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Showing posts with label Malala Yousufzai. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Malala Yousufzai. Show all posts
THE Nobel Committee should be congratulated for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Malala Yousafzi and Kailash Satyarthi. Both have shown amazing bravery and an unwavering commitment to peacefully challenging and changing the world and improving the lives of millions in their countries around the world. While India and Pakistan are again involved in military clashes over Kashmir the Nobel Committee has sent a strong message to both these countries and to the world that a commitment to peace, not military domination, produces the most tangible and enduring positive changes in the lives of people worldwide. God bless Malala Yousafzi and Kailash Satyarthi!!!!! From +NPR .....
Malala Yousafzai poses for photographs in New York.
Yousafzai, who survived being shot by the Taliban because she advocated
education for girls, has been been named one of two recipients for the
2014 Nobel Peace Prize.
Frank Franklin II/AP
Updated at 8:20 a.m. ET
Malala
Yousafzai, the Pakistani teen who was attacked by Taliban militants for
promoting education for girls, will share the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize
with Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian campaigner against exploitation of
children.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee says on Nobelprize.org:
"Showing
great personal courage, Kailash Satyarthi, maintaining Gandhi's
tradition, has headed various forms of protests and demonstrations, all
peaceful, focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial
gain. He has also contributed to the development of important
international conventions on children's rights.
"Despite her
youth, Malala Yousafzai has already fought for several years for the
right of girls to education, and has shown by example that children and
young people, too, can contribute to improving their own situations.
This she has done under the most dangerous circumstances. Through her
heroic struggle she has become a leading spokesperson for girls' rights
to education."
Kailash Satyarthi (in while) greets U.N. officials at a meeting in Geneva in 1998.
Donald Stampfli/AP
Yousafzai,
17, defied the Taliban in her town of Mingora in Swat Valley, near the
volatile western frontier dividing Pakistan and Afghanistan. In October
2012, Taliban militiamen boarded a school bus she was on, singled her out and shot her in the left side of the head. Two other girls were also wounded in the attack.
Left in critical condition, Yousafzai received an outpouring of international support and was moved to the U.K. for treatment.
"Malala
battled for her life, and came back to become an international
ambassador for the rights of girls to be educated," NPR's Julie McCarty
says.
In July 2013, Yousafzai addressed the United Nations, telling delegates that the Taliban "thought that bullets would silence us, but they failed.
"The
terrorists thought that they would change my aims and stop my
ambitions," she said defiantly, "but nothing changed in my life, except
this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage
was born."
She is a previous recipient of the Sakharov Prize and was first nominated for the Peace Prize last year. She now lives in Birmingham, England, but the Taliban have threatened to target her again.
Yousafzai is the youngest-ever Nobel laureate.
Satyarthi,
60, is a long-time activist against child labor and for better
education of children in South Asia. In his 20s, he gave up a career as
an electrical engineer and "dedicated his life to helping the millions
of children in India who are forced into slavery by powerful and corrupt
business- and land-owners," PBS writes.
"His
original idea was daring and dangerous. He decided to mount raids on
factories — factories frequently manned by armed guards — where children
and often entire families were held captive as bonded workers.
"After
successfully freeing and rehabilitating thousands of children, he went
on to build up a global movement against child labor. Today Kailash
heads up the Global March Against Child Labor, a conglomeration of 2000
social-purpose organizations and trade unions in 140 countries."
The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights calls Satyarthi "India's lodestar for the abolition of child labor."
"Since
1980, he has led the rescue of over 75,000 bonded and child slaves in
India and developed a successful model for their education and
rehabilitation. Kailash has emancipated thousands of children from
bonded labor, a form of slavery where a desperate family typically
borrows needed funds from a lender (sums as little as $35) and is forced
to hand over a child as surety until the funds can be repaid," the RFK
Center says. Speaking to NPR in 2011,
Satyarthi decried the rise of female feticide — or so-called selective
abortions — in India, explaining: "The parents feel that the boy is a
help for the future, where the girl is a liability.
"If we
spend money on her, then we have to spend money on her marriage, dowry
probably, and then if something goes wrong, then we are always
sufferers. So better that that girl is not born," he said, explaining
the reasoning of some parents in India.
THE attack, the attempted murder of 14 year old Malala Yousufzai, a child prodigy in school and politically, has rocked the conscience of Pakistani women and may send shock waves through the Pakistani political, military and intelligence communities. The taliban has shown it's true colors in their attempt to silence a young girl that has had the courage to challenge the repressive, regressive perversion of Islam the taliban fights to impose on Pakistani society. She has the courage to stand up to the taliban, something those in leadership positions in Pakistan have lacked. It is unknown if the government will finally cut all ties and support of the taliban and other terrorist organizations and take the necessary action to eliminate their bases in the FATA and areas of operation throughout the country. Before Americans get too self-righteous we need to remember we have many among our political, religious and military leadership who believe in and support "christian" reconstructionist, dedicated, through their perversion of Christianity, to imposing "christian" sharia on America. From the PBS NewsHower and AlterNet....
