MEETING OF MINDS
Just a day after Emma Watson helped launch the #TimesUp campaign at the Golden Globes, the UN Women Global Goodwill Ambassador and Brown University alumni spoke with Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, currently studying at Oxford University, about
UN Women Global Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson speaks with Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, currently studying at Oxford University, about the importance of education.
Emma Watson: “Thank you for doing this; I’m sure you’ve got a million things to do and essays to hand in.”
Malala Yousafzai: “No worries! Thank you for asking me and I’m really happy to do this. Also, I just followed the news about [the] Golden Globes and it was amazing, seeing all these women coming together, and it is just incredible, and you can see the change. You can actually witness it, it’s there, it’s happening. I was so happy to see that and thank you to you and all those other women who stood up. It made me so happy.”
EW: “Oh, thank you, I really appreciate that. It really felt that way in the room. You could feel the change. It was remarkable, and Oprah’s speech was amazing.”
MY: “Yes, you know when you start watching a video and watch it for two seconds and then – this was like, no, I can’t stop, I have to finish it. It gives you goose bumps; tears were coming to my eyes and I just thought: ‘Wow!’”
EW: “It felt like a really big moment. It really did. We’re doing it, it’s happening, Malala! We are making progress, we’re making small steps, but they’re steps, even in these slightly difficult and trying times. Last night was very heartening. I think you have to celebrate the wins at the moment. We have to celebrate when we do make a win in this climate. Today we are celebrating! So, you’ve recently started university. Yay!” MY: “Yes!” EW: “How does studying at university compare to studying at secondary or primary school for you?”
MY: “I think it’s completely different. Firstly, in primary schools you have to go to school every day and there are lessons, there is assigned homework, there is a teacher and you have all this regular work going on. There’s a pattern in it and it is a good way of learning, but when you come to university it’s completely different because all your teachers do is give you assignments and say: ‘Here’s the work – here you go’, and the rest is up to you how you do it: [whether] you want to go to the library and study books, [whether] you want to go to lectures, [whether] you want to do your own research … and I think it’s just incredible. It’s really a time for you to manage your time; you are making constant decisions like: how should I spend my next hour? Should I go to a library? Should I go to a talk? Should I do something else? And I think it’s really about spending your time, really kind of equally. I think you’ll have done that in university as well, you will have gone through it. How much time to spend on parties? How much to spend on reading?”
EW: “Yes. Time management becomes even more important than it was at school, because you just have so much you dictate and you are really in charge of your education. It’s up to you.” MY: “Yes.” EW: “How does it feel to go to university knowing that you would be recognisable? Was that a little nerve-wracking?”
MY: “Yes. I was nervous in the beginning and I was excited, but then I was as nervous as I was excited and I was worried about how people would perceive me. How would everyone react to the fact that I’m there, and would they consider me as a student or how the media or the rest of the world has defined [me]. I just wanted to be a student, and a friend, and I’m so happy that happened because when I came here I made friends and I was going to lectures, doing my assignments and I was having tutorials and it just all felt normal, like: ‘Yes, this is a student, uni life.’ And I was really happy to see that.”
EW: “I’m really glad to hear that, I remember that as well. The first few weeks, you know when everyone got used to seeing me for the first time – it was a nervewracking time, but then once everyone gets used to seeing you around everyone kind of forgets about it and you become like everyone else. “So, I love this quote by Martin Luther King: ‘The function of education is to teach to one, to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.’ What is your vision of what a true education means to you?”
