Malala Yousufzai, the outspoken Pakistani teenaged education activist who was brutally attacked by the Taliban earlier this month, isn't going to let a bullet to the head stop her. "When she fell, Pakistan stood. And this is a turning point," her father told the Associated Press today. "She will rise again, she will stand again. She can stand now."
Malala has become a tremendous symbol of the potential of people power—even little people—to resist the retrograde demands of the Taliban in Pakistan. Imagine living in a place where simply going to school and being a girl at the same time is an offense that could bring death.
Back in 2009, the New York Times made a half-hour documentary profiling then 11-year-old Malala and her father—who was employed in the radical act of being headmaster of the all girls school where his daughter was a student. They spent 48 hours in the Yousufzai household, just as the Taliban were due to begin enforcing the end to education for 50,000 schoolgirls in the Swat Valley.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F5yeW6XFZk
Malala's father tells the reporters he's prepared to die to fight for his school. Fast forward three years and it's his daughter who fought for her life in a Birmingham hospital. Doctors are restructuring her skull, but she's expected to make a full recovery.
There's a change.org petition to call for Malala to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Amnesty International also has created a page Stand With Malala where you can send her messages directly. That's one tough little girl. Let's tell her just how inspiring she is.
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