Malala Yousafzai Speech to the UN Promoting Education for Girls

Many in the global community will recall the shooting of a young girl by the Taliban in Pakistan for wanting to be educated.  Every woman around the world would rise up in horror at this.  For those of us in the West we take education for granted but Malala reminds us that there are many girls around the world who are screened out of education due to cultural and religious perspectives that frame the world of girls.  Many believe a girls role in life is to clean the house and get married. 

I recall an afghan artist who was probably the first feminist I had met.  He was the one who informed me that baby girls were killed in preference to male children.  He shared with me the repression of women in his country. He told me of the segregated buses with black covered windows, the full cover (chadari), arranged marriages, women had to be escorted by fathers or husbands, that girls were seen as chattels not equal, more akin to property.  He gave me an intimate insight into how his sisters, both doctors, had to wear full chaldari when operating in a hospital.  I have tried on a chaldari and it was like looking through bars.  In fact I had no peripheral vision.  I was informed how his mother was married at 13, she had no education.  She married her deceased sister’s husband (40) and inherited additional children, she had 7 all together.  I met her and found her to be the humblest person I had ever known.  She never complained, just quietly cleaned and cooked.  She prayed many times a day.  It was discovered when she visited her son in Canada that she had cancer.  This became for her an ordeal as she had to stay and in the end she lost both breasts.  She was unwell, her hair was falling out and she was in considerable pain.  Her life revolved around the house and the occasional outing.  It was not the same as home for her, she missed her family and relatives and the feeling of love and community that pervades her culture. She and I instantly liked each other and she never imposed on me her religion or culture, she accepted me and made me feel welcome.  A trait I was to learn as hospitality that my own culture was losing.  She and I would walk arm in arm, two women exchanging our language whilst pointing to flowers, doors, houses, dogs, trees and smiling at the diversity within unity between us.  I bought bandages for her knees as she was in pain.  She had her breast removed at the time so I would gently massage her.  I did my best to share love with her as I truly loved her as my own mother.  I found myself ensconed, pulled into a Muslim fold in this family.  As a woman I just naturally blended and helped the women in the kitchen, all the while observing the differences between women of different cultures.  I am not traditional in my own culture, so it was an interesting experience for me to learn to behave as a woman.  In a way I was privileged I was considered family and yet I was unable to speak their language, however the universal language of humanity was the real communication that took place.  This woman and I loved each other as mother and daughter.  I felt the sisterhood and through translation I learned of her heartache at how men had violently destroyed her country.  She was very upset with the politics and she aired her voice with others.  Yet she was uneducated and felt the powerlessness of not being able to affect change. Like Malala she was disempowered, she was expected to be a housewife and raise children.  The powerlessness together with violent conflict in her country caused her incredible stress.  She feared constantly for her children in Afghanistan and those who sought refuge around the world. The family like the country, was broken. This was the cause of her cancer.

I feel a special connection to Muslim women and I felt a great love of Malala and learned of her courage and her wonderful father’s support.  What change they affected when a child’s voice was allowed to be heard.  Yes the Taliban tried to stop her but instead their violence attracted a strong reaction around the world and perhaps opened their world to the idea that not everyone agrees with them.  The question of God arises – what is mercy?  what is compassion?  If women do not want to be confined to the home, what do they truly want?  What of freedom? What of equality?  This is a question not deeply understood in terms of equality of opportunity.  Clearly women and men are different but the notion of equality is that all are born equal.  Everyone has the right to life.  I understand and respect another’s religion, however, I wonder if there is agreement inter-faith that God is love.  If this is so, then surely love brings joy to another. Fear is negative and divides.  What would bring joy to women? What would bring joy to men?  If both feel happy, then imagine the family unit.  When they discover harmony in allowing freedom of expression without violence this becomes the centre-peace of family and as the ripples gentle vibrate out, this is the foundation of world peace.  Children learn violence or love from parents.  I guess the central question from a religious perspective is God love or fear?  It can not be both as it is the ultimate creator I would surmise.

From my own experience of freedom and learning about life and the world I know as a woman I want to explore life, I want to be creative, engaged, educated, excited and contributing to my world community.  Through the freedoms in my culture I trained as an economist, market analyst and worked in a wide range of organisations, in fact the number totalled 400.  With my freedom I further trained in Peace Studies.  I travelled the world alone studying peace in myself and the world around me.  I travelled Australia alone with a tent exploring, talking, writing, teaching my own vision of peace education.  Through my freedom I explored my voice and wrote blogs.  The more I spoke up, the more I learned, the more I learned the more I loved and as my sense of self expanded I saw unlimitedness as life.  Within myself I saw the potential of women.  They are indeed amazing human beings and without them there is no future.  They are not here specifically to reproduce, I never had children, so clearly that was not my path.  I knew I had a purpose beyond family, I dreamed I was teaching peace.  Thus my purpose was to understand peace in myself and in the world.  Your purpose will be something else.  Malala’s purpose was to inspire girls and the world to support girl’s education and empowerment of women.  Until equality happens our world will not be at peace for it is like what the Bahai say:

“The world of humanity is possessed of two wings: the male and the female. So long as these two wings are not equivalent in strength, the bird will not fly. Until womankind reaches the same degree as man, until she enjoys the same arena of activity, extraordinary attainment for humanity will not be realized; humanity cannot wing its way to heights of real attainment. When the two wings . . . become equivalent in strength, enjoying the same prerogatives, the flight of man will be exceedingly lofty and extraordinary.”6

The Bahá’í Writings state that to proclaim equality is not to deny that differences in function between women and men exist but rather to affirm the complementary roles men and women fulfill in the home and society at large. Stating that the acquisition of knowledge serves as “a ladder for [human] ascent”7, (refer http://www.bahai.org/documents/nsa-usa/two-wings-bird)

With that reflection please listen and watch this wonderful girl, Malala, talking to the UN, taking off and helping others to soar onto the winds of change with a vision of equality, peace, harmony and hope for girls around the world.  I really love this speech.  It takes courage to speak up, but when we do our world changes. 

Be the change you wish to see (Gandhi).