Online Reflection 3

I am Malala

I have chosen the English version of the book I Am Malala because I have been looking forward to read it ever since it was released in 2013. Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Price in 2013 because of her intense willingness and courage to standing up especially for female education, but education overall, in a society controlled by the Taliban.

The book gives you an inside view of how the every day life was and is in the Middle East, specifically in the northern Pakistan. It is a very describing story and, in my opinion, doesn’t hide the ugly truth. Malala gives a good description of how the Taliban got the power in her country Pakistan, why it escalated and how the western view of Islam and Muslims came to change. I think that it’s a very important story that the world should get to know, since there are too many people judging Islam and Muslims of the horrible actions made of the Taliban or other violent extremists in Muslim dominated countries. In the book she describes that the citizens were first mislead by a Taliban that urged he knew the correct way of living according to Islam and in that way become a better Muslim, which is important for the religious Muslims. After some softer statements like clothing and looks the more brutal statements came when the followers increased; prohibition of entertainment, women getting education, women leaving the home etc.. If the citizens didn’t follow this “correct” way of Islam, they would get punished. That’s why, in a brief summary, the Taliban got so much influence, because of the threats and “jihad” which affected they who didn’t want to follow the Taliban’s stupid ideas of the “correct” Islam. Just like Hitler got the German citizens to help him implement the holocaust. The fear of a human being might be the extinction of the homo sapiens, perhaps not thanks to the hermits but anyhow the educated part of the homo sapiens.

The proportion of violent Islamic extremists in Sweden in 2010 were 0,00002% of the population (not an totally safe source, but fair enough). The proportion of Muslims in Sweden is said to be around 5% (by a fresher investigation). That results in the fact that, quickly calculated, 99,99958% of the Muslims in Sweden gets the false stamp of xenophobic people, who believes that all Muslims are a threat to our lovely and kind country Sweden and Europe. Isn’t that insane? The media is making up an image that all Muslims are bad, why can’t they show us the beautiful and nice things of Muslims and the surroundings in the Middle East? I believe the percentage of xenophobic people would decrease is there were more bright images and some “get-to-know” interviews with people of the Middle East, like Malala. 

After reading this book I must say I’ve got a brighter view of the culture in the Middle East. One of my best friends is from Kurdistan, and he often tells me about the good food, gardens and other nice things from his country that is hard to believe since I’ve only seen the desert and ugly bombed cities from the Middle East on TV. Malala describes a very nice surrounding of her hometown too, so if there won’t be a nuclear war in the future I would happily go on vacation to one or some of the countries over there, when it gets a little safer.