I’ve never been so happy, Malala says
Nobel laureate says studies and security concerns prolonged homecoming
Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai says she has pined for her home in the picturesque Swat Valley, even as she recalled living in fear for two years under the Taliban’s harsh interpretation of Sharia.
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 Yousafzai also 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 said in an interview at her hotel on Friday. Wearing a rose-printed headscarf — one of many outfits family and friends brought her from Pakistan to Britain, where she is studying at Oxford University — Yousafzai said she was elated at being home.
“I had never been so excited for anything. I’ve never been so happy before,” she said.
Yousafzai yesterday flew by helicopter to visit her childhood home in Swat Valley amid heavy security.
“I miss everything about Pakistan ... right from the rivers, the mountains, to even the dirty streets and the garbage around our house, and my friends and how we used to have gossip and talk about our school life, to how we used to fight with our neighbours.”
She said she has wanted to return before but, aside from security concerns, there was the hectic pace of school and her entry exams to Oxford.
Symbol of education
After the army drove out the Taliban in mid-2009, she became a symbol for girls’ education through a blog she wrote for the BBC’s Urdu service, which 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. She was flown to Britain for surgery and has remained abroad since.