I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban

by Malala Yousafzai

Back home I was considered a bookish girl because I had read eight or nine books. But when I came to the UK I met girls who had read hundreds.

I told him that instead of focusing on eradicating terrorism through war, he should focus on eradicating it through education.

I was a girl in a land where rifles are fired in celebration of a son, while daughters are hidden away behind a curtain, their role in life simply to prepare food and give birth to children.

While boys and men could roam freely about town, my mother and I could not go out without a male relative to accompany us, even if it was a five-year-old boy! This was the tradition.

Mahatma Gandhi said, “Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”

In my country too many politicians think nothing of stealing. They are rich and we are a poor country yet they loot and loot. Most of them don’t pay tax, but that’s the least of it. They take out loans from state banks, but they don’t pay them back. They get kickbacks on government contracts from friends or the companies they award them to. Many of them own expensive flats in London. I don’t know how they can live with their consciences when they see our people going hungry or sitting in the darkness of endless power cuts, or children unable to go to school, as their parents need them to work.

I guess politicians are the same in all countries.

“It is my belief God sends the solution first and the problem later,” replied Dr. Javid.