JUDY WOODRUFF: For more on all of this we
turn to NewsHour special correspondent Saima Mohsin. I spoke to her a
short while ago from Islamabad, Pakistan.
Saima Mohsin, welcome.
First of all, we know the Taliban are claiming responsibility. What more do we know about that? SAIMA MOHSIN: Yes, the Taliban has released a
statement accepting responsibility and saying that this is because they
believe that Malala Yousufzai, this 14-year-old girl from the
Swat Valley, stands for a secular state. Because she stood up and spoke
up against the Taliban and fought for young girls' rights, girls like
herself to go to school.
But, interestingly, they're arguing that this isn't because she's
fighting for the right to education. It's because she stands for a
secular society and because she's bringing in Western ideals into
Pakistan.
And, tonight, they have insisted that should she survive this attack,
they will attack her again, and this time they say they will ensure
they kill her. JUDY WOODRUFF: Why do you think they believe that a 14-year-old girl is a threat? SAIMA MOHSIN: Well, this is something that everyone
across Pakistan has condemned, and, indeed, said that, how could a
teenager be a threat to the Taliban?
Certainly, this shows how callous and cruel they are, which is what a
lot of political leaders are saying today, and the fact that they will
leave no stone unturned to get their message out, even if that means
attacking a young girl.
Malala Yousufzai was a very important figure in the battle against the Taliban in the Swat Valley and for the rest of Pakistan.
She's a revered and respected teenager, and it was this teenage voice
that struck so many people across the country when she started writing a
blog and talking about how she longed for an education.
And it didn't matter that she faced the potential of being killed by
the Taliban, who had taken over the Swat Valley and her home and
neighborhood. She would -- carried on going to school.
In fact, I interviewed her father back in 2008, who spoke to me and
insisted that he, as a teacher, would continue to go to school, continue
to teach, and he wouldn't stop his daughter from going out to defy the
Taliban and attend school. JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, how widely is she supported,
Saima? Because I also read today that religious parties and mosques were
largely silent about this and not condemning the attack. SAIMA MOHSIN: Yes. As ever, the extreme right and
perhaps some right-wing religious leaders will be reluctant to come out
and condemn the attack because the Taliban used the name of religion.
But we have seen a reasonable amount of change this time around.
Because Malala is a young girl, because she is a teenager and because
she was a symbol of the battle against the Taliban, political leaders
have come out, they have spoken out against this with unequivocal
condemnation this time.
Remember that the terrorists and these right-wing groups are a very
small majority of the 180 million people living here in Pakistan. JUDY WOODRUFF: We also know that, today, Pakistan's
top military official, the chief of army staff, General Kayani, went to
visit her in the hospital. How significant is that? SAIMA MOHSIN: Well, that's significant on a number
of levels, because, of course, the military has not been able to leave
the SwatValley. They still have a considerable presence alongside the
civilian administration and the police there to keep it protected, to
ensure that the Taliban do not return to that area.
And, of course, Malala's is in a civil military hospital where she's
being cared for and operated on last night. General Kayani's statement
in particular is of interest, because of what I mentioned, the
unequivocal condemnation.
And he is, arguably, one of the most powerful men in this country.
And, today, part of his statement said, "The terrorists have shown how
low they can fall in their cruel ambition to impose their twisted
ideology."
Now, that is crucial because, previously, we haven't heard about how
twisted ideology, how the Taliban are using religion in Pakistan to try
and gain favor of the local people or to fight this jihad, as they call
it. And for the military leadership to condemn the Taliban will send out
a powerful message to the people of Pakistan. JUDY WOODRUFF: Saima, finally, in your own
reporting, whom do you want to talk to, to get a better sense of just
how supportive the country is behind her and behind what she's doing? SAIMA MOHSIN: Well, today, for the first time after
many, many years, we have seen people take to the streets. And it's the
real average man of Pakistan that needs to -- as analysts say, needs
come out and stand up against the Taliban, because this is what is being
dubbed the silent majority of Pakistan vs. a very vocal minority, which
is the terrorist groups.
