I am Malala

I Am Malala is a memoir written by Malala Yousafzai, with the assistance of British journalist and author Christina Lamb, and published in 2013. The story follows a young Malala living in Swat, Pakistan, whose outspoken advocacy for girls’ rights to education makes her a target for the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist political and military organisation who gradually take over the area, and whose limits on the role of women becomes increasingly more fanatical.

Malala’s childhood is portrayed as a happy one, and despite being raised in a society which limits the role of women, is raised by her parents to believe the opposite. When she is born, her father, Ziauddin, places her name on the family tree, a position usually reserved for the men in the family, and nicknames her Jani Mun, or soulmate. Malala is named after Malalai of Maiwand, an Afghan folk hero who rallied local Pashtun fighters against the British troops in the 1880 Battle of Maiwand.

Ziauddin and Malala’s grandfather are both teachers, and Malala attends the school her father builds and, alongside other female students, aspires for greater participation in society. This is despite the very real and restrictive context within which the girls and women live; women are not permitted to be outdoors without a male relative and girls are not encouraged to attend school. Ziauddin is vocal about his beliefs on educational equality, as well as the environment and the government, and desires to bring positive change to his country, all of which make him a target of the Taliban. Malala’s mother is uneducated, unable to read or write, but helps her husband in his goal to make education accessible to all young people, and eventually takes lessons herself.

Malala and the people of the Swat Valley face many challenges over the course of the book, including an earthquake, the Taliban takeover, a military operation, and severe flooding which culminates in widespread loss of human life as well as the destruction of infrastructure and culture. The beliefs for which Malala and her family advocate on women’s rights and education not only place them in a precarious situation with the Taliban but with the community, who increasingly pressure them to stop their advocacy out of fears for community safety.

On the way home from school one day, Malala is shot in the head but survives and, after initial emergency treatment in her own country, is flown to a British hospital for aftercare and rehabilitation. Malala’s parents and her two younger brothers join Malala in England shortly after, having had to remain behind to secure their travel documents. The family are yet to return to their beloved home for safety reasons. Responsibility for the attack on Malala was claimed by the Taliban, who also left two of her classmates injured, and the man responsible for the attack has never been held to justice.

I am Malala received positive critical reception outside of Pakistan and was translated into more than 40 languages. It was a 2013 New York Times Best Seller and the recipient of several awards including Popular Non-Fiction Book of the Year in the British National Book Awards for 2013. In Pakistan, the book has been banned in many schools and resulted in a Taliban death threat against Malala and the targeting of stores that sell her book.

Pride

The 1980s in Britain was a decade of government under British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, yuppies, chunky mobile phones and BMX bikes. It was also a tumultuous time for two distinctly separate communities that would unexpectedly find common ground. The miners of Wales and the gay community of London formed an alliance in their common struggle against government, police and public pressure.

The miners would go on strike after the Thatcher government, through the National Coal Board, announced it would close 20 pits and essentially cut 20,000 jobs. In solidarity, the coal miners began a bitter and hard fought strike called for by Arthur Scargill, on behalf of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). The strike would last the best part of a year and see local townships suffer much hardship as the mining industry was the financial and social lifeblood of many towns and had been for generations. Police were called to break the picket lines, that is, the lines of striking workers protesting and blocking non-union members (scabs) from entering the pit to work. As the miners went without pay and work, any support they had would come from the sympathetic public. First, support came from their own families and communities, especially the women who formed support groups to raise money and distribute food and clothing to struggling households. Unpredictably, support also come from a small group in London, which positively impacted both groups and the wider community.

The London group was a handful of gay and lesbian activists who formed Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM). Seeing similarities between the heavy-handed nature of the government and police response to the miners and that which faced the gay community, LGSM reached out to a small mining community in the Dulais Valley of Wales and offered financial and moral support. The British gay community had initiated activist groups after seeing the riots in New York in 1969 and, in 1972, held its first Pride march which would become an annual event. The gay community of Britain faced struggles on many sides; government legislation reflected inequalities in laws regarding homosexual relationships, community attitudes were still essentially homophobic and added to the ongoing violence and hostility the gay community faced, a health crisis known as HIV/AIDS emerged with first cases being understood medically in the first two years of the 1980s. Not fully understood at the time, the disease was spreading through gay communities in the USA and Europe and claimed many lives.

Out of the struggles emerged an activist, Mark Ashton, secretary of the Young Communist League, who in 1984 founded Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM). LGSM would get together for meetings at the Gay’s the Word bookshop in London, where Ashton would rally community support for the mining communities in South Wales who were dealing with pit closures and were consequently living in near-poverty. Along with the members of LGSM, Ashton carried out bucket collections in London’s gay and lesbian bars and clubs, raising around £20,000 for Welsh mining communities. He passed away only three years later of AIDS-related complications at the age of 26.

While the events of Pride focus on the alliance between the miners and LGSM, the film manages to highlight the governmental attitude at the time, led by Margaret Thatcher, who was known as the ‘iron lady’, a tough and unrelenting head of state. The film depicts the abuse of police powers regarding the two groups and the public’s response to efforts by the groups in seeking rights and equality. Based on true events, the groups have met since the 1980s and all of the characters’ lives may be followed online, except for Joe who is an amalgam of people.