Talk:Malala Yousafzai

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As quoted across the media, including in The Telegraph, a statement after meeting with President Obama:

• I thanked President Obama for the United States' work in supporting education in Pakistan and Afghanistan and for Syrian refugees. I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people. If we refocus efforts on education it will make a big impact.

Statement on the Noble Prize as noted on twitter

• Congratulations [on the] @OPCW on winning the #Nobelpeaceprize and your wonderful work for humanity. Honoured to have been nominated @Nobelprize_org

Statements during conversation with the World Bank

As noted on numerous tweets here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

• The best way to fight terrorism is not through guns. It's through pens, books, teachers and schools
• I am proud to be a girl. We girls can change the world!
• Everyday is our day and we are going to speak for ourselves and for our rights.
• I believe in the power of the voice of women.
• If you educate a child, there will be no poverty.
• I believe that today's dreams become tomorrow's reality. And let us make our dreams become tomorrow's reality.
• If we work together, it is easy for us to achieve our goal. Now millions of girls are raising their voices for education.

Quotes about Malala Yousafzai (section to be cleaned-up)

• Every child has the right to an education. 
  That is the simple but powerful message that Malala Yousafzai, a 17-year-old girl from Pakistan, is bringing to millions across the world. It is the message that the Pakistani Taliban tried to stop her from sharing. It is a message that no bullet can silence. 
  Today, for her unwavering courage to champion education for all children anywhere, Malala won the Nobel Peace Prize. She shares that honor with Kailash Satyarthi, a human rights activist who is working tirelessly to bring an end to child slavery in India and across the globe. 
  • Tanya Somanader, in "President Obama Congratulates Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi on Winning the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize" at The White House blog (10 October 2014)

• She was pro-West, she was speaking against the Taliban and she was calling President Obama her idol... She was young but she was promoting Western culture in Pashtun areas.
  • Current spokesman of the Taliban, Ehsanullah Ehsan, as quoted in The Girl who wanted to go to school, The New Yorker (10 October 2012)

• "I think there is lot of confusion on the international recognition given to Malala. The Taliban and their allies are visibly irritated because Malala’s message was carried around the world effectively...On the other hand there are some confused liberals/left extremists who are criticising Malala for playing in the hands of the west, whom they detest...The stupid political formulations that support what the enemy opposes and oppose what the enemy supports is being extended by the argumentative critics of Malala. Their stance is an extension of this political formulation, which is neither logical nor Marxist as they want us to believe."
  • Beyer Ayaz writing on the website of the Pakistani Press Foundation

• "Malala was lucky to find timely help and survive. Meantime, global and sections of local media have catapulted her into an iconic status while strategically concealing her progressive background...Malala’s father held progressive left-wing views. He was ideologically educated by Faiz Mohammad, Malala’s maternal uncle. Comrade Faiz Muhammad is a committed communist and has been struggling to organise the youth and the workers, in Swat and Malakand, against the fundamentalist as well as state repression...Ironically, Malala started her struggle for education with a progressive aim. Her fight is now being appropriated by imperial institutions and individuals directly responsible for commodifying education. And this commodity is beyond the reach of working class children...Malala was a young girl when she attended a Marxist school in Swat. She was going through her formative phase, learning and drawing lessons from her personal experience in Swat. She had a thirst for new ideas. She was also embracing Marxism as a scientific tool to understand and fight back violence, repression and exploitation. It is not clear yet if Malala and her family have indeed been won over by the imperial agents."
  • Lal Khan writing on the site of Bargad

• "Malala Yousufzai, a young feminist and socialist activist who was shot by the Taliban...Predictably, the mainstream media was silent on these attacks, only focusing on the horrors perpetrated by the Taliban while ignoring the destruction wrought by U.S. imperialism. They were similarly quiet about Malala Yousufzai’s political affiliations. Yousufzai is not only a women’s rights activist but also a revolutionary socialist, sympathizing with the International Marxist Tendency in Pakistan. She spoke at a Marxist educational conference in Swat earlier in the summer. She stood up against the reactionary Taliban as well as U.S. imperialism, whose drone strikes have wreaked untold havoc in the tribal regions of Pakistan. Socialist Action sends our comradely regards to Malala Yousufzai and her family and wishes her a full and speedy recovery. She is a brave social justice and anti-imperialist activist who has earned the praise of many in her fight for a better world."
  • Daniel Xavier writing on the blog of Socialist Action