MY: “So, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time: what is education? And then what it means for a person. And for me, education is important definitely, because when I was studying in Swāt Valley [in Pakistan] and extremists came, they banned girls’ education, and then one morning I wake up and I realise that I can’t go to school. And I can clearly see that if I don’t go into that building, where I learn every day, that is my school … if I don’t go to school and if I don’t complete my education I will get married at an early age, I will have children, I will have grandchildren, I will become a mother, grandmother, but I will not get the opportunity to be myself, to be independent, to be making my own decisions, to be a woman.” EW: “Yes!” MY: “I used to look at it from that perspective and that was because I went through that situation, but even in general, like, firstly it is an empowerment for women, it is giving them independence, it is giving them a path to the future, but I am looking at it from a perspective, from a point of view where I was one of those girls who could not go to school. But also, in general, when I think about education I think it’s not just learning a subject or getting information, it’s also about critical thinking and also allowing you to question things – not only learning facts but it also makes you question. I think this is something really important, we should be questioning things. We should be talking about our society, whatever field this is, whether it’s science or technology or social studies, it’s all about questioning things and learning, and learning different perspectives and different views and that’s how I see
“Women are standing up: in Pakistan you will see these amazing women who are speaking out, same in India, same in Mexico … each and every day they’re fighting”
education. But also, this whole structure of schooling that when you go there from age five, you sit together with all your students and you’re learning together, you have a teacher, and that whole environment really helps you grow as an individual, and by the time when you are 18 and you’re coming out of school you don’t realise, but if you look back actually you have developed yourself – you have developed your character, you have developed your personality, you are somewhere on a way to finding how to learn and what you want to do next in your life. So, it’s really a phase of growing up and getting to know yourself.”
EW: “Yes, I completely agree, and I found certainly studying in another country that wasn’t my country – so studying in America – I was given a different perspective on the world and on the things I had been taught at home. There were parts of history that were unaccounted for in my education before, and there’s a kind of questioning and a kind of learning which is trusting what’s given to you in a textbook, and then there’s a kind of learning which is being your own kind of archaeologist of uncovering things and finding multiple perspectives and sources on the same thing and knowing that there’s a big wide world out there with many different points of view.” MY: “Yes.” EW: “As I’ve got older this has been the part of my education I’ve found the most interesting as well: knowing it’s my job to find the truth, or it’s my job to interrogate and be really critical and analytical about what I’m looking at. I mean, it must be really interesting for you, living in England now, having grown up in Pakistan, to see how your country is perceived, how political events are perceived from a different viewpoint.” MY: “Yes.” EW: “Do you think there are misconceptions within the UK?”
MY: “I think there are misconceptions. I would not say that everyone has those misconceptions but, in general, a misconception that: ‘Oh, like in Pakistan and India women would not have equal rights and that country would be far behind.’ When actually, people don’t try to know the actual life experience of people in that country; so you have a generalised kind of view of the world. But I think the same is true for Pakistan: they think the words ‘UK’ or ‘America’ and will say: ‘Well, it’s a perfect world and women are out there on the boards and they are just working and doing business and getting jobs and maybe there’s full equality.’ Which is not true! Now we are campaigning and #MeToo and #TimesUp, and all these things are happening and it’s just giving a message to the world that no, there are challenges to women all across the world. In some places, it’s like more extreme … it’s early child marriages, it’s child labour, it’s sexual violence. In other parts, it’s not [as extreme], it’s unequal pay, it’s just another discrimination. So, these issues are present all around the world. I think the most important thing is highlighting them, and in the developing world, in Pakistan and India or in Africa, these issues are kind of highlighted already, and in the western world – so-called developed countries – these issues are kind of getting attention now and people are realising that they exist. So, women are facing challenges all across the globe and then, especially young girls, the first step to their empowerment is education and in some countries they are even denied that right.”
EW: “I agree, and you and I have completely different life experiences. We come from different parts of the world and what you have gone through is unimaginable, but we have both been affected by gender inequality, and I feel our unity and our sisterhood in that. And as you said, I think there is a narrative that has been created that gender inequality and all this really bad stuff, it all happens over there and that we as a western culture don’t need to analyse our own culture and our own society as much, and I actually think that narrative needs to be disrupted. I think that we have an awful lot that we need to look at within our own culture.”
MY: “Women are standing up: in Pakistan you will see these amazing and incredible women who are speaking out, same in India, same in Mexico or any country across the world they’re standing up and they are speaking out and some have sacrificed their whole life for that; each and every day they’re fighting.”