So people are wanting to see that the people of Pakistan themselves
are going to take to the streets to stand up and condemn the Taliban and
say that they do not represent us. And for the first time today, we
have seen those protests and demonstrations, reasonably small, but in
terms of numbers, a couple of hundred in major cities coming out and
saying that, we do not stand for and the attack on Malala is not
acceptable to the rest of Pakistan. JUDY WOODRUFF: Saima Mohsin in Islamabad, Pakistan, thank you very much for talking with us. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/july-dec12/pakistan2_10-10.html
AR Republican Charlie Fuqua Advocates Stoning Rebellious Children, Per Deuteronomy
8OKT12
"The
maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family
discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be
permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all
other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death
penalty for rebellious children is not something to be taken lightly.
The guidelines for administering the death penalty to rebellious
children are given in Deut 21:18-21" - Republican Charlie Fuqua, from
his book God's Law
"I think my views are fairly well-accepted by most people" - Charles Fuqua, as quoted by the Associated Press
It has rapidly migrated from the Arkansas Times - which has broken the story about a controversial book written by Republican candidate for the Arkansas Legislature Charlie Fuqua - to the Huffington Post , but so far media has not identified the most astonishing aspects of Fuqua's suggestion, in his e-book God's Law: The Only Political Solution, that rebellious children should be executed in accordance with Deuteronomy 21:18-21.
First, Fuqua is not advocating just any form of execution. By citing
those verses from Deuteronomy, candidate Fuqua is recommending stoning
rebellious children to death. Here is the scripture Fuqua cites,
Deuteronomy 21, verses 18-21, from the King James Version of the Bible:
"18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which
will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and
that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and
bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his
place;
20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is
stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton,
and a drunkard.
21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he
die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall
hear, and fear."
Next, Fuqua's view that the American legal system should be based on
Biblical Law identifies him as a type of Christian Reconstructionist. On
Fuqua's website for his book, he explains,
"Everything that is wrong with the United States will be
corrected only when we turn back to the Biblical principles followed by
our founding fathers. The prophets of the Bible told Israel that the
nation would suffer as a result of disobedience to God's law. It is no
different today. God made the universe and the laws that govern it.
Disobedience of those laws always produces bad consequences."
"[Christian] Reconstructionism seeks to replace democracy
with a theocratic elite that would govern by imposing their
interpretation of "Biblical Law." Reconstructionism would eliminate not
only democracy but many of its manifestations, such as labor unions,
civil rights laws, and public schools. Women would be generally
relegated to hearth and home. Insufficiently Christian men would be
denied citizenship, perhaps executed. So severe is this theocracy that
it would extend capital punishment beyond such crimes as kidnapping,
rape, and murder to include, among other things, blasphemy, heresy,
adultery, and homosexuality.
Reconstructionism has expanded from the works of a small group of
scholars to inform a wide swath of conservative Christian thought and
action."
Among the crimes identified by Christian Reconstructionists as
deserving the death penalty (by stoning) is also juvenile deliquency.
Stoning disobedient children is, needless to say, slightly
controversial, even among leaders of the hard religious right. As a
brilliantly satiric 1998 essay pulbished in the libertarian magazine
Reason, by Walter Olson, titled Invitation to a Stoning: Getting cozy with theocrats described,
"For connoisseurs of surrealism on the American right, it's
hard to beat an exchange that appeared about a decade ago in the
Heritage Foundation magazine Policy Review. It started when two
associates of the Rev. Jerry Falwell wrote an article which criticized
Christian Reconstructionism, the influential movement led by theologian
Rousas John (R.J.) Rushdoony, for advocating positions that even they as
committed fundamentalists found "scary." Among Reconstructionism's
highlights, the article cited support for laws "mandating the death
penalty for homosexuals and drunkards." The Rev. Rushdoony fired off a
letter to the editor complaining that the article had got his followers'
views all wrong: They didn't intend to put drunkards to death."
Rousas J. Rushdoony held many notable positions, including a rejection of the Copernican model of the Solar System (he was a Geocentrist .)
That position provoked a bitter dispute with Rushdoony's son-in-law
Gary North, who cleaved to the modern theory espoused by Copernicus and
Galileo. But both men were in accord about stoning. As Olsen's Reason
article acerbically described,
"when Exodus 21:15-17 prescribes that cursing or striking
a parent is to be punished by execution, that's fine with Gary North.
"When people curse their parents, it unquestionably is a capital crime,"
he writes. "The integrity of the family must be maintained by the
threat of death." Likewise with blasphemy, dealt with summarily in
Leviticus 24:16: "And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall
surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone
him."
Reconstructionists provide the most enthusiastic constituency for
stoning since the Taliban seized Kabul. "Why stoning?" asks North.
