‘I see Malala as my leader’, says father of young Pakistani activist made famous by Taliban attackers

Malala Yousafzai with her father Ziauddin during her recovery from a Taliban gun attack. The young activist caught the world’s attention with her campaign for education rights and her refusal to bow to extremist threats.( Reuters)
Updated 10 May 2019
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‘I see Malala as my leader’, says father of young Pakistani activist made famous by Taliban attackers

  • The father of the young education activist targeted by the Taliban is in Dubai to launch his book ‘Let Her Fly.’
  • He tells Arab News about his trailblazing daughter’s fight for equality — and why she is a star in her own right

DUBAI: “For Malala it is not about becoming prime minister of Pakistan but about what contribution she can make to society.”

Those are the words of Ziauddin Yousafzai, father of Malala, the young Pakistani activist, Taliban attack survivor and winner of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize.

Now studying philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University in the UK, Malala Yousafzai has said before that one day she hopes to become prime minister of Pakistan.

“I can say that she has the wisdom to focus on areas where she can contribute to the nation and to the world in general,” her father said. “But her objective is definitely not simply to have the title of a prime minister. It’s a good wish to have, but not the ultimate one.”

Yousafzai was speaking to Arab News during a visit to Dubai this week to launch his book “Let Her Fly,” which details his daughter’s achievements and ambitions.




Malala receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 when she became the youngest-ever Nobel laureate. (AFP)

“Her entire struggle has been about equality and justice. She has stood for these values, and it is more important than just attaching a label to her name,” Yousafzai said.

“When Malala was growing up, I was her inspiration. Now I am among her millions of followers and I see her as my leader.”

Yousafzai is more than just the proud father of a young woman who became arguably the world’s most celebrated teenager when she survived an attack by Taliban gunmen in 2012. He has been an education activist in Pakistan all his life and is now helping the Malala Fund, which runs education projects around the world.

Yousafzai said that the security situation in Pakistan has improved considerably, but education still leaves much to be desired.

The Malala Fund has helped to set up modern schools in areas where underprivileged girls need better access to education.

“Things are moving in the right direction, but a lot still needs to be done when it comes to providing access to education for all segments of society,” he said.

According to UNESCO, about 262 million children and youth lacked access to education worldwide in 2017.

Recounting the horrific days when Malala battled for her life after the brutal Taliban attack, Yousafzai recalls the support of people around him and the government of Pakistan at the time.




Malala presenting her autobiography to Queen Elizabeth in London. (AFP file photo)

“I was only saying yes to whatever people around me suggested, and I am extremely thankful that they collectively took the right decisions. I was then just the father of a critically injured daughter, and all I wanted was her life to be saved,” he said.

He is also indebted to those who decided to fly her to the UK for treatment — a decision taken after consultation between military doctors and the government. “She may have survived even if we stayed in Pakistan, but a lot of the reconstruction surgery wouldn’t be possible back home.”

Yousafzai said the family had lived happily in the Swat Valley until the terror attacks of 9/11 when the Taliban began to extend its influence, often attacking educational institutions.

“They had neither missiles nor suicide bombers at the time, so they started destroying girls’ schools. They banned women from going to the markets and started controlling the kind of clothes they wore, which was unacceptable,” he said.

The family decided to raise their voices against the violence and, almost by default, became Taliban targets. “They were silencing dissenters one by one, and it was only a matter of time before they attacked one of us.”

This marked the beginning of a struggle that has been detailed in Yousafzai’s book, which is subtitled “A Father’s Journey and the Fight for Equality.”

“Malala was the youngest of them all, but her voice was the loudest,” he said. “Maybe she was attacked because they looked for a soft target, but she was a star in her own right.

“Whenever she appeared on television, she had a certain charisma. She used to speak up for the girls whose rights had been taken away. She was speaking for the 50,000 girls who were being denied education by the Taliban,” he said.

For more than 20 years, Ziauddin Yousafzai has been fighting for equality — first for Malala, and then for young women around the world.




