Psychosocial Assessment of Malala Yousafzai: Strength and Resilience

The Political and Social Context of the SWAT Region

The psychosocial assessment of Malala Yousafzai — a girl who was shot in the face while promoting education in a region of the world where girls and women were forbidden from doing many things that boys and men could do — is a fascinating story of resistance to cruelty and resilience in the face of violence. This is Malala's story, but it must begin not with her life alone, but with the political and social structure into which she was born: the SWAT region of Pakistan, in the town of Swat. The Taliban, a fundamentalist Sunni Islamist movement, was in control of the SWAT region of Pakistan. Their goal was to create a "puritanical caliphate that neither recognizes nor tolerates forms of Islam divergent from their own" (Tristam, 2011).

The Taliban, frankly speaking, employs a perversion of Islamic law which, according to Middle East expert Pierre Tristam, is "historically inaccurate, contradictory, self-serving and fundamentally deviant from" the mainstream understanding of Muslims and Islam. The Taliban — both in Afghanistan and Pakistan — adopt a deeply misogynistic approach to girls and women. When the Taliban took over the SWAT region of Pakistan, they closed schools for girls, and women who did not wear Islamic dress (covering their heads) were "flogged, beaten, shot or beheaded" (Tristam, p. 4).

There were no social service representatives in the SWAT region of Pakistan, and there was effectively no justice for violations of human rights in the town where Malala was raised. The Taliban did not tolerate girls being educated because educated women "tend to have greater freedom to exercise their agency in family decisions" (Ahmad, 2012). When the Taliban took over the SWAT region, they closed "63 schools, affecting 103,000 girls"; women could not leave their homes without a veil and an accompanying close male relative (Ahmad, p. 19). Moreover, women were not allowed to hold jobs, pursue an education, or receive treatment from male doctors. The situation went far beyond misogyny — it was an all-out campaign of violent repression against the female gender.

Social History and Personal Strengths

Malala's father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, once came close to embracing radical Islamism. Malala was just a teenager when her father "dreamt of jihad and prayed for martyrdom," until a close family friend talked him out of these restless thoughts (Bennett-Jones, 2013). In his post-radical years, however, he became a champion of girls' education and, in fact, ran girls' schools. His influence no doubt helped cultivate Malala's strong reading habit. She is clearly an intellectually gifted young woman — known to have read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time at the age of eleven. She pursued this love of learning despite the Taliban's edict in January 2009 that "no school should educate girls." Taliban fighters raided homes in search of books, and when they came to Malala's house, she hid her books under her bed. She was bright, alert, articulate, and was not satisfied merely to receive an education herself — she wanted all girls to go to school.

Psychologically, Malala was a remarkably well-balanced young woman who clearly understood the restrictive political and social regime she lived under, yet never stopped learning, reading, asking questions, and writing thoughtful, mature essays. Even though the Taliban had a habit of leaving "piles of headless corpses on the streets each morning" in towns near Malala, she was not intimidated. She became well-known as an advocate for girls' education and access to books, and was interviewed many times on local television about her goal of opening schools for girls in Pakistan. She also spoke at public events alongside her father. Journalists attended and wrote about her presentations, meaning the Taliban had ample information to locate her if they chose to do so.

In her memoir, I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban, she describes Tuesday, October 9, 2012. Her school was deliberately nondescript, designed to protect it from Taliban brutality. It gave "no hint of what lies beyond," and walking through the doorway "was like a magical entrance to our own special world" (Yousafzai, 2013). She noted that most of her classmates aspired to become physicians, and observed, "It's hard to imagine that anyone would see that as a threat" (Yousafzai, p. 2). That morning, while riding the bus to school, a "young, bearded man in light-colored clothes" stopped the bus and asked, "Who is Malala?" It turned out that Malala was the only girl whose face was uncovered. "He lifted up a black pistol. I later learned it was a Colt 45. My friends say he fired three shots … the first went through my left eye socket and out under my left shoulder," and the other two struck girls sitting beside her (Yousafzai, p. 6).

Assessment Formulation: Malala's Psychosocial Profile

Malala's bio-social factors included: (a) the constant threat of violence; (b) the burden of intimidation from a fanatical group determined to prevent girls from learning; (c) her father's moral and public support in her quest to allow girls to attend school; and (d) even after a near-fatal injury and a long recovery, she has not abandoned her goal of liberating girls from the oppression of denied educational opportunity.

Regarding Malala's psychosocial situation both before and after being shot, she has shown remarkable resilience in the face of bigotry, violence, hatred, and intimidation, and is regarded with the highest esteem throughout the developed world. At age seventeen — just three years after being shot in the head by a Taliban gunman — she stood before an audience in Oslo, Norway, to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the youngest laureate in the award's history. In her acceptance speech she declared: "This award is not for me. It is for those forgotten children who want education. It is for those frightened children who want peace. It is for those voiceless children who want change. I am here to stand up for their rights, to raise their voice. It is not time to pity them" (Engel, 2014). The only formal intervention processes Malala underwent were the medical procedures required to save and restore her life.

Conclusion

In a telling reflection of her values, Malala was interviewed by The New York Times Book Review and asked which single book she would wish all girls could read. She answered: The Breadwinner. Her reason was this: "The book tells the story of a young girl who takes on the challenge of saving her family … it reminds us of how courageous and strong women are around the world" (New York Times Book Review, 2014). This choice encapsulates everything that defines Malala Yousafzai — an unwavering belief in the power of girls' education and in the strength of women to transform both their families and their societies, even under the most violent and oppressive of circumstances.

Works Cited

Ahmad, S. (2012). The Taliban and Girls' Education in Pakistan and Afghanistan — with a Case Study of the Situation in the SWAT District. Lund University Department of Sociology.

Bennett-Jones, O. (2013). The courage of her convictions. The Spectator.

Brumfield, B. (2013). Malala's journey from near death to recovery. CNN.

Engel, P. (2014). Malala gives a jaw-dropping speech to accept her Nobel Peace Prize. Business Insider.

New York Times Book Review. (2014). Arts and entertainment.

Rapp, C. A., and Goscha, R. J. (2011). The Strengths Model: A Recovery-Oriented Approach to Mental Health Services. Oxford University Press.

Tristam, P. (2011). History of the Taliban: Who they are, what they want. About.com.

Yousafzai, M. (2013). I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban. Little, Brown.