Malala Yousafzai's activism and fight for education in Pakistan

1

Essential Ideas BOOK #1: Context: Society & Community (part I) Yousafzai, M. & Lamb, C. (2013). I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot. Background: Yousafzai’s father was educated: he was an imam and teacher and had a Master’s degree in English. He opened schools and his wife would bring poor children to the schools who would be educated for free. Life was good before 9/11 in Pakistan—but then the attack occurred and drone strikes started happening in the community. The politics of Pakistan were not as chaotic as they were later after the US invaded and the Taliban surged. Pakistan was torn apart and what had been a relatively stable life became something turned upside down. During this time, Malala Yousafzai stood up for her beliefs.

1. Malala’s father was an activist and she followed in his footsteps. When the Taliban began its violent takeover of Pakistan, her father was outspoken against it. She also became active by publishing—but she did so under a pseudonym. Their school was closed and the family was forced into hiding in another community because the Taliban was opposed to their ideas. 2. The army was able to fight the Taliban in their hometown of Swat and her family could return. Malala continued her activism, promoting education for women, which was condemned by the Taliban. 3. The American efforts to kill Bin Laden created a lot of tension and mistrust in the community. Malala became a target because of her activism, as she gained more and more publicity for speaking out against the Taliban and for embracing education for women. 4. Malala was finally attacked and shot by the Taliban while on a bus. She was airlifted to a hospital and she was not seriously injured. She was worried about her family, however. The family was removed from Pakistan and taken to England. 5. Malala lives in England and misses her home in Swat but she still believes her activism was important because it brought attention to the problems of society in her native country. She wants to continue to fight for the right of women to have an education.

Commentary: This book shows why it is important to resist those who would oppress one’s beliefs even if it means risking one’s life. The Taliban arose in response to threats from the US, and yet the same group was very restrictive and did not want women like Malala to have a voice. However, education is about honing and developing one’s ability to think critically and to have a voice. The Taliban tried to be the voice of Pakistan, but Pakistan did not need the Taliban—it had gotten along well enough without the Taliban and it was not in a position where it could not think for itself. But corruption prevailed and the country was torn in torn, and the girl who stood up for education in the end had to be removed. It just goes to show she believed in the ideals promoted in the West and so her native country threw her out after the Taliban tried to kill her. The West saw her as helpful because she represented their ideas, so they had no problem giving her a home in England. BOOK #2: Context: Society & Community (part II) Racism in America: A Reader (2020). Harvard University Press Background: The issue of blackness, redness and whiteness takes center stage in this book, which includes selections from Toni Morrison, Walter Johnson, Ned Blackhawk and many others. It looks at the issue of race and racism from many different lenses and perspectives, but the main point of the book is to show that American history cannot be told without understanding the role of race. From slavery to the forced migration of the Native Americans, to the wars against the Native Americans to the Jim Crow laws for blacks after slavery was ended, to the ways the culture is still set up to be against ethnic minorities—these are all issues intended to be brought forward.

1. The life of a slave was not something easy. It was one in which the slave was someone else’s property and not treated equally but rather as an animal that had no soul. Slavery was a vicious institution. 2. The Native Americans were seen as the enemy of the white man in America because they did not submit to the white man’s “manifest destiny” to take everything for himself. The Native Americans who fought back against this power engaged in a war for self-determination. 3. There is a racial wealth gap in America; blacks are not as financially well-off as whites and have been denied more opportunities for financial independence than whites in America. The system has been engineered to make it harder for them to get loans, to get housing in better neighborhoods, or to have better schools that could give them a better education and help them to rise up. 4. In Texas there is still strong sentiment against Mexicans that stems from the fact that Texas was taken from Mexico and that Texas sees itself as American and sees Mexicans as illegals. This anti-Mexico discrimination mars life for many immigrants from Mexico who live in Texas. 5. Mass incarceration is a major problem in America and the black population is unfairly and disproportionately incarcerated. They are targeted for more crimes yet they are not really committing any crimes that whites are not committing, such as drug crime. Blacks are able to turn to art in prison and keep their spirit alive in spite of the challenges of mass incarceration. 6. The Chinese were also discriminated against in America by the Exclusion Act, which prevented Chinese from being treated as equals. The discrimination in America’s history was shown towards anyone who wasn’t of the ruling class’s ethnicity—White Anglo Saxon Protestant in most cases.

Commentary: This book does an excellent job of giving voice to various populations. Groups seen as black, brown, red, yellow are in this book seen instead as people with lives who happen to have skin colors and backgrounds that are distinct from what the rules of America see as being right. It is important to consider how people of different ethnicities are treated in America. However, the book lacks cohesion. Instead of certain themes being discussed primarily across various ethnic backgrounds and experiences, the book seems to be more random. No real focus on particular themes comes across; instead, the options for reading are diverse. Perhaps that is the point: diversity and eclecticism have their own appeal in ways. BOOK #3 Context: Classroom / Individual Freire, P. (any) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Background: Education in the West as well as in other parts of the world has been a hot-button topic for decades if not centuries. Education was typically always something for a select few, usually well-to-do families. Working class people were never really given the option for education because they did not need it to get by. Only in the modern era has education for all become common. Public education became a way for the notion of equality to be sounded. But as Freire shows in his book education is far from what it should be.

