on the opposition, even as he plans four more undeserving years in office. But four more years of what?

  • Malala and Jonathan

    Malala and Jonathan

    •It took the presence of Malala for the president to want to meet with the Chibok families

    Malala Yousafzai is a teenager, and it took her presence to wake a presidency of grownups from its isolation to a simple truth. She is the girl that survived a shooting for insisting on the education of the girl child in her home in Pakistan, and she has become a towering emblem of hope and courage for the high ideals of women liberation without the tincture of vainglorious vanity or cant.

    She arrived Nigeria to enlist her credentials in support of the campaign to free the Chibok girls, who were whisked away in a brutal night from the serene air of school to a pious captivity. In the process she met with some of the girls who managed to escape their ordeal. In spite of their fortuitous peace, the presidency has shunned any opportunity to host them and their parents in the country’s hallowed house.

    This has earned him a slew of criticisms, growing especially from his attitude since the girls were abducted. The presidency, in words spoken and unspoken, had tried to cast doubts in the minds of Nigerians that the girls were actually missing. A political motive was imputed and some members of the administration that undermined the veracity of the story were never checked for insensitivity. This attitude was emphasized by the abrupt about-face by the presidency on a promised trip to Chibok to visit the melancholy community as a show of symbolic support and succour for the people.

    This led to the emergence of the #Bringbackthegirls movement. The Jonathan administration tarred the group with a partisan brush, and simplified an essentially emotional matter into the brickbat of political gamesmanship.

    It was in that context that Malala visited Nigeria, and her coming also signposts the frustration of the international community over the impotence and naivety of the Jonathan administration to decide on any concrete steps to free these girls. But her coming suddenly woke up the Jonathan administration to the prudence of meeting with the families of the girls as well as the free ones. Was the move of the presidency a photo opportunity, or a cynical attempt to win a redeeming attention from the outside world that has grown impotent and weary of its distance from the agonies of the families involved?

    That was the thinking of those women and girls who decided to pooh-pooh the president’s move as opportunistic and cynically self-serving. But how come the president who had the girls with us all these days did not know it had to meet with them until a teenager from another land spoke about their plight. Yet, the president with some of his aides enjoyed the limelight of a photo-op with the famous heroine of human and girls’ rights. “Out of the mouths of babes and infants, thou has ordained strength…” said the Bible.

    We find it quite objectionable that rather than admit its moral wrong, the presidency passed the buck and blamed the Bringbackthegirls movement for the action of the Chibok citizens. Hear the words of Doyin Okupe, the president’s spokesman: “It is obvious that the Bringbackthegirls (campaigners) are interested in showmanship, not genuinely concerned about the plight of the children and their parents.”

    That does not address the essential fact that the president and his associates have, from the beginning, perceived any expression of distaste over the fate of the girls as an act of ambushing the government. It is a bunker mentality and an expression of failure of imagination and surrender to witch-hunting.  The presidency has also implied on a number of occasions that the Bringbackthegirls movement is the brainchild of the opposition and therefore has created for itself a cosy morality of believing that the narrative of the abducted girls has moved from a genuine search to a victimizing of the federal government. That only happens in a government run without a high and noble principle.

  • Malala and a President’s hypocrisy

    Of all the celebrities and notable figures, who identify with Nigerian people on the abduction of 276 girls by Boko Haram fighters in Chibok, a hitherto sleepy neighbourhood in Borno State, last April, only Malala Yousafzai – the celebrated victim of Taliban’s anti-education aggression in Pakistan – has given some practical sympathy by visiting Nigeria.

    The girl-child education rights activist flew into the country, last weekend, to identify with the abducted Chibok girls and their parents. She met with the escapees privately, perhaps to get first-hand information on how the abduction was executed by the criminals.

    Malala’s visit is understandably conceived in good faith, having shared similar fate with the abducted girls. Although on her own case, she almost kissed death after several bullets were fired at her by Taliban militants.

    However, Malala’s mission to Nigeria has its intended and unintended messages. First, it taught us some lessons on why we need to promote education despite untenable opinions of misguided zealots, who believe education should only be restricted to the four walls of madrasah (Arabic schools).

    Malala, a teen who hails from a predominantly Muslim society, has become a role model for children for holding the belief that, education must not be restricted to Arabic schools alone. This is the intended message of Malala’s visit and we must strive to ensure the message is not lost.

    The unintended message is its exposure of the hypocrisy of President Goodluck Jonathan and his coven of political jobbers camouflaging as Ministers and also, the overzealousness of the security agencies.

