In a world where we see news of teenage celebrities (I'm looking at you Kylie Jenner) abandoning their studies in lieu of pursuing fame, Malala's story reminds us how education, an ubiquitous part of most countries, is something that people in several countries have to fight for. I am by no means shaming Kylie for something she's chosen to do - that is if she is indeed the one who is choosing to quit school in order to focus more on her image - but you have to admit that her and Malala's story provide quite a striking image. Here, you have Kylie Jenner, a privileged American teen who essentially refuses the opportunity given to her, and on the other you have Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani teen who got shot for trying to pursue the opportunity Kylie has squandered in the first place.
Malala's story resonates deeply with me. My family places a hard emphasis on education, so I can see and appreciate Malala's thirst for knowledge. My family too is Muslim, so I can also understand Malala's frustration with how several people wrongly interprets and twists Islam into something that is horrible, monstrous, and virtually unrecognizable. However, my society is very welcoming to woman getting education, and even the most hard-line and conservative Islamists in my country still send their daughters to school, albeit maybe in a different school than most mainstream Muslims. So I could only watch in part-horror and part-sympathy as Malala tells how she needs to hide her books, on how she needs to go to her school clandestinely, on how watching families live in horror as Taliban takes control of the area. She tells her story bluntly, according to her opinions and her experiences. When the military enters her beloved Swat in order to "flush out" the Taliban extremists, she doesn't fawn over them - rather, she shows that military or Taliban doesn't really matter to ordinary people in the Swat because all they really want is peace in their beloved valley. She also doesn't fawn or flounder over foreigners and foreign intervention in Pakistan, despite her current situation living in Brimingham, criticizing both the Americans and the British for their hypocrisy and part in making Pakistan the way it is now. She stays true to herself, living the embodiment of the saying "be the change you want to yourself".
I read the book while on a train trip to my hometown, and I had to keep my tears in check. Reading her story makes me realize how privileged I am. I never think about it that much, being a middle-class Indonesian Muslim girl, but reading Malala's book makes me realize how I take my education for granted. I go to university because that is what is expected from me. I go to school because that is what is expected from me. That is my life. It has never been questioned or challenged. Never does the question "What if I don't go to school?" or "What if my education is cut off?" come up in my conversation with my family, because my dad makes it clear for me, come hell or high water, he <i>will</i> make sure I go to school even if that means he has to ask for help from his extended family or go on a fast for a year. And my aunts and uncles and grandparents too make sure that I know they will not tolerate me missing even just a year from school and that they will do whatever they can in their power to keep me in school until at least I get my bachelor's degree.
I thought this was the case for every girls in the world, and that the reasons that some of them couldn't go to school was because they lack the necessary money. It never occured to me that there were other reasons, that some people thought girls shouldn't go to school and threatened those who do. This book made me realize that my circumstances are special, that what I have is an immense privilege, something these girls would give up their lives for.
Malala said, in her Daily Show interview, that it is a part of our human nature that we don't learn the importance of anything until it's snatched from our hands. This book made me realize that; how education, something that I took as granted and basic human need, is a very important thing in some parts of the world. I grumbled and complained about the university coursework that I had to do, but Malala and her friends would risk their lives in order to even have a little chance of going to college. This book made me realize my gifts, and I think it should be given to any teen celebrities - hell, let's just make that anyone that has thought about cutting their education short just for the fun of it.
Final Rating:
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Book information:
Title: I Am Malala
Author: Malala Yousafzai and Caroline Lamb
Edition:
ISBN:
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(Cross-posted to my Goodreads account: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1160677959)