"There are many reasons. First, the implements of execution are
available to everyone at virtually no cost." Thrift and ubiquity aside,
"executions are community projects--not with spectators who watch a
professional executioner do `his' duty, but rather with actual
participants." You might even say that like square dances or quilting
bees, they represent the kind of hands-on neighborliness so often missed
in this impersonal era. "That modern Christians never consider the
possibility of the reintroduction of stoning for capital crimes," North
continues, "indicates how thoroughly humanistic concepts of punishment
have influenced the thinking of Christians." And he may be right about
that last point, you know."
Charlie Fuqua's positions track quite closely with those typical of
Christian Reconstructionism along another spectrum as well - Christian
Reconstructionism embraces a form of radical economic libertarianism in
which the proper function of government is restricted to mainly to the
spheres of defense and basic policing but little else. As Fuqua puts it,
on his website,
" If government gives all of us security in our social
status (social security), it takes away our ability to excel or fail. As
more of us get economic security from our government, rather than from
our productivity, we become more insecure as a nation. This is because
more and more of us lose the motivation to work to avoid poverty.
[...]
...Our founding fathers realized that government was a necessary
evil. It is vitally important that we understand both aspects of that
statement. Government is necessary to restrain the evil inclinations of
individuals who would harm others for their own gain."
"The foundations of Christian Reconstructionism were laid
by the late Rousas J. Rushdoony in his prolific writing including his
major tome, Institutes of Biblical Law and promoted through his
Chalcedon Foundation. Reconstructionism teaches that all institutions
of society and government must be reclaimed from "humanists" and
reconstructed on the basis of biblical law. Reconstructionists claim
that the unfettered free markets are biblically mandated. In other
words, God is the invisible hand behind laissez-faire capitalism and
government intervention is putting faith in man instead of God.
Reconstructionist leaders have overlapped significantly with two other
organizations that have sacralized radical free markets - Lew Rockwell's
Ludwig von Mises Institute, which promotes Austrian School economics,
and the John Birch Society."
EnlargeAFP/Getty Images Malala Yousufzai on a stretcher as she was being taken to a hospital earlier today in Mingora, Pakistan.
"Shooting attacks happen every day in Pakistan," as NPR's Philip Reeves reports from Islamabad.
But
the shooting of a teenaged girl who became nationally known after she
documented the Taliban's cruelty in Pakistan's Swat Valley has caused
particular shock in that country, he tells our Newscast Desk.
The
Pakistani Taliban are claiming their fighters carried out today's
attack. According to Philip, "officials say Malala Yousufzai was outside
her school when a gunman approached, and opened fire, injuring her and
at least one other child."
(Note at 7 a.m. ET, Oct 10:
Earlier, we wrote that Malala is 14. That is what The Associated Press,
Reuters and other news outlets are reporting. Phil, though, has checked
with Malala's school and been told she was born on July 12, 1997 —
making her 15. He also spoke with her in August 2009. Malala said then
that she was 12.)
Pakistan's Dawn newspaper says
it has been told by a spokesman for the Taliban that the girl was
targeted for spreading "anti-Taliban and 'secular' thoughts among the
youth of the area." Malala, Dawn says, was "hit by couple of
bullets to her neck and head." While hospitalized, she is said to be
"out of danger." She may, though, need to be sent overseas for treatment.
The Taliban reportedly say they'll target her again. As
Philip reminds us, "Malala is a national figure. She lives in Swat
Valley and was there several years ago when the Taliban took control and
began burning down girls' schools. The Pakistani army rolled in, in
2009, to retake the area. Malala wrote an anonymous diary, broadcast on
the BBC, about life under the Taliban. She advocated education for
girls, and defied the militants' ban on this by secretly going to school
with her books hidden in her clothes. Her bravery was recognized last
year when she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize."
The BBC report, "Diary of a Pakistani schoolgirl," is posted here. In one diary entry, she wrote:
"I
had a terrible dream yesterday with military helicopters and the
Taleban. I have had such dreams since the launch of the military
operation in Swat. My mother made me breakfast and I went off to school.
I was afraid going to school because the Taleban had issued an edict
banning all girls from attending schools.
"Only
11 students attended the class out of 27. The number decreased because
of Taleban's edict. My three friends have shifted to Peshawar, Lahore
and Rawalpindi with their families after this edict.
"On
my way from school to home I heard a man saying 'I will kill you.' I
hastened my pace and after a while I looked back if the man was still
coming behind me. But to my utter relief he was talking on his mobile
and must have been threatening someone else over the phone."
Updated at 8:20 a.m. ET
Yousafzai,
17, defied the Taliban in her town of Mingora in Swat Valley, near the
volatile western frontier dividing Pakistan and Afghanistan. In October
2012, Taliban militiamen boarded a school bus she was on, singled her out and shot her in the left side of the head. Two other girls were also wounded in the attack.