    Had the Pakistani teen visited Nigeria before the committee set up by the President to investigate whether or not the Chibok girls were truly abducted by the Boko Haram, what would have been the discourse at the meeting between Jonathan and the Pakistani girl? Would the president have denied there was abduction Chibok schoolgirls and perhaps respectfully told the young girl to go back to wherever she came from?

    It is instructive to note that, months after the schoolgirls were herded into Sambisa Forest by the terrorists, President Jonathan lived in denial of the incident. Sycophants around him made efforts to make us believe that the abduction was the creation of government’s opponents, hence, existing in figment of their imagination.

    Despite the moving stories of the girls’ parents, and their cries, the president maintained a stone-walled countenance and dismissed the abduction, thereby insulting the emotion and psychology of the hapless parents.

    Even the gripping clip released by Boko Haram showing the girls in groups, clad in Hijab (Muslim veil) never convinced Jonathan that Boko Haram terrorists are in possession of the schoolgirls. The presidency, we were told, was studying the clip to “identify” if the teenagers in the video were actually Chibok girls.

    Rather than spreading intelligence to ascertain the whereabouts of the girls, President Jonathan and his coterie of advisers launched a cold-blooded offensive against patriotic citizens protesting the girls’ abduction. The presidency released a false security reports, claiming the #BringBackOurGirls campaigners were being sponsored by opposition politicians to discredit the Jonathan government and bring it down.

    The protesters would come under police attack for speaking for the helpless girls in Boko Haram’s den and for carrying placards with the inscription: #BringBackOurGirls.

    Enter Mbu Joseph Mbu. Remember him? The hyperactive and highly partisan cop, who almost turned Rivers State to Siberia, was the ‘capable’ Rottweiler deployed by the federal government to hound the patriotic citizens that left their home to speak for the girls. The #BringBackOurGirls protesters were arrested and hurled to police cells for peaceful demonstration – the most civilised fashion of venting anger in a participatory democracy.

    There have been several attempts to discredit the #BringBackOurGirls campaigners, which resulted in court cases on whether the protesters have rights to hold sitting at a public place and demand certain things from the government.

    On twice or thrice occasions within 90 days since the girls were taken away, the #BringBackOurGirls protesters have marched on the Presidential Villa to seek audience with President Jonathan. They were never allowed to the president’s office or residence on each occasion; in fact, battle ready gendarmes were deployed to ‘repel’ the civilised demonstrators whose only weapon remains #BringBackOurGirls placards.

    We were never told Oby Ezekwesili, a former Minister of Education, or Maryam Uwais, a lawyer, or Dino Melaye, a former member of the House of Representatives or Hadiza Bala Usman, or even Japheth Omojuwa, a celebrated young entrepreneur and blogger, hung riffles around on their shoulders while they led the #BringBackOurGirls campaign to Aso Rock. Yet, these are respected Nigerians who should have had the privilege of president’s welcome to air their grievances.

    Alas, Malala – a 17-year-old Pakistani girl – with the same #BringBackOurGirls campaign the Ezekwesilis, Melayes and Uwais of this country have been pushing was in Nigeria for three days and President Jonathan threw his doors ajar for her. The next thing: ministers, presidential aides and security officers, who attacked Nigerian protesters, started falling over themselves in photo ops with the Pakistani teenager. This is hypocrisy at its best and the presidency insulted the sensibility of every rational Nigerian, who had expected Jonathan would give audience to the aggrieved citizens clamouring for the release of the abducted teens.

    The most insulting of Malala affairs is the promise Jonathan made to the teenager. “I promise to meet with the girls’ parents,” the president reportedly told Malala. But anyone who understands Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima’s grievance with the president would, by now, know that the Jonathan’s promise to the teenager indicated a sheer presidential contempt for people of different political standpoint.

    Governor Shettima’s pleas to the president to visit Chibok and meet with parents of the abducted girls met a brick wall. Rather, the governor was turned the object of tirade by the presidential aides, who threw vitriolic innuendos at Shettima and his political party. Why didn’t the president or his aides upbraid Malala for lending her voice to the #BringBackOurGirls campaign?

    We must praise this Pakistani teen for lending the Nigerian presidency some wisdom, which can be succinctly put this way: “If you can’t pick wisdom from your people, we will not hesitate to come from outside to deliver the wise message.”

    We know the president is only concerned about his re-election in 2015 and nothing more. This is what he lives for, not minding whether people were abducted or killed by terrorists on daily basis. Whether it is Malala or Obama that visits, we don’t care. What we demand from Jonathan is to strip his presidency of hypocrisy and summon courage to free the girls from their captors and re-unite them alive (not in body bags) with their parents.

