Malala Yousafzai. The girl shot by the Taliban for fighting for girls' education. No doubt she is one of many courageous young teenagers in the world and I commend her campaign, but surely it is not just me who feels the hype surrounding her is going too far? Sure, all girls deserve an education, and it is a worthy cause she is fighting for, but the extent to which politicians, royals and the like are parading her around the world is unrealistic. In just a few months, if not years' time, she will be another in a long line of other young girls who have fought for similar causes.
Malala speaking at the UN headquarters in New York in July 2013
The UK have picked her up and put her on a pedestal. She spoke out at a UN headquarters in New York, opened the new Library of Birmingham, received a Pride of Britain award by the one and only David Beckham (despite having lived here for less than one year and is more a Pride of Pakistan), met with President Barack Obama of the United States just last week, awarded the 2013 Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought, nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, met with the Queen yesterday and she has just today received an Honorary Masters' Degree presented by none other than the former Prime Minister of the UK, Gordon Brown, at the University of Edinburgh. And what has she done, or had done to her in fact, for her to receive all this understandable but excessive attention you ask? She has been the subject of an undoubtedly terrible attack by the Taliban. The Taliban - everyone's enemy. This has indirectly been the cause of all the uproar surrounding her. Everyone hates the Taliban and for good reason but putting a young girl up on a pedestal only to bring her down later on just to use her as a pawn in international foreign policy is simply cruel and dismissive of her campaign.
Of course I condemn this action. No one deserves to be the target of such a vengeful crime when they are simply fighting for a rightful cause and I undoubtedly praise her efforts, but the excessive global attention she has received for the past year is simply going too far.
What people don't seem to see behind her courageous fight is that her and her family have received all they could have possibly wanted: from living in a downtrodden village in Pakistan, to living in a well-off area in Birmingham, attending a prestigious Birmingham private school, free NHS medical treatment, and her family given top jobs and access to all the resources even some of us British citizens aren't entitled to. Her and her family are flourishing and are relishing in the attention they have received over the past year.
This publicity and celebrity-status Malala has received is in contrast to that of her in her home town of the Swat District where she is hardly even known to those she has lived around for the past 15 years which further proves my point that global political dignitaries are using her as a pawn in their game of foreign policy.
Behind the scenes it is most probable that some of what she is preaching is being fed to her by other more influential people and she is a puppet on some powerful strings, which, if true, degrades her and her campaign and proves that she is simply being used and abused by higher powers with their own agenda.
I'd like to conclude with the point I have laced throughout this article, that Malala's campaign is a worthy one and her determination to fight for a cause that has already made the subject of an cowardly attack is admirable and highly commendable and therefore I do not wish to degrade her campaign by highlighting these issues but simply wish her well and that I sincerely hope she stays true to her campaign for girls' right to an education.