1. Education of students in today’s schools is not something in which there is real equality. The teacher is not challenging the students to think critically or to ask questions. Instead, all assumptions about who they are and what their role in the world is are to be accepted. 2. Students should push back because education today is more like enslavement. It is slavery of the mind for the purpose of the advancement of the aims of the ruling elite. They do not want educated people rising up and challenging them so the students are taught to accept the system as is rather than to challenge it. 3. If students are going to be free and equal then they have to demand a new system of education in which they take the reins of power over their learning. They have the right to question and to attack because the system is designed to keep them oppressed and unfree. 4. The system was set up by the ruling class to give people the illusion that they were free. Really they are not free but their education makes them think they are. Their education is not really an education but more mind-control that leads them deeper into enslavement. 5. Education is part of the Culture Industry, which cultivates in the students the desire to accept and embrace the oppressor. The students should be active in opposing the oppressor, the teacher, and insisting that the system that is rigged for the elites and ruling classes be overthrown. 6. The challenge of thinking and becoming a critical thinker is one that requires a new kind of openness to information that has not been seen before. Acceptance of information from the education system has to be stopped. Information has to be sought out that is from alternative sources.

Commentary: The Pedagogy of the Oppressed is a book that pulls the cover back on the reality of our state-run public schools. Most people are under the impression that public school is good because it is free and it is run by the state, which has everyone’s best interests in mind. What the author shows is that the state is actually more interested in maintaining its own power than it is in helping students to climb up socially and achieve true equality with the ruling class. The ruling class is who created the state-run schools that keep students passive learners, docile and accepting of the doctrines that the state wants them to embrace so that they do not challenge the state ruling elites or create problems for the state. The last thing the state wants is a bunch of empowered students. That is what makes this book so interesting: it is actively promoting for a revolution without even really seeming like it. BOOK #4 Lama, D. & Cutler, H. (any edition). The Art of Happiness. Riverhead books. Background: The Dalai Lama is the head of the Buddhist monks in exile from China. He is focused on leading people in meditation by achieving a state of mind in which one is separate from the world around them. The point is to achieve a state of perfect detachment so that one is no longer clinging to the things of this world. For the Dalai Lama and those who follow in this way peace and happiness is achieved through will power and training of the mind. This is not a religious book but is more psychological and therefore it is not exactly a way one takes towards finding God. If that is what people are looking for they are not going to find it here. The Dalai Lama’s book focuses on dealing with issues like anger, compassion, self-esteem, and change.

1. The first lesson is that happiness is a right that everyone has. To seek happiness is the purpose of life, according to the Dalai Lama. The psychologist Howard Cutler follows the Dalai Lama around and learns what is meant by this happiness and how it involves training the mind, heart, feelings and intellect to achieve a certain inner discipline. 2. Happiness cannot be achieved if one is harboring deep-seated feelings of anger or hatred because these are attachments and peace is not achieved unless one is free of attachments. Contentment with things as they are is happiness and a desire to obtain more and more objects frustrates the pursuit of happiness because objects cannot make one happy. 3. Analysis of one’s thoughts is essential. One must look at one’s thoughts and feelings to see if they are helpful or hurtful. One must also try not to want things as desire leads to unhappiness. 4. An attitude of friendship and warmth is necessary for happiness. Intimacy is central to happiness and to existence. This means having a friend or special person with whom one can share everything. 5. One must also be willing to face suffering. Suffering can lead to freedom, but one can also avoid suffering be eliminating attachments. 6. Spirituality according to the Dalai Lama does not necessarily have to do with religion. It can pertain to our natural state and just being in tune with our natural dispositions.

Commentary: It seems that the Dalai Lama is saying two opposing things at once: one should be intimate with someone and yet one should be free of attachments. How does one achieve intimacy if one is to be free of attachments? Isn’t one attached to a friend if one is intimate with that person? Or is the intimacy somehow devoid of attachment? Perhaps that is it. The Dalai Lama also talks about finding meaning in pain and suffering and using these experiences as a way to strengthen the mind. Essentially, he is advocating mind over matter as a way to deal with pain. I find the focus on a kind of secular spirituality to be somewhat limited. The Dalai Lama is not preaching a religion but rather a type of naturalism that is also akin to nihilism, because the main core tenet is that none of this matters and so one only makes life unbearable by attaching meaning on things that will pass away. For me, I find it difficult to take this view seriously because I am religious. BOOK #5 Siegel, D. J. & Bryson, T.P. (2011). The Whole-Brain Child. NY: Delacorte Press. Background: Parents can forget that when raising children they are actually raising a human being that is going through some serious development. The child is not mature like the adult and the parent has to realize the different stages at which children develop. It is not easy for children to use logic. It is not easy for them to control emotions. Thus, parents have to deal with a lot of the things that affect children in negative ways by identifying triggers and preventing them or controlling for them through a process of understanding and management.