    • Ajetunmobi is a reporter with The Nation
  • Chibok girls will be rescued alive – Jonathan

    Chibok girls will be rescued alive – Jonathan

    President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday rejected the notion that government has not done enough to rescue the abducted girls, saying such belief was very wrong and misplaced.

    Speaking during an audience with Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani Girl-Child Education Campaigner, President Jonathan said the Federal Government is doing everything possible to ensure the girls’ release.

    The President, however, explained to Malala, who was accompanied by her father and other members of her Foundation, that the Federal Government’s efforts were constrained by government’s resolve to ensure that the girls’ lives are not endangered in any rescue attempt.

    He said: “Terror is relatively new here and dealing with it has its challenges. The great challenge in rescuing the Chibok girls is the need to ensure that they are rescued alive.”

    “The Federal Government and its security agencies were very mindful of the need to avoid the scenario in rescue attempts in other parts of the world where lives of abductees were lost in the efforts to rescue them.”

    Despite this challenge, he said, the Federal Government is actively pursuing all feasible options to achieve the safe return of the abducted girls.

    “The time it is taking to achieve that objective is not a question of the competence of the Nigerian Government. We have had teams from the United States, Britain, France, Israel and other friendly nations working with us here on the rescue effort and they all appreciate the challenges and the need to tread carefully to achieve our purpose,” he stated.

    The President said he would meet with the parents himself before they leave Abuja to personally comfort them and reassure them that the Federal Government is doing all within its powers to rescue their daughters.

    He reiterated his administration’s commitment to providing safe and proper education for Nigerian children.

  • Photo: Malala visits Aso Rock

    Photo: Malala visits Aso Rock

  • Malala’s birthday wish: bring back Chibok girls

    Malala’s birthday wish: bring back Chibok girls

    Pakistani rights activist Malala Yousafzai, who survived after being shot in the head by the Taliban for campaigning for girls’ education, pledged yesterday to help free the 219 schoolgirls being held by Boko Haram since April 15.

    Malala spoke in Abuja when she met with some parents of the schoolgirls.

    There were 15 parents at the meeting and five of the 57 girls who escaped from the Boko Haram custody.

    Some of the parents broke down in tears as Malala spoke at a hotel.

    “I can see those girls as my sisters … and I’m going to speak up for them until they are released,” said Malala, who celebrates her 17th birthday today. She is scheduled to meet with President Goodluck Jonathan at the Aso Villa this morning.

    “I’m going to participate actively in the ‘bring back our girls’ campaign to make sure that they return safely and they continue their education.”

    The girls’ abduction drew unprecedented international attention to the insurgency in the Northeast and the growing security risk that Boko Haram poses to Nigeria.

    A #BringBackOurGirls Twitter campaign supported by United States First Lady Michelle Obama and singer Angelina Jolie heaped pressure on authorities to act, and President Jonathan pledged to save the girls, drawing promises of Western help to do so.

    But several weeks on the hostages have not yet been freed.

    The Boko Haram activities are intensifying. The police said on Saturday they uncovered a plot to bomb the Abuja transport network, using suicide bombers and devices concealed in luggage at major bus stations.

    “I can feel … the circumstances under which you are suffering,” she said. “It’s quite difficult for a parent to know that his daughter is in great danger. My birthday wish this year is bring back our girls now and alive.”

    Taliban militants shot Malala for her outspoken views on women’s right to education. She survived after being flown to Britain for treatment and has since become a symbol of defiance against militants operating in the tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

    She has won the European Union’s prestigious human rights award and was one of the favorites to win the Nobel Peace Prize last year, although the award ended up going to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

    The Pakistani activist met separately with leaders of the BringBackOurGirls campaign group and some 15 parents of the abducted girls, along with five of the girls who escaped from their abductors.

    “The situation at Chibok is the same with the situation in Swat where some extremists stopped more than 400 girls from going to school,” Malala told the escapees after listening to their stories.

    Swat is her birthplace in Pakistan where she was shot in the head in 2012 on her way from school.

    “And I believe your voices are more powerful than any other weapon. So believe in yourself and go and continue your journey. Continue learning and you will succeed because we did succeed in our journey. There is peace in Swat. Every girl is going to school.

    “The same way, we will be here one day we will see all of you going to school, getting your education,” she added.

    “She (Malala) has an appointment to meet President Goodluck Jonathan 11 am (1000 GMT) tomorrow,” her aide told an AFP correspondent after the meetings.

    Malala urged the Nigerian government to take the girls’ plight seriously for the sake of the country’s future.

