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Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousafzai

At the “National Prayer Breakfast” at the White House President started out his speech by giving praise and honor to God and welcoming those in attendance. He pointed out special guests including the Dalai Lama and other well known clergy in attendance. He mentioned others in the audience who were political prisoners and NASCAR Driver Darrell Waltrip.

But Obama made headlines when he compared the violent past of the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition which took place over 900 years ago and compared it to modern day terrorism. He then added the Jim Crow laws and America’s history of slavery.

While history is full of violence in the name of God, is this necessary to highlight at a National Prayer Breakfast? To reach back 900 years is kind of stretching it. When was the last time that there was a mass concentration of Christians who are performing atrocities as today’s radical ISIS and the Taliban?

17 year old Pakistani Malala Yousafzai became the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2009 she defied a Taliban edict that banned girls from going to school. She was 11. She was 14 when she was shot by the Taliban just because she spoke about the importance of education and girls going to school. Malala believes that the Taliban want women to be oppressed so they forbid them to go to school.

Malala was interviewed on the Jon Stewart Show in 2013. She discussed how the Taliban took over the city where she lived and how they killed and suppressed the people, especially the women. She said that if a Taliban militant would come into her house now, she thought to herself that maybe she would pick up a shoe and hit him. “But that would make me almost as bad as him. I prefer to use peace and dialogue first. I would tell him how important education is not only for you, but your children as well. Now do as you want.”

When Malala was 14, she was coming home with other girls on a school bus. The Taliban stopped the bus and demanded to know which girl was Malala. When the girls turned and looked her way Malala was shot and gravely wounded and two other girls suffered minor injuries. Malala was taken to military hospital in Peshawar, and transferred to a hospital in Birmingham, England.  In spite of the severity of her injuries, she had no permanent brain damage.

Because of her bravery and continued activism  she continues to bring to life the importance of education not only for girls but for every child. We may not agree with everything she says, but we do agree that education is important for everyone. Malala had an audience at the White House in October 2013.

She has written an autobiography : I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban.

Is it fair to compare ISIS military extremists with Christian Crusades of almost 900 years ago?  ISIS is not an “organization” as President Obama indicated when he made comments in reference to the Jordanian pilot that was burned alive by ISIS militants. ISIS is a well-funded terrorist machine that is determined to destroy everything and everyone that they deem as not embracing their ideology. King Abdullah II of Jordan has vowed vengeance for the pilot burned to death and to target the group in Syria responsible.   C.M. & K.M.

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