• "Was Majaaz, separated by decades from the battle of Maiwand, inspired by the legend of Malalai to pen his clarion call to his beloved, and thereby to all women? It is hard to tell. But he did sway a generation of Indian women to crop their veils into flags to fight foreign occupation. Maiwand’s battle cry has inspired generations of Afghan women. According to an interview Malala Yousufzai gave a couple of years ago, she is a fan of Malalai of Maiwand and was named after her...We have been told of Malala’s blogs and interviews with global news groups, but her involvement with the Marxists of Swat (of all the places) tends to be ignored. As an IMT release suggests, Malala Yousufzai attended its National Marxist Youth School in Swat in July this year. Scores of participants came from across distant provinces of Pakistan. The scale of their commitment is heart-warming. The irony is stark. The spectacle of mighty politicians in Islamabad, running scared of lurking assassins despite layers of security jostles with the rising star (Imran Khan) on Pakistan’s political firmament whose desire to visit the troubled areas becomes heavy weather... Clearly, Malala’s battle plan was pinned on a simple ground assault of an alternate worldview. It had no room for inhuman drones or gun-toting fanatics. Malala’s kindred spirits are legion. One person she has a striking resemblance to, in my view, is Rachel Corrie, the American girl who single-handedly unnerved the Israeli army by not being afraid to be crushed by their bulldozers for a just cause."
  • Jawed Naqvi as noted by Andy Newman in Socialist Unity

• "...Wouldn't it be nice if the EU and Nobel committee would agree to transfer the prize to the truly heroic Malala Yousafzai? She has deeply earned it—perhaps (hopefully not) with the ultimate sacrifice, of her life. And giving her the Peace Prize would make a real statement to totalitarians, thugs and violent fundamentalists of every stripe around the planet"
  • Bill Weinberg as quoted in WW4 Report (16 October 2012)

• "This is a story of a native girl being saved by the white man...The truth is that there are hundreds and thousands of other Malalas."
  • Assed Baig in the Huffington Post

• "The barbarity of the terrorist attacks killing and maiming thousands of innocent people by the Taliban with the latest brutal assassination attempt on the 14 year old girl Malala Yousafzai blatantly lays bare the bestial nature of these Islamic bigots."
  • Lal Khan, as quoted on the site of the International Marxist Tendency

• "In Malala's frank prose is proof that feminism, or the desire for equality through education and empowerment, is not the terrain of any one culture or faith...In the renunciation narrative of ex-Muslim women like Hirsi Ali, persecution is a justification for abandoning culture and homeland, deeming those contexts too stubbornly patriarchal to be the venue of empowerment. Malala's story exposes the error of these assumptions; with confidence, she not only embraces faith and culture but also critiques them...Yousafzai's story reveals the everyday details of a battle that millions of Muslim girls around the world are fighting every day...In Yousafzai, we have a teenage Pakistani girl who looked straight in the face of terror and came back to tell her story."
  • Rafia Zakaria as quoted on Al-Jazeera America

• "Her fame highlights Pakistan’s most negative aspect (rampant militancy); her education campaign echoes Western agendas; and the West's admiration of her is hypocritical because it overlooks the plight of other innocent victims, like the casualties of U.S. drone strikes."
  • Dawn Columnist Huma Yusuf as noted in a piece for The New York Times

• "She did her job splendidly...Those were the most terrible days – the darkest in our history. We spared no efforts to speak up against terrorism and that struggle brought us into the limelight...[Malala]...got influenced by what was going on and gradually she joined me in our struggle against extremism"
  • Malala’s father Ziauddin Yousafzai as quoted on the Institute for War & Peace Reporting

Adnan Rasheed's letter (2013)

As quoted in 'Dear Malala, this is why we tried to kill you': Taliban chief's astonishing letter to Pakistani girl, 16, shot for demanding education for women, Mail Online, (17 July, 2013)

• Taliban attacked you, was it islamically correct or wrong, or you were deserved to be killed or not, I will not go in this argument now, let’s we leave it to Allah All mighty, He is the best judge.

• … please mind that Taliban never attacked you because of going to school or you were education lover, also please mind that Taliban or Mujahideen are not against the education of any men or women or girl. Taliban believe that you were intentionally writing against them and running a smearing campaign to malign their efforts to establish Islamic system in swat and your writings were provocative.

• You have said in your [United Nations] speech yesterday that pen is mightier than sword, so they attacked you for your sword not for your books or school.

• There were thousands of girls who were going to school and college before and after the Taliban insurgency in swat, would you explain why were only you on their hit list???

• At the end I advise you to come back home, adopt the Islamic and pushtoon culture, join any female Islamic madrassa near your home town, study and learn the book of Allah, use your pen for Islam and plight of Muslim ummah and reveal the conspiracy of tiny elite who want to enslave the whole humanity for their evil agendas in the name of new world order.

Further comment

The quotes in the "Quotes about" section should only contain the notable quotes by notable people. I think the section has developed into a scrapbook, and this is not the intention of wikiquote. -- Mdd (talk) 14:11, 6 July 2015 (UTC)