    “My request to the government is that they should take you serious. They should definitely take you serious,” she told the five escapee girls.

    “If you don’t focus on the future generation it means you are destroying your country. Think about these girls.”

    She urged Nigerian authorities to ensure the safe release of the remaining girls being held hostage by the Islamists.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Malala, who began a three-day visit to Nigeria on Saturday was at a dinner in Abuja held in her honour at Transcorp Hilton hotel.

    She spoke exclusively to NAN after the dinner that ended at about 10.40 p.m.

    “On my 17th birthday my wish is to see every child go to school and I want to see my Nigerian sisters being released from their abduction and I want them to be free to go to school and continue their education,’’ she said .

    Malala was accompanied to the dinner by her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai and members of the Malala Fund, including Shiza Shahid, the 25-year old founder of the organisation.

    A 32-man guest list at the event included members of civil society organisations and representatives of international organisations in Nigeria such as USAID, DFID, British Council and DFID.

    The Managing Director of NAN, Mr. Ima Niboro, presented a birthday card and flowers to Malala on behalf of President Goodluck Jonathan.

    “Thank you Malala for coming to Nigeria, Mr President personally signed this card, he shares your vision, your dreams and your ambitions and he is happy that you are here,’’ Niboro told Malala.

    She will also mark the Malala Day today in Abuja to champion her cause for free and compulsory education for every child around the world.

    The education advocate informed the guests at the  dinner that she would welcome ideas and opinions from them on how to ensure the safety and education of every child in Nigeria.

    Malala’s father, Ziauddin said:  “since centuries we have been ignoring half of our population, so we should stop it now.’

    “We feel very honoured and I want to share with you one thing: what you can do for your society as a social activist, women rights activist nobody else can do.

    “ In the Swat District (in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) I was contributing to my community in education, I had a school and I was a poor man in terms of money but I had an institution I started from the scratch.

    “I was able to send 120 students on scholarship to my school so your existence in your community is the biggest capital you have, your involvement with your community is the biggest capital you have which I have lost.

    “I will regain it one-day but the difference I was able to make when I was there, I can’t make it now so you should capitalize on your being in your communities,’’ he said.

    In a telephone interview with the NAN, Pakistani High Commissioner to Nigeria, Amb. Muhammad Saleem said the High commission “was not informed of her visit to Nigeria.

    “However, we welcome her to Nigeria because she is doing a great job.

    “She is a daughter of Pakistan and we are proud of her achievements and we hope her visit to Nigeria will go a long way in resolving the issue of the kidnapped Chibok school girls.

    “She’s a great daughter of Pakistan and we welcome her campaign for education,” Saleem said.

  • Chibok girls: Malala in Abuja

    Chibok girls: Malala in Abuja

    PIC.16. FROM LEFT: DIRECTOR, DEFENCE INFORMATION, MAJ.-GEN. CHRIS OLUKOLADE; GIRLS' EDUCATION CAMPAIGNER, MALALA YOUSAFZAI; SPOKESPERSON OF THE SSS, MARILYN OGAR AND COORDINATOR, NATIONAL INFORMATION CENTRE, MR MIKE OMERI IN ABUJA ON SUNDAY
    PIC.16. FROM LEFT: DIRECTOR, DEFENCE INFORMATION, MAJ.-GEN. CHRIS OLUKOLADE; GIRLS’ EDUCATION CAMPAIGNER, MALALA YOUSAFZAI; SPOKESPERSON OF THE SSS, MARILYN OGAR AND COORDINATOR, NATIONAL INFORMATION CENTRE, MR MIKE OMERI IN ABUJA ON SUNDAY
  • Chibok: Pakistani’s Malala urges action

    Chibok: Pakistani’s Malala urges action

    Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl who survived a shooting by Taliban insurgents, has said the world must not stay silent over the abduction of more than 200 girls in Chibok, Borno State, Nigeria.

    She told the BBC that “if we remain silent then this will spread, this will happen more and more and more.”

    The girls were kidnapped more than three weeks ago by the Boko Haram sect in their hostels at the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok.

    Malala was shot in the head in 2012 for campaigning for girls’ education.

    The 16-year-old survived after months of surgery and rehabilitation in the United Kingdom, and is now a vocal campaigner for girls’ access to education worldwide.

    Former United Nations chief, Kofi Annan, also appealed for action.

    He criticised both the Nigerian government and other African nations for not reacting faster to the kidnapping, and called on them to use whatever was at their disposal to help free the girls.

    The abduction of the girls has overshadowed the World Economic Forum which opened in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Wednesday evening.

