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We were not fans of the Taliban as we had heard they destroyed girls’ schools and blew up giant Buddha statues – we had many Buddhas of our own that we were proud of. But many Pashtuns did not like the bombing of Afghanistan or the way Pakistan was helping the Americans, even if it was only by allowing them to cross our airspace and stopping weapons supplies to the Taliban. We did not know then that Musharraf was also letting the Americans use our airfields. Some of our religious people saw Osama bin Laden as a hero. In the bazaar you could buy posters of him on a white horse and boxes of sweets with his picture on them. These clerics said 9/11 was revenge on the Americans for what they had been doing to other people round the world, but they ignored the fact that the people in the World Trade Center were innocent and had nothing to do with American policy and that the Holy Quran clearly says it is wrong to kill. Our people see conspiracies behind everything, and many argued that the attack was actually carried out by Jews as an excuse for America to launch a war on the Muslim world. Some of our newspapers printed stories that no Jews went to work at the World Trade Center that day. My father said this was rubbish. Musharraf told our people that he had no choice but to cooperate with the Americans. He said they had told him, ‘Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,’ and threatened to ‘bomb us back to the Stone Age’ if we stood against them. But we weren’t exactly cooperating as the ISI was still arming Taliban fighters and giving their leaders sanctuary in Quetta. They even persuaded the Americans to let them fly hundreds of Pakistani fighters out of northern Afghanistan. The ISI chief asked the Americans to hold off their attack on Afghanistan until he had gone to Kandahar to ask the Taliban leader Mullah Omar to hand over bin Laden; instead he offered the Taliban help. In our province Maulana Sufi Mohammad, who had fought in Afghanistan against the Russians, issued a fatwa against the US. He held a big meeting in Malakand, where our ancestors had fought the British. The Pakistani government didn’t stop him. The governor of our province issued a statement that anyone who wanted to fight in Afghanistan against NATO forces was free to do so. Some 12,000 young men from Swat went to help the Taliban. Many never came back. They were most likely killed, but as there is no proof of death, their wives can’t be declared widows. It’s very hard on them. My father’s close friend Wahid Zaman’s brother and brother-in-law were among the many who went to Afghanistan. Their wives and children are still waiting for them. I remember visiting them and feeling their longing. Even so, it all seemed far, far away from our peaceful garden valley. Afghanistan is less than a hundred miles away, but to get there you have to go through Bajaur, one of the tribal areas between Pakistan and the border with Afghanistan. Bin Laden and his men fled to the White Mountains of Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan, where he had built a network of tunnels while fighting the Russians. They escaped through these and over the mountains into Kurram, another tribal agency. What we didn’t know then was that bin Laden came to Swat and stayed in a remote village for a year, taking advantage of the Pashtunwali hospitality code. Anyone could see that Musharraf was double-dealing, taking American money while still helping the jihadis – ‘strategic assets’, as the ISI calls them. The Americans say they gave Pakistan billions of dollars to help their campaign against al-Qaeda but we didn’t see a single cent. Musharraf built a mansion by Rawal Lake in Islamabad and bought an apartment in London. Every so often an important American official would complain that we weren’t doing enough and then suddenly some big fish would be caught. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the mastermind of 9/11, was found in a house
just a mile from the army chief ’s official residence in Rawalpindi. But President Bush kept praising Musharraf, inviting him to Washington and calling him his buddy. My father and his friends were disgusted. They said the Americans always preferred dealing with dictators in Pakistan. From an early age I was interested in politics and sat on my father’s knee listening to everything he and his friends discussed. But I was more concerned with matters closer to home – our own street to be exact. I told my friends at school about the rubbish-dump children and that we should help. Not everyone wanted to as they said the children were dirty and probably diseased, and their parents would not like them going to school with children like that. They also said it wasn’t up to us to sort out the problem. I didn’t agree. ‘We can sit by and hope the government will help but they won’t. If I can help support one or two children and another family supports one or two then between us we can help them all.’ I knew it was pointless appealing to Musharraf. In my experience, if my father couldn’t help with matters like these, there was only one option. I wrote a letter to God. ‘Dear God,’ I wrote, ‘I know you see everything, but there are so many things that maybe, sometimes, things get missed, particularly now with the bombing in Afghanistan. But I don’t think you would be happy if you saw the children on my road living on a rubbish dump. God, give me strength and courage and make me perfect because I want to make this world perfect. Malala.’ The problem was I did not know how to get it to him. Somehow I thought it needed to go deep into the earth, so first I buried it in the garden. Then I thought it would get spoilt, so I put it in a plastic bag. But that didn’t seem much use. We like to put sacred texts in flowing waters, so I rolled it up, tied it to a piece of wood, placed a dandelion on top and floated it in the stream which flows into the Swat River. Surely God would find it there.