Malala meeting US President Barack Obama in 2013. (AFP)

________________

TIMELINE

1997 Malala Yousafzai born July 12, 1997, in Mingora in Pakistan’s Swat Valley.

2008 Eleven-year-old Malala gives her first speech — ‘How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?’ — to a press club in Peshawar.

2009 Writes for the BBC Urdu blog under the name Gul Makai.

2011 Fourteen-year-old Malala is nominated by South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu for the International Children’s Peace Prize. She is also awarded Pakistan’s first National Peace Award for Youth.

2012 Pakistani Taliban target Malala. A gunman fires four shots, hitting her and wounding two friends. She is flown to the UK for treatment.

2013 Addresses UN General Assembly, her first public speech since the shooting, and calls for free universal education. Speaks at Harvard University, meets Queen Elizabeth and US President Barack Obama, and is nominated again for the Nobel Peace Prize. Her autobiography, ‘I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban,’ is published.

2014 Wins the Nobel Peace Prize, shared with Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian children’s rights activist. She becomes the youngest Nobel laureate and the only Pakistani winner of the peace prize.

2015 On her 18th birthday, Malala opens a school for Syrian refugees in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. 

 


India’s foreign minister rejects Biden’s ‘xenophobia’ comment

Updated 5 sec ago
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India’s foreign minister rejects Biden’s ‘xenophobia’ comment

NEW DELHI: Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar rejected US President Joe Biden’s comment that “xenophobia” was hobbling the South Asian nation’s economic growth, The Economic Times reported on Saturday.
Jaishankar said at a round table hosted by the newspaper on Friday that India’s economy “is not faltering” and that it has historically been a society that is very open.
“That’s why we have the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act), which is to open up doors for people who are in trouble ... I think we should be open to people who have the need to come to India, who have a claim to come to India,” Jaishankar said, referring to a recent law that allows immigrants who have fled persecution from neighboring countries to become citizens.
Earlier this week, Biden had said “xenophobia” in China, Japan and India was holding back growth in the respective economies as he argued migration has been good for the US economy.
“One of the reasons why our economy’s growing is because of you and many others. Why? Because we welcome immigrants,” Biden said at a fundraising event for his 2024 re-election campaign and marking the start of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecast last month that growth in Asia’s three largest economies would slow in 2024 from the previous year.
The IMF also forecast that the US economy would grow 2.7 percent, slightly brisker than its 2.5 percent rate last year. Many economists attribute the upbeat forecasts partly to migrants expanding the country’s labor force.


Philippine bishops instruct flock to pray for rain, heat relief

Updated 04 May 2024
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Philippine bishops instruct flock to pray for rain, heat relief

  • Rising temperatures have forced the government to shut down tens of thousands of schools over the past week
  • Increased demand has also stressed the country’s already strained power supply

MANILA: Catholic bishops in the Philippines are pitching in to seek divine relief from the extreme heatwave scorching the country, instructing their flock to recite special prayers for rain and lower temperatures.
Rising temperatures have forced the government to shut down tens of thousands of schools over the past week, while increased demand has stressed the country’s already strained power supply.
A widespread El Nino drought that began early this year is compounding the problem, ruining 5.9 billion pesos ($103 million) worth of farm produce so far according to the Department of Agriculture.
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines issued an “Oratio Imperata,” instructing parishes in the mainly Catholic nation to recite a prayer for deliverance from calamities during masses, according to the text seen by AFP on Saturday.
“We humbly ask you to grant us relief from the extreme heat that besets your people at this time, disrupting their activities and threatening their lives and livelihood,” the prayer read.
“Send us rain to replenish our depleting water sources, to irrigate our fields, to stave off water and power shortages and to provide water for our daily needs.”
A record-high 38.8 degrees Celsius (101.8 degrees Fahrenheit) was recorded in the capital Manila on April 27, forcing the closure of more than 47,000 schools for two days.
Nearly 8,000 schools remained shuttered as of Friday, the education department said, while the highest temperature in the country was recorded at 38.2C on the island of Mindoro south of the capital.