    The United States, UK and France have dispatched teams of experts to Nigeria to help recover the girls.

     

  • Educating girls could prevent two-thirds of child marriages

    Educating girls could prevent two-thirds of child marriages

    If all girls went to primary school, one-sixth of child marriages could be prevented among girls aged under -15 years in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia.

    This was one of the findings of the UNESCO’s Education for All Global Monitoring Report released on the International Day of the Girl Child on October 11.

    The report also indicated that if all girls got the chance to go to secondary school, child marriages could be reduced by two-thirds in these regions, saving almost two million girls from becoming child brides.

     Mariam Khalique, Malala’s teacher from the Swat Valley in Pakistan, and spokesperson for the EFA Global Monitoring Report said: “Every hour counts– we must educate girls to help bring about changes quickly in our society. Education gives girls dignity. How can you change your life if you don’t know how? If girls and women are empowered they can take control of their own lives and their bodies. That is why education is priceless and important for girls and women not only in Pakistan but all around the world.”

    The new EFA GMR analysis, ‘Education Transforms’, shows that one in eight girls is married by the age of 15 years in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia.

    It also shows how education can empower girls to find greater confidence and freedom to make decisions that affect their own lives. In Ethiopia, for example, 32% of girls with less than primary education were married before the age of 15 years, compared with less than 9% of those with a secondary education.

    “Educating girls is one of the best investments we can make”, said Pauline Rose, director of the EFA Global Monitoring Report, “and yet 31 million girls of primary school age out of school, and 17 million are expected never to enter school at all. This situation desperately needs addressing.”

    In addition to preventing child marriages, the EFA GMR’s new analysis shows that educating girls can also prevent them from becoming mothers themselves when just children, risking their own, and their babies’ health in early childbirth.

    ‘Education transforms’ shows that one in seven girls has given birth by the age of 17 years in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia. Yet 10% fewer girls would become pregnant at an age when they should be in school if they had a primary education. There would be 59% fewer pregnancies among girls under 17 years if all girls had a secondary education.

     

  • Malala’s light counters the Taliban’s darkness

    Malala’s light counters the Taliban’s darkness

    THE SAGA of Malala Yousafzai is one of inspiration forged from terrible personal sacrifice. One year ago, a Taliban gunman boarded a school bus she was riding in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, demanded to know, “Who is Malala?,” and shot her in the head, along with two of her classmates. She had defied the Taliban with her support of schooling for girls, and the triggerman hoped to silence her and her beliefs. He did not kill her, nor her convictions. She survived after being flown to the United Kingdom for treatment, and she has become a beacon of courage for millions of people.

    Her resilience and bravery stand in stark contrast to the behavior of her tormentors. The Post’s Tim Craig and Saleem Mehsud reported this week from Islamabad that a spokesman for the Taliban had threatened her anew. Shadidullah Shahid, the spokesman, offered the perverse logic that if Malala “stops the spread of secular negative propaganda against the Taliban and also stops following secular ideology, the Taliban will not harm her.” If she persists on her present course — raising the consciousness of the world to the idea of universal education — then, the spokesman said, “fighters will wait for a suitable opportunity to target Malala.”

    This statement speaks volumes about the Taliban’s perverse ideology. Its anti-modern interpretation of Islamic law was fully on display during the late 1990s, when it dominated Afghanistan and demanded the oppression of women, seeking to deny them education and forcing them to wear full-length burqas in public, among other things. When U.S. troops helped Afghans topple the Taliban in 2001, vistas for Afghan women opened that were unthinkable earlier. But the Taliban did not disappear, and it continued to pursue its medieval thinking. The Taliban has assassinated aid workers trying to vaccinate children against polio. Just this week, two people were killed and many injured after Taliban militants used a bomb to target workers delivering vaccination drops to children in northwest Pakistan . Freedom and equality for women, freedom from the deadly scourge of polio — these are modern ideas that the Taliban apparently still hopes to extinguish.

    In the last year, Malala Yousafzai’s recovery and renewed determination to speak have offered a potent counterweight to the regressive beliefs of her assailants. On July 12, her 16th birthday, she told the United Nations, “The terrorists thought that they would change my aims and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in my life except this: Weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.” This week, she is publishing a memoir, “I am Malala,” a defiant answer to the question posed on the bus.

    On Thursday, the European parliament awarded Ms. Yousafzai the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. She is a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, to be announced Friday. She is young, but in her outspoken response to the Taliban, she carries a torch for all those who would banish the dark forces of violence and repression.

    – Washington Post