EW: “Yes, I completely agree with you – you cannot make these huge sweeping generalisations about whole countries or whole land masses. Within every area there’s going to be these more extreme pockets and areas, but I think within every country there are amazing and empowered women who are doing exactly the same work that we are and going through a lot of the same struggles. You know, I think we have a lot more in common than we probably realise or like to acknowledge. “So, it’s shocking that more than 130 million girls are still out of secondary school today. What are the continued barriers to girls accessing education and how do you think we can eradicate these?”
MY: “So, yes, more than 130 million girls are out of school right now and the reasons why girls can’t access education vary from region to region, from country to country, and they include issues like early child marriages or poverty or the social norms and taboos, or religion, or the reasons for this, they vary. In one region, you’ll ask a family why they are not sending their daughter to school and they will say it’s because there is no school in this region, there is no school in this village. In another place you’ll ask a family why they are not sending their daughter to school and they would say the school is very far away and it’s only a boys’ school. And in some places they would say: ‘We don’t have enough money to afford her uniform, her books’, or that the girl is supposed to get married early and this is not her age to be in school, or they don’t have enough money and she has to go and earn for the family and she has to do child labour. So I think the issues vary, but the most important thing is that we can solve it.” EW: “Yes.” MY: “We can solve it and we can make it a reality for all these 130 million girls to go to school and to get their education, and for that the solution is simple. It is with governments and all business people, and they have to invest in girls’ education. We have to provide them with quality schools, they have to provide them with the teachers, with the facilities, with computers, with all the things that they need in order to get their quality education.”
EW: “One thing I was talking about last night is trying to explain to people how chronically under-funded women’s organisations are – do you have thoughts on why that is and how we can encourage people to donate to organisations that specifically target and help women and girls?”
MY: “I think oftentimes when we talk about women and girls and their education, their empowerment, their health, it’s very focussed on women and it does not really focus on the impact it has on society in general. Like, when you educate a girl, how does it impact the whole society? So, when you educate a girl she is more likely going to have healthier children, she herself is more likely to be healthy, she’s going to earn higher wages, she’s going to contribute to the economy, she’s going to contribute to tackling climate change issues, she’s going to help the whole country, and then maybe people will start seeing it like: ‘Wow, if I educate a girl, if I help a woman in her health, it’s going to impact me as well, it’s going to impact each and every one of us.’ I think that’s when people will start realising. Oftentimes when people ask me why is education important, I say: ‘You should not even be asking me this. Education is important; all of you would be sending your children to school.’ Those who ask usually send their children to school; I have never seen someone who would ask me in an interview and who wouldn’t have gone to school or wouldn’t be sending their children to school. So education is important but sometimes, you know, we explain all the advantages and benefits and yes, it’s clear there is evidence, there is data that shows how investing in girls’ education is an investment in the whole economy in the country, in society, not just in the one girl’s education.” EW: “Yes, 100 per cent. It’s investing in the world we want to see happen.” MY: “Yes.” EW: “The future we want. “In your work, you have met girls from all over the world. You have done an astounding amount of travelling. How do their experiences of and attitudes to education differ, and what similarities do you see in the aspirations of the girls that you meet from all of these different places all over the world?”
MY: “I have been to the Middle East, I have been to Africa, I have visited Kenya, I have been to Nigeria, I have been to Mexico, so I have met girls across the globe, and one thing I have in common with these girls is passion for education. They want to learn and they know that education is important for them. I have never met a single girl who has ever told me that she doesn’t want to go to school. Every time I go, every girl stands up and tells me education is important and that she believes this is the only way towards her bright future. And after that I don’t need any more explanation, because that girl who’s there in a society where there are so many challenges around her, she’s standing up and she has also recognised the solution to her problems. So, a girl in Mexico, where they have a problem of early child marriages [and] most of the girls don’t go to school, that girl stands up and says: ‘I know that the solution to my future and to be protected from early child marriages and to have the opportunity to follow my dreams is education. “I go to Lebanon and Jordan, and I meet Syrian refugee girls and they stand up in the refugee camp and tell me the only way towards their future is education. That’s how they can follow their dreams but also, [how] they can help rebuild their country one day. And then I go to Nigeria and I meet girls who were abducted by Boko Haram and they say education is the only way through which they can follow their dreams and actually get hope again, and find themselves and help themselves. So that’s one thing in common, they all agree. They all agree that there’s no better way of investment than education. That’s the only way to empower girls.”