 

 


Indonesia to permanently relocate 10,000 people after Ruang volcano eruptions

Updated 04 May 2024
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Indonesia to permanently relocate 10,000 people after Ruang volcano eruptions

  • Authorities warned of the a possible tsunami if parts of the mountain collapse into the surrounding waters
  • Indonesia straddles the “Pacific Ring of Fire,” an area of high seismic activity where multiple tectonic plates meet

JAKARTA: The Indonesian government will permanently relocate almost 10,000 residents after a series of explosive eruptions of the Ruang volcano has raised concerns about the dangers of residing on the island in future, a minister said on Friday.

About 9,800 people live on Ruang island, in the province of North Sulawesi, but in recent weeks all residents have been forced to evacuate after the mountain has continued to spew incandescent lava and columns of ash kilometers into the sky.
Authorities this week raised the alert status of the volcano to the highest level, closed the provincial airport in Manado, and also warned of the a possible tsunami if parts of the mountain collapse into the surrounding waters.

Indonesia's Mount Ruang volcano is pictured following its eruptions as seen from Laingpatehi village, Sitaro Islands Regency, North Sulawesi province, on May 3, 2024. (REUTERS)

Hundreds of “simple but permanent” homes would be built in the Bolaang Mongondow area to facilitate the relocations, said coordinating human development minister Muhadjir Effendy, after a cabinet meeting to discuss the volcano on Friday.
“As instructed by President Joko Widodo, we will build houses that meet disaster-standards,” he said, adding that the site was located about 200 km (125 miles) from Ruang island.
Mount Ruang began to dramatically erupt last month, with experts saying the eruptions were triggered by increased seismic activity, including deep sea earthquakes.
The mountain erupted again on Tuesday, causing damage to some homes and forcing residents to evacuate from the Tagulandang island, where they had initially sought refuge, to the provincial capital of Manado.
Roads and buildings on Tagulandang were blanketed in a thick layer of volcanic ash, and the roofs of some homes had collapsed, according a Reuters witness.
The volcano had not erupted on Friday but Manado’s Sam Ratulangi Airport remained closed until the evening due to the spread of volcanic ash.
Indonesia straddles the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire,” an area of high seismic activity where multiple tectonic plates meet.


US congressman praises heckling of war protesters, including 1 who made monkey gestures at Black woman

Updated 04 May 2024
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US congressman praises heckling of war protesters, including 1 who made monkey gestures at Black woman

JACKSON, Mississippi: Israel-Hamas war demonstrations at the University of Mississippi turned ugly this week when one counter-protester appeared to make monkey noises and gestures at a Black student in a raucous gathering that was endorsed by a far-right congressman from Georgia.
“Ole Miss taking care of business,” Republican US Rep. Mike Collins wrote Friday on the social platform X with a with a link to the video showing the racist jeers.
The Associated Press left voicemail messages for Collins on Friday at his offices in Georgia and Washington and sent an email to his spokesperson, asking for an explanation of what Collins meant. There was no immediate response.
The taunting brought sharp criticism on and off campus.
“Students were calling for an end to genocide. They were met with racism,” James M. Thomas, a sociology professor at the University of Mississippi, wrote Friday on X.
The Rev. Cornell William Brooks, a former president and CEO of the NAACP and professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, wrote on X that a white man mocking a Black woman as a monkey “isn’t about ‘Stand With Israel’ or ‘Free Palestine.’ This is protest as performative racism.”