Page 3: I AM MALALA The Girl Who Stood Up f
Page 6 and 7: Contents Cover Title Page Dedicatio
Page 8 and 9: PART FIVE: A SECOND LIFE 23 ‘The
Page 10 and 11: that as a threat. Yet, outside the
Page 12 and 13: My friends say he fired three shots
Page 14 and 15: 1 A Daughter Is Born WHEN I WAS bor
Page 16 and 17: We lived in Mingora, the biggest to
Page 18 and 19: When I was around four years old I
Page 20 and 21: primary school and ended the wesh s
Page 22 and 23: School wasn’t the only thing my a
Page 24 and 25: y the CIA. Children in the refugee
Page 26 and 27: homes to get them. He felt ashamed
Page 28 and 29: was in Saidu Sharif, the twin town
Page 30 and 31: our own book,’ he suggested. He e
Page 32 and 33: school owners from such bullying an
Page 34 and 35: for the night. It took them a week
Page 36 and 37: We drove out of the bazaar, past th
Page 38 and 39: Usually politicians only visited du
Page 40 and 41: I read my books like Anna Karenina
Page 42 and 43: I think everyone makes a mistake at
Page 44 and 45: or books many of his friends helped
Page 46 and 47: Aneesa from the village, who had co
Page 50 and 51: 7 The Mufti Who Tried to Close Our
Page 52 and 53: close it. Girls should not be going
Page 54 and 55: The mufti went quiet. He took off h
Page 56 and 57: 8 The Autumn of the Earthquake ONE
Page 58 and 59: LashkareTaiba. LeT had close links
Page 60 and 61: Quran and Hadith when they teach th
Page 62 and 63: uilding a vast red-brick headquarte
Page 64 and 65: The authorities turned a blind eye.
Page 66 and 67: time they had taken over fifty-nine
Page 68 and 69: esult in Benazir becoming prime min
Page 70 and 71: The Musharraf government later said
Page 72 and 73: The army action at the end of 2007
Page 74 and 75: questions. I wasn’t the only one
Page 76 and 77: no electricity, then a few days lat
Page 78 and 79: journalists went. It seemed that pe
Page 80 and 81: Swat. Initially Madam Maryam’s yo
Page 82 and 83: Fortunately the Taliban had disappe
Page 84 and 85: a time of horror and fear. People o
Page 86 and 87: fighting. The Taliban agreed to a t
Page 88 and 89: ‘There cannot be two swords in on
Page 90 and 91: Leaving the Valley LEAVING THE VALL
Page 92 and 93: if there was a tent for us, it was
Page 94 and 95: He laughed. ‘You already have lot
Page 96 and 97: 16 The Valley of Sorrows IT ALL SEE
Page 98 and 99:
Muslim Khan and another commander c
Page 100 and 101:
But my father had a big problem. Wh
Page 102 and 103:
We soon heard from our relatives th
Page 104 and 105:
17 Praying to Be Tall WHEN I WAS th
Page 106 and 107:
passionately. ‘Fazlullah is the c
Page 108 and 109:
just sneak in under our radar? And
Page 110 and 111:
twenty-one girls and made our prior
Page 112 and 113:
Afterwards we went into the small m
Page 114 and 115:
‘Aba, this is a very strange situ
Page 116 and 117:
patrols.’The army say there is pe
Page 118 and 119:
then a pretty cousin came to stay w
Page 120 and 121:
Atal got very cross. ‘No, no, no!
Page 122 and 123:
21 ‘God, I entrust her to you’
Page 124 and 125:
My mother was astonished to see all
Page 126 and 127:
My father was bewildered by all the
Page 128 and 129:
That first morning, just a few hour
Page 130 and 131:
22 Journey into the Unknown I WAS S
Page 132 and 133:
sweets. One mealtime Khushal said t
Page 134 and 135:
My father then signed an ‘in loco
Page 136 and 137:
23 ‘The Girl Shot in the Head, Bi
Page 138 and 139:
had also ordered him not to cry as
Page 140 and 141:
She told me that I had been shot on
Page 142 and 143:
very kind, particularly Yma Choudhu
Page 144 and 145:
24 ‘They have snatched her smile
Page 146 and 147:
paralysed. The hospital had been gi
Page 148 and 149:
Mr Zardari told the high commission
Page 150 and 151:
complains about the murals of Greek
Page 152 and 153:
classmates still keep the seat for
Page 154 and 155:
Today we all know education is our
Page 156 and 157:
Pashtunwali - traditional behaviour
Page 158 and 159:
students of the Khushal School, Ahm
Page 160 and 161:
A note on the Malala Fund My goal i
Page 162 and 163:
My father’s friend Hidayatullah h
Page 164 and 165:
My father’s childhood home
Page 166 and 167:
Reading with my brother Khushal
Page 168 and 169:
A school picnic
Page 170 and 171:
At the beginning, people gave lots
Page 172 and 173:
Making a speech to honour the peopl
Page 174 and 175:
Painting at school
Page 176 and 177:
In our garden in Mingora, building
Page 178 and 179:
At school reading a story: ‘All T
Page 180 and 181:
My father and the elders of Swat
Page 182 and 183:
The bus where I was shot
Page 184 and 185:
First days in the Birmingham hospit
Page 186 and 187:
Our headmistress, Madam Maryam (lef
Page 188 and 189:
Sir Amjad, head of the boys’ scho
Page 190 and 191:
Speaking at the UN on my sixteenth
Page 192 and 193:
Here we are outside our new home in
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