EW: “Yes. I’m curious, as you have become more and more famous, after you won the Nobel Peace Prize, is there ever a difficulty in making decisions, because you must get asked to do all sorts of things, go [to] all sorts of places, meet people, speak in
“When you educate a girl she is more likely going to have healthier children, more likely to be healthy, she’s going to earn higher wages, she’s going to contribute to the economy”
places, and sometimes that might mean a big support for your foundation – you know, essentially being able to support more women and girls, but sometimes what you’re being asked to do or who you’re being asked to do it by might not sit in line with your own personal morals and beliefs. Is that ever a hard juggling act? Do you ever feel pulled in a few different directions because on the one hand something might be good for the fund [the Malala Fund for female education] or might be good for and very important for the work you’re doing, but also not quite sit right with you … does that make sense?”
MY: “I think it does, and I think I would not say that it happens in the fund’s work but maybe in general – because the fund is completely focussed on girls’ education and then girls’ secondary education and so on. There has never been a point where I say I don’t want to do this work. Yes, this is what I want to do; I want to do even more for the Malala Fund. But I think in general, I don’t know … like sometimes a political thing happens and there is a conflict happening in a country, or like in Pakistan there are lots of issues and people want your statement on things happening around the world and you say: ‘Well, I have thoughts about it and I have an opinion about it but maybe I’m not the right person or it’s not the right time to give that opinion.’ And I don’t want attention focussed on those issues – I just don’t want people to lose attention from what I stand up for, which is girls’ education, so I try to stay away. But sometimes we have no choice. I also have to remember I stand up for peace around the world and there might be cases in which I should put forward my opinions.”
EW: “Yes, but these are difficult decisions, when to speak, when not to speak, how to speak. Because, you have so much influence, you have so much power. What you say has so much power.” MY: “I think you must be going through this as well!” EW: “Yeah. (Laughs.) I think especially because the industry that I work in, often a lot of what I’m asked to do is at odds with my personal beliefs. It’s like walking a wire; it’s an interesting juggling act.”
MY: “It’s like you’re doing the film’s promotion and your message is just to promote the film and they start asking you a different question and you say I don’t want that to be the headline I want, you don’t want to create another story, you don’t want the message to change so that’s what you have to remember, and I know it’s challenging.”
EW: “Yes! “I’m interested in how technology is changing what people learn and how we can learn. Are you excited by technological advancements? Do you think that’s going to have a big impact on how we figure out how to educate these 130 million girls who aren’t in school?”
MY: “I think definitely technology is an addition to our fight for girls’ education; it’s going to boost our fight and this is going to help us in finding solutions, because if we focus on refugee children and how there are so many difficulties in providing education to refugees in refugee camps, so maybe bringing technology to that side would
be beneficial. Also, one example is my own mum. She couldn’t go to school but now she goes to some Englishclasses and she’s taking lessons and she’s spent some time learning how to use a mobile phone and now she’s improved. She can call someone if she needs help and I think even the advantages of using one mobile phone are countless for a woman who otherwise would not be able to communicate with other people. I think in making access to education easier, yes, technology can definitely help. And I think in that case I’m really excited how the tech sector and the NGO sector focussed on women and girls can work together. I’m really excited for that.”
EW: “That’s a great answer. Thank you very much. What is the most inspiring school – do you have a favourite? I know it’s hard to choose favourites, but are there any particular schools that you’ve visited recently that you’ve found particularly inspiring?”
MY: “A school I found really inspiring was one that the Malala Fund opened in Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. That was on my 18th birthday and just to see the school that you have invested in, that you had a dream about to make sure that girls can get education and they can have a good school and teachers and desks and, like, that whole environment you imagine … and girls are studying there and they are happy and they are smiling. Then you actually go there and you open that school – that’s just like a dream coming true, so I was just so happy to open that school in Bekaa Valley for refugee[s], particularly refugee girls. The smiles I saw on their faces I will never forget. Like, I could just tell those girls were so happy for their future – they just knew they had a future once they were entering that building.”
