Malala Yousafzai gestures as she speaks to an audience during a discussion of her book, “I am Malala” at Boston College High School, October 12, 2013, in Dorchester, Mass. Her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai (R) is also pictured.
Pakistani teenage activist Malala Yousafzai says she plans to pursue her global campaign for female education, but will take on a career in politics later in life to effect change at the highest levels of government in her country.
Malala, who was shot in the head by the Taliban last year for promoting education for girls and women, made the remarks in an interview with the British state-funded BBC on Sunday.
“We want to help every child in every country that we can. We will start from Pakistan and Afghanistan and Syria now, especially because they are suffering the most and they are on the top that need our help,” she said.
“Later on in my life I want to do politics and I want to become a leader and to bring the change in Pakistan. I want to be a politician in Pakistan because I don’t want to be a politician in a country which is already developed,” said Malala, who met US President Barack Obama in the White House on Friday and urged him to end controversial CIA-run drone strikes on the Pakistan™s tribal areas.
Malala, who had been considered a front-runner for the Nobel Peace Prize, met with the US president on the same day the prize was awarded to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
Elsewhere in her remarks, the Pakistani schoolgirl said that she was not a “figure of the West” and “a Westerner now”.
“My father says that education is neither Eastern nor Western. Education is education: it’s the right of everyone,” she stated.
“The thing is that the people of Pakistan have supported me. They don’t think of me as Western. I am a daughter of Pakistan and I am proud that I am a Pakistani.
“On the day when I was shot, and on the next day, people raised the banners of ‘I am Malala’. They did not say ‘I am Taliban’.
“They support me and they are encouraging me to move forward and to continue my campaign for girls’ education.”
On July 12, Malala celebrated her 16th birthday with a passionate speech at the United Nations headquarters in New York, in which she said education can change the world.
“Let us pick up our books and pens. They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world. Education is the only solution,” she told UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and about 1,000 youth leaders from over 100 countries attending an international Youth Assembly at the UN.
On October 9, 2012, Malala was shot by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants in the town of Mingora for speaking out against the fanatics and promoting education for girls and women in her home region, the Swat Valley of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The UN speech was her first public address since the incident. She has been credited with bringing the issue of women’s education to global attention.
“They shot my friends too. They thought that the bullets would silence us. But they failed and out of that silence came thousands of voices,” Malala said.
“The terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born,” she stated.
She went on to say that education is the only way to improve lives.
“The extremists were, and they are, afraid of books and pens,” Malala observed.
In December 2012, Pakistan and UNESCO unveiled the Malala Plan, which aims to get all the girls in the world into school by the end of 2015.
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Copyright: Press TV