Today, November 10, is the Global Day of Action for Malala. The international agencies are creating this moment as an opportunity to push for universal education, especially in Pakistan. It’s an admirable goal, universal education, and one I fully support.
But we seem to be losing sight of the fact that Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by the Taliban, not because she was a child wanting education, but because she was a girl trying to go to school.
Malala’s was not a situation of simple poverty, in which communities don’t have the means to provide schooling for boys or girls. She was the victim of an act of violence that was specifically motivated to keep females enslaved.
I am dismayed that the international press and policy community is so opportunistically whitewashing the reality of what happened to this girl.
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