EW: “Wow. That’s really an amazing story. Are there any particular teachers that have personally influenced you the most? Is there anyone you’re reading about or you feel particularly inspired by recently?”
MY: “I think for teachers I would choose my father, because he was a teacher and he started a school for girls and boys and he really told girls – I was one of his students – and he told all female students to believe in themselves. I have learned a lot from my father, as a father but also as a teacher. And then, all my teachers from childhood, I looked up to them and to me they were like parents, and the way I have built myself up and my character and how to behave and how to treat other people is all because of my teachers – that you should be kind, that you should always be honest and truthful. These were just the simple messages that they used to give us every day, and we learned from that. But also, all these teachers who are struggling, whether it’s in a conflict zone or in an area where there are not enough schools and not enough investment in teachers, and they’re working hard every day, and they’re helping girls and boys in their communities to learn … really, I think teachers are such an important part of our society.”
EW: “Yes, I completely agree. I found that the subjects I loved – even if it wasn’t the one I was particularly good at – were the ones where I loved the teacher. They have so much impact and influence on whether or not you want to study something or not. And that can change or determine the course of someone’s life, you know, their life decisions, so it’s a really big responsibility. “Obviously, education doesn’t only happen in schools. What is the most important thing you’ve learned from your friends or family? Is there a skill you’d love to learn in the future?”
MY: “A skill? Okay, so before joining university I had a long list of things to do that I wrote down: that I will finish my driving lessons and I’ll pass my driving test, learn how to cook, I will literally do everything on Earth – and actually, I didn’t do anything. It’s just you are so busy and you have so much work to do that it’s hard to manage all this so it’s still my dream to pass my driving test and to learn how to cook. And also, I can’t swim, so I want to learn how to swim.” EW: “Ah, that’s great!” MY: “It’s really important, I think. So, I definitely want to do that, but also just continuing my work and I want to go to more countries because I receive letters from girls all across the world, in places I never even think of. I want to go there and stand with them and maybe tell them that when I hear from them it really inspires me to continue on this work for girls’ education, and thank them for what they are doing and it just gives hope, to all of us.”
EW: “Yes, yes. This is my last question … I’ll let you get back to you time at Oxford! What are you reading at the moment, and if you don’t want to talk about what you’re reading at the moment because it’s probably related to school, what book – obviously other than your own, which is amazing! – would you encourage people to read that has really inspired you and could inspire other people?” MY: “Recently I just finished Animal Farm by George Orwell.” EW: “Yes!” MY: “Yes, so I finished that and it was a short book and I think it’s really interesting about this human psychology of how we should live together and it has that historical meaning as well and it’s in that context, but I try to look at it in [a] general sense, not a historical sense, and not which leader or person it was referring to or which time, but looking at how it applies to the current time as well. I was looking at it in that sense and how we need to create a society where we collaborate, where we construct and build a society that benefits each and every one of us and have this concept of welfare in our mind of how we want to live. Because if we just pause for a second and say: ‘We are in this world and how do we want to live? How do we want to collaborate? How do we work together? What is the best way of helping each other?’ It just reminded me of how all of us would want to have a good life, want to have shelter, want to have food, want to have education and health. I think in that scenario education, investing in education, investing in health, becomes so important. So, I recently read that book. I think in general my favourite book is always The Alchemist.” EW: “Yes, it’s so good.” MY: “Did you actually like the Harry Potter book[s]?” EW: “Yes, I loved them! My dad was reading them to me and my brother and I had read the first three before I was cast in Harry Potter. So I was a massive, massive fan already.”
MY: “Okay. This is good, this is good to know.” (Laughs.)
EW: “Yes, often the work I do is because of a book I love, it always starts with a book. “Well, Malala, thank you so much for your time, this has been amazing.” For more information on the Malala Fund for the education of women and girls, go to www.malala.org.
“I think definitely technology is an addition to our fight for girls’ education; it’s going to boost our fight and this is going to help us in finding solutions”