 

Collins was first elected to Congress in 2022 and made several social media posts criticizing campus protests.
Nobody was arrested during the demonstration Thursday at the University of Mississippi, where hecklers vastly outnumbered war protesters. According to a count by AP, more than 2,400 arrests have occurred on 46 US university or college campuses since April 17 during demonstrations against the war.
The student newspaper, The Daily Mississippian, reported about 30 protesters on the Oxford campus billed themselves as UMiss for Palestine. Videos and photos from the event showed the protesters were in a grassy area near the main library, blocked off by barriers erected by campus security.
They chanted “Free, free Palestine,” and carried Palestinian flags and signs with slogans including, “Stop the Genocide” and “US bombs take Palestine lives.”
Student journalist Stacey J. Spiehler shot video that showed campus police officers and the dean of students standing between anti-war protesters and hecklers. After the Black woman protesting the war had what appeared to be a heated exchange of words with several white hecklers, one of the men made the monkey gestures and noises at her.
About 76 percent of the university’s students were white and about 11 percent were Black in 2022-23, the most recent data available on the school’s website.
University of Mississippi Chancellor Glenn Boyce said the school is committed to people expressing their views. He said some statements made on campus Thursday were “offensive and unacceptable.”
Republican Gov. Tate Reeves reposted a video on X that showed counter-protesters on the campus singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
“Warms my heart,” Reeves wrote. “I love Mississippi!”


US campus protests wane after crackdowns, Biden rebuke

Updated 04 May 2024
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US campus protests wane after crackdowns, Biden rebuke

  • More than 2,000 arrests have been made in the past two weeks across the US

NEW YORK: Pro-Palestinian protests that have rocked US campuses for weeks were more muted Friday after a series of clashes with police, mass arrests and a stern White House directive to restore order.
Police in Manhattan cleared an encampment at New York University after sunrise, with video posted to social media by an official showing protesters exiting their tents and dispersing when ordered to do so.
The scene appeared relatively calm compared to crackdowns at other campuses around the country — and some worldwide — where protests over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza have multiplied in recent weeks.
University administrators, who have tried to balance the right to protest and complaints of violence and hate speech, have increasingly called on police to clear out the demonstrators ahead of year-end exams and graduation ceremonies.
At the University of Chicago, law enforcement appeared set to dismantle an encampment Friday after the school’s president said talks with protesters on a compromise had failed.
Before the clearing operation began, dozens of American flag-wielding counter-protesters showed up and confronted the pro-Palestinian group, but police separated the two sides, local media reported.
More than 2,000 arrests have been made in the past two weeks across the US, some during violent confrontations with police, giving rise to accusations of use of excessive force.
President Joe Biden, who has faced pressure from all political sides over the conflict in Gaza, gave his first expansive remarks on the protests Thursday, saying that “order must prevail.”
“We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent,” Biden said in a brief address from the White House.
“But neither are we a lawless country. We’re a civil society, and order must prevail.”
His remarks came hours after police moved in on demonstrators at the University of California, Los Angeles, which had seen a violent confrontation when counter-protesters attacked a fortified encampment there.
A large police contingent forcibly cleared the sprawling encampment early Thursday while flashbangs were launched to disperse crowds gathered outside.
Schools officials said that more than 200 people were arrested.
On the US East coast Thursday, protesters at New Jersey’s Rutgers University agreed to take down their camp after reaching a compromise with administrators — a similar deal to one made at Brown University in Rhode Island.
Republicans have accused Biden of being soft on what they say is anti-Semitic sentiment among the protesters, while he faces opposition in his own party for his strong support for Israel’s military offensive.
“There should be no place on any campus, no place in America for anti-Semitism, or threats of violence against Jewish students,” Biden said.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona echoed the condemnation in a letter to university leaders on Friday, pledging to investigate reports of anti-Semitism “aggressively,” CNN reported.
Meanwhile, similar student protests have popped up in countries around the world, including in Australia, France, Mexico and Canada.
In Paris, police moved in to clear students staging a sit-in at the Sciences Po university.
An encampment has grown at Canada’s prestigious McGill University, where administrators on Wednesday demanded it be taken down “without delay.”
However, police had yet to take action against the site as of Friday.
The Gaza war started when Hamas militants staged an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel estimates that 128 hostages remain in Gaza. The Israeli military says 35 of them are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 34,600 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.