Book : Reading "I Am Malala' in blackout...

The man who gave me the book "I Am Malala" by Malala Yousafzai and Malala Yousafzai said that Malala's story is very inspiring.

On 12 October, 2012 a young Taliban shot 15 year old Malala Youfsafzai and wounded two of her friends when they were in a bus going home from school. She had become the target for the Taliban in Pakistan because of her advocacy for girls education.

Her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai had been advocating in the Swat Valley, and in Pakistan and amongst the Pashtun people for girls education. Malala joined him in interviews and other media activities.

The attack on Malala increased her visibility in the world. She subsequently met with celebrities and global leaders.

On 24 October, 2012 - US drones killed Nabeela Ur Rehman's grandmother in Pakistan. Nabeela and other children could have been killed in the attack.  Nabeela's father is also a school teacher.  Nabeela though is not as world famous as Malala.

An Al-Jazeera article describes the reasons why Malala and her family are  more famous than Nabeela and her family.

So with the cynicism in mind about how the world determines who is famous and who is not, I started reading the book on another day of blackout.

I had read and enjoyed Khaled Hooseini's Kite Runners and A Thousand Splendid Suns and I know that the stories from Afghanistan and the Taliban ruled places are not happy ones.

Christina Lamb is an experienced 'war correspondent'  whose career includes despatches from the battle between the mujahideen in Afghanistan fighting the Russians. The mujahideen morphed into the Taliban.

She does an impressive job in creating a compelling narrative which goes back into some of Malala's history and family background, and makes references to the problems of the 'Western'  interventions in that part of the world. 

Pashtun history is complex, and the pashtunwali, the code of life also is fascinating as it seems that honour and feuding to defend honour is as important as hospitality. The Pashto word for cousin and for enemy is the same - tarbur.

Chrstina Lamb presents Malala's in the context of this history, and her father's refusal to shut up . Malala is not only a survivor of the Taliban's bullets but also of Pakistani politics. She wears one of Benazir Bhutto's shawls when she gives her speech at the UN.  The every day life is interspersed with tapa - two line couplets of Pashto poetry.

I continued reading the book to the end after the electricity came on back. I was amused at how the Royal Family of the UAE lent their hospital plane for Malala to go to the hospital, and of course questions about the other children who have been maimed in war and who have no access to planes or royal families.

But Christina Lamb manages to acknowledge, sometimes fleetingly,  that Malala's story is not a happy one as long as girls in Pakistan, and everywhere else, are under attack for being girls or for being children born in the wrong country at the wrong time.

And of course, the blackout in Guyana seemed the least of all problems in the Universe.