Despite fear, have pined for Swat Valley home: Malala
ISLAMABAD: Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai says she has pined for her home in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, even as she recalled two years living in fear under the Taliban’s harsh interpretation of Islamic law.
Visiting her homeland for the first time since a Taliban gunman shot her in the head over her blog advocating girls’ education, 20-year-old Malala contradicted critics who accuse her of promoting an ideology at odds with the country’s Islamic values.
“I am proud of my religion, and I am proud of my country,” she told Reuters in an interview at her hotel on Friday.
Malala said she was elated at being home, though she is still waiting for security clearance to visit Swat. “I had never been so excited for anything. I’ve never been so happy before,” she said.
Malala’s journey to becoming the youngest ever Nobel winner began with the local branch of the hardline Taliban movement taking over her hometown in Swat.
The Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan banned television, music and girls’ education, and burned about 200 schools. “I still remember each and every moment, right from the fear while sleeping at night that you might not be alive the next day,” she said.
After the Pakistan Army drove out the Taliban in 2009 she became a symbol for girls’ education through a blog she wrote for the BBC’s Urdu service, started while the Taliban were still in power, and a documentary Class Dismissed, that profiled her.
It made her a target. In 2012, a masked gunman boarded her school bus, singled her out and shot her. The Taliban later said it had carried out the attack for her promotion of liberalism.
She was flown to Britain for surgery and has remained abroad since, co-writing a bestselling book “I Am Malala” and starting a foundation advocating girls’ education worldwide.
In 2014 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, along with an Indian activist.