Malala Yousafzai is a special person.
In 2009, at the age of 11, she wrote anonymously to the BBC Urdu service, documenting a few days of life as a school girl under the Taliban and sharia law. In Swat where she lives, part of the tumultuous North West Frontier bordering Afghanistan, the Taliban has been at war with the Pakistani government since 2007. By early 2009, the Taliban had enough influence to institute sharia law with the government's agreement and bar girls from attending school. Shortly after, fighting resumed and the Taliban in SWAT were defeated by the end of the year.
Since that time, Malala has fought for access to education for herself and her peers. In 2011, at the age of 13, she was awarded Pakistan's first National Peace Award for Youth, an award that is also named after her. She has even spoken of forming a party to advocate for education in Pakistan.
On Tuesday, October 9th 2012, Malala was leaving school after classes let out.
“A masked man stopped the school van, while another jumped in the rear asking for Malala,” [the local administrator] said. The driver tried to speed off, but the gunman had by then shot the teenager before jumping off and escaping.
Wounded in the head and neck, Malala was rushed to the hospital.
Yousafzai was flown by helicopter to a military hospital in Peshawar, where officials said a bullet was lodged near her spine. Surgeons were unable to operate immediately because of swelling in her skull.
But she survived.
“She is all right,” [her father] said in an interview soon after the shooting. “Please pray for her early recovery and health.”
Thank god our crazies don't go that far... oh, wait... Gabrielle Giffords.
She was grievously wounded in an assassination attempt. The shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, felt “women should not be allowed to hold positions of power or authority.”
Loughner, after years of falling deeper into extremist conspiracy theories and developing an obssession with Giffords, plotted and attempted to execute the assassination.
The attack on a meet-and-greet event with a congresswoman outside a supermarket; the killing of six people, including the chief federal judge in Arizona and a 9-year-old girl; the wounding of 13, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords, shot in the head.
He was subdued by two civilian bystanders, preventing an even more horrendous toll.
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I'm going to make a stretch here, and I'd like to hear what you think.
I see something happening across the world that bodes well for the future of humanity.
People are beginning to see extremists and injustice more clearly, and they/we are getting tired of putting up with it.
In Libya, after the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi, the people of Benghazi stormed Ansar al-Shariah and drove the militia out.
This is just one anecdote, but I expect the Pakistani Taliban just lost much of their support by the attack on Malala Yousafzai. We'll see if events unfold as I hope, and other purveyors of extremism and injustice are brought to the answer for their actions.
Out of such darkness, I see hope. The social network revolution has allowed people to see themselves and communicate as part of a larger whole more than ever. Extremists are exposed to the world and the cleansing light makes it harder to hide injustice behind words of distraction.
Tue Oct 09, 2012 at 11:10 PM PT: Thanks to Catkin and jakedog42 for pointing out the American Taliban is not far off their Pakistani Taliban ilk. Arkansas state House candidate Charlie Fuqua (a former state child welfare lawyer!) has been outed,
After inviting reporters to plug his book, state House GOP candidate Charlie Fuqua of Batesville no longer takes questions about the page where he calls for stoning little boys to death.