14-year old Pakistani girl activist shot by Taliban

[MadImmortalMan]

Back in school

Malala Yousafzai attends first day at Edgbaston High School in Birmingham

Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban after campaigning for girls' rights to education, has attended her first day at school in the UK.

The 15-year-old was shot on a school bus in Pakistan in October.

She has now recovered following treatment at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

She described starting at the city's Edgbaston High School for Girls as "the most important day" of her life.

She said: "I think it is the happiest moment that I'm going back to school, this is what I dreamed, that all children should be able to go to school because it is their basic right.

"I am so proud to wear the uniform because it proves I am a student and that I am living my life and learning."

Malala is in year nine and will start her GCSE curriculum next year.

She said she was looking forward to learning about politics and law.
'Normal teenager'

Headmistress Dr Ruth Weekes said she believed Malala needed the stability of being at school.

She said: "She wants to be a normal teenage girl and to have the support of other girls around.

"Talking to her, I know that's something she missed during her time in hospital."

Malala is staying in the UK after her father Ziauddin Yousafzai was appointed education attaché at the Pakistan consulate in Birmingham.

Surgeons in Pakistan removed a bullet from Malala's head after she was shot returning home from school in the Swat valley on 9 October.

She was flown to Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital for specialist treatment.

The teenager had a titanium plate and cochlear implant fitted and was discharged from the hospital in February to continue her rehabilitation.

The Taliban in Pakistan has threatened the lives of both Mr Yousafzai and Malala since the shooting.

She has received support from around the world, with tens of thousands of people signing an online petition calling for her to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

[jimmy olsen]

Once she's old enough to fully understand what she's doing, THEN she can go back and fight for her country.

So she doesn't know what she's doing now?

I can't imagine that a 14-year-old child fully understands the implications of what she's doing, no. Would she have done what she did if she knew it might get her parents killed? Could she possibly understand what the political implications might or might be as a result of her own death? That's an awful lot to put on such a young person.

Do I think she's brave as hell and do I believe that she's a hero for all that she's done? Oh yes. Do I think that she knew from the beginning that she could be killed? Yes, I think she did, and I think she took on that risk fully aware that her own life could be forfeit. But I can't imagine that she was capable of understanding the full picture, and all that it implies.

Maybe I'm wrong. I'm willing to accept that possibility. Nonetheless, she's still a child, and as such, she deserves to be cared for as a child, not as a martyr or as a crusader. That can wait.

I think you vastly underestimate the capabilities of young people who don't grow up in the protective bubble of a modern postindustrial society.

[Jacob]

I think you vastly underestimate the capabilities of young people who don't grow up in the protective bubble of a modern postindustrial society.

Yeah.

[Neil]

When Tim and Jacob agree on something, there might be something to it.

It was a mistake to give women the vote.

[CountDeMoney]

I think you vastly underestimate the capabilities of young people who don't grow up in the protective bubble of a modern postindustrial society.

And then there's Ide.

[merithyn]

I think you vastly underestimate the capabilities of young people who don't grow up in the protective bubble of a modern postindustrial society.

So you see nothing wrong with allowing her to go back to Pakistan, knowing that it will result in her death?

[dps]

I think you vastly underestimate the capabilities of young people who don't grow up in the protective bubble of a modern postindustrial society.

So you see nothing wrong with allowing her to go back to Pakistan, knowing that it will result in her death?

"Allowing"?  I didn't realize that it was Timmay's decision.

[merithyn]

I think you vastly underestimate the capabilities of young people who don't grow up in the protective bubble of a modern postindustrial society.

So you see nothing wrong with allowing her to go back to Pakistan, knowing that it will result in her death?

"Allowing"?  I didn't realize that it was Timmay's decision.

I was addressing the fact that the girl wanted to go back home in the post that Tim commented on. My point was that she was too young to be allowed to martyr herself in that way. In this case, allowed by the state of Pakistan, not Tim.

[dps]

While I see the point, I can't imagine any country telling one of its citizens, regardless of age, "no, you can't come home because we can't guarantee your safety".

[DontSayBanana]

While I see the point, I can't imagine any country telling one of its citizens, regardless of age, "no, you can't come home because we can't guarantee your safety".

Because at the end of the day, they're not concerned about her safety so much as the destabilizing influence of her likely murder.

[dps]

While I see the point, I can't imagine any country telling one of its citizens, regardless of age, "no, you can't come home because we can't guarantee your safety".

Because at the end of the day, they're not concerned about her safety so much as the destabilizing influence of her likely murder.

No, that wasn't what I was getting out.  I was suggesting that no country really wants to go on record as saying it can't protect its citizens.

[mongers]

Another story from Pakistan on the same subject:

Maria Toorpakai: The Pakistani squash star who had to pretend to be a boy
By Bethan Jinkinson

Maria Toorpakai Wazir is a star squash player with a promising international career. Born in Waziristan, a highly conservative region of Pakistan, she had to disguise herself as a boy when she took up the sport - and later received ominous threats for playing in shorts.

"I am a warrior, I was born a warrior, I will die like a warrior."

Maria Toorpakai is courageous - and she's had to be, to play squash in a region where many girls are denied more than a primary education.

When she was four, she put on her brother's clothes, cut her hair and took all her girly clothes outside and had them burnt.

"My father started laughing and said, 'Here we go, we have a Genghis Khan in the family,'" she says, referring to the Mongolian warlord of the 12th Century.

As she grew older, Toorpakai was often involved in fights. She says it was how she made friends. "My hands, elbows, knees were always bleeding - my eyebrows and face were always swollen."

So 10 years ago, when she was 12, her father decided to channel her energies towards sport - in particular, weightlifting.

"He was a bit shy to tell people that I was a girl, so he said, 'That's my son and his name is Genghis Khan,'" Toorpakai says.

After a couple of months, she was entered for a boy's tournament - and won.

"Giving her a false boy's name allowed her to take part in whatever games she wanted," says Toorpakai's father, Shamsul Qayyum Wazir.

"Then someone told me that if she carried on weightlifting, she would not grow taller, and she would become plump and heavy. So I encouraged the interest she had already discovered in playing squash."

.....

At first, Toorpakai couldn't quite believe he was the real Jonathon Power. Several months later, in 2011, she arrived in Toronto and started training with him.

She is currently Pakistan's top female player and ranked the 49th best woman in the world. Power is convinced that she will go far.

"She absolutely has the talent and determination to become the best player in the world," he says.

"It's going to take time - she did have four years where she didn't get to progress, playing in her room.

"But now she's in a great environment, she's got great people around her helping her physically and learning the game of squash on a tactical level."

As for Toorpakai's father, he couldn't be prouder. "Pakistan and the whole Muslim world should be proud of her," he says.

"In our society people celebrate when a boy is born and they are aggrieved when a girl is born - this attitude must change. I want every tribal girl to have the same chances as other girls."
.....

The full story here, is worth reading:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21799703

[Admiral Yi]

There's professional squash? 

[Neil]

There's all kinds of weird sports in Europe and the Third World.

[katmai]

Like Canadian Football.