Peace for the Soul

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Malala Yousafzai's Birthday: She bravely spoke at the U.N.

 

 

A sixteen-year-old girl wearing three shades of pink stood in front of the United Nations on Friday. She was introduced by Gordon Brown, Britain’s former Prime Minister—a broad, lumbering man who nonetheless seemed as slight as a pencil sketch next to her. “Let me repeat the words,” Brown said. “The words the Taliban never wanted her to hear: happy sixteenth birthday, Malala.”

It was Malala Day at the U.N.’s Youth Assembly, in honor of Malala Yousafzai, the girl who wanted to go to school. Less than a year ago, she was on a school bus in Pakistan when a man with a gun got on and said, “Where is Malala?” He shot her in the face; the bullet entered near an eye and ended up near her left shoulder. “They shot my friends, too,” Yousafzai told the audience at the United Nations.

 

They thought that the bullet would silence us. But they failed. And out of that silence came thousands of voices. The terrorists thought 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.

 

Those qualities were born in this young woman, one has the sense, the moment she came into the world. They might have been wasted. She had the luck of having parents who believed in her education, and the great barrier of an armed group that thought it would be better if she were dead. Among Yousafzai’s many gifts is the ability to convey both how extraordinary she herself is and how many other children might be, too, if someone taught them how to read and write. “So here I stand. So here I stand, one girl among many,” she said. “I am here to speak up for the rights of education for every child.”

Yousafzai’s delivery was as compelling as her words—watch the video. She has an air of control about her, and self-possession, that goes beyond fearlessness. Speaking of the Taliban gunman who tried to kill her, she said that she was not seeking revenge. “Even if there is a gun in my hand, and he stands in front of me, I would not shoot him,” she said—and one believed her, not because as a child she would be too meek or gentle but because she knew, intuitively, that it was not the way to impose her will. “The power of education frightens them. They are afraid of women. The power of the voice of women frightens them.” She knew that she, in the end, was the stronger one.

And yet Yousafzai can’t go home; nor, as the Times has reported, has there been a pause in attacks on schools that educate girls in Pakistan. Many have been bombed. British doctors saved Yousafzai’s life, and she is now in school in Birmingham.

“I am the same Malala. My ambitions are the same. My hopes are the same. My dreams are the same,” Yousafzai said. One hopes that those ambitions will remain limitless. She was wearing a shawl, she said, that Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, had worn before she was murdered. Yousafzai could run a country someday; she might do almost anything. “One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world,” she said. “Education is the only solution. Education first.” With time, perhaps, for a birthday party.

 

posted by AMY DAVIDSON

 

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Dear Malala,

With my very best wishes for a happy Birthday, although sommewhat but it is truely sent. Ramadan Karim. You are a very brave girl and  proud of you. if every Moslem would follow your steps we will have a better and peaceful world in which to live and the next Generations to have a better future.

May the Blessings of The Most Merciful always be with you and your parents and Family. Amin.

Mahmood

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