Meet Malala Yousafzai: The Girl Who Was Shot by the Taliban

Triumphing over Terrorism

Screen Shot 2013-10-11 at 12.19.10 AMMalala Yousafzai was not always living under the authoritarian rule of the Taliban.

In this interview with John Stewart, she speaks of a time in 2004 when there was no terrorism, but then in 2007, things changed. People were slaughtered and the radical fundamentalist Islamists spread terror across Pakistan, repressing the rights of women. There was to be no hope that Malala would be able to get an education.

But she would not back down so easily.

She describes how she spoke out, and wrote in her diaries that people should fight against terrorism. But the Taliban would turn their jaundiced eye toward her in 2012. A threat came from the terrorists that she would be killed if she continued speaking out.

She asked herself, “If they would come, what would you do Malala? Would you hit him with a shoe? Then I realized, I would be no better than the Taliban. You must fight them through peace and through dialogue. Then I would tell him how important education is. I would tell him how I would want his children to have an education. Then I would say, ‘OK do what you want with me’.”

Malala’s stirring interview with John Stewart puts the 16-year-old girl’s intellectual courage on full display. Her book “I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up For Education and Was Shot by the Taliban,” is on sale at Amazon.