A Father's Plea: Chapters 8-10 PDF

# No One Is Safe My father replied to the Taliban the next day in a letter to the newspaper. Please don’t harm my schoolchildren he wrote because the God you believe in is the same God they pray to every day. You can take my life but please don’t kill my schoolchildren. _His letter appeared in...

# No One Is Safe My father replied to the Taliban the next day in a letter to the newspaper. Please don’t harm my schoolchildren he wrote because the God you believe in is the same God they pray to every day. You can take my life but please don’t kill my schoolchildren. _His letter appeared in the paper along with his full name and the address of our school even though my father had written only his name._ - Our phone started ringing that night. - Friends called to thank my father for speaking up. - "You have put the first stone in standing water" one said. - "Now many will have the courage to speak up." But not many people did. My father had always been a busy man. - Participating in _mushaira_ poetry concerts; - working late at school; - helping neighbors settle disputes. But now when he left home, I felt like that little three-year-old I once was, when he would climb down the ladder at school to fix the well. I wondered each night if he would come back. - After the letter arrived, my father made a decision: The boys at the _Khushal School_ would no longer wear the uniform of shirt and trousers. - These supposedly "Western" clothes marked them as identifying with infidels in the eyes of Fazlullah's followers, so, for their safety, he had the boys switch to the traditional tunic and pants of the _shalwar kamiz_. - I still wore my blue-and-white _shalwar kamiz_ but the Taliban said girls should not wear the white _shalwar_. - The uniform I once loved now made me feel like a criminal. - Suddenly, everywhere I looked, the Taliban seemed to sprout like weeds. Then I thought: What have I done wrong that I should be afraid? All I want to do is go to school. And that is not a crime. That is my right. Besides, I was the daughter of Ziauddin Yousafzai, the man who had dared to talk back to the Taliban. I would hold my head high-even if my heart was quaking. That fall, in October 2007, something happened that gave us hope: Benazir Bhutto, who had been the first female prime minister of Pakistan, was returning to run in that year’s election. She had been living in exile in the United Kingdom since I was two years old, but I had been hearing about her for years. As a woman, she was a role model for girls like me. And she was the only politician who’d had the courage to speak out against the terrorists. Our whole family was glued to the TV when her arrival was broadcast. We watched her weep as she stepped onto Pakistani soil for the first time in almost nine years. My mother was moved by this but was also afraid for her. She said to the TV, "Did you come for death?" Everyone knew it was dangerous for her to return, but we hoped for her safety. Not long after that, just over two months later, she was dead. It happened right in front of my eyes as I again watched her on TV. "We will defeat the forces of extremism and militancy with the power of the people," she declared. Then she stood on the seat of her bulletproof vehicle to wave to her supporters. There was a crack of gunfire and the roar of an explosion. I watched, breathless, as she sank down inside the car. My mother, my father, and my grandmother burst into tears. Benazir Bhutto was the first woman attacked by the terrorists. Despite the fear we all felt for her, we were not expecting them to attack a woman. The killing of women is prohibited by the _Pashtunwali code_. We were shocked. I found myself oddly still. My first thought was this: If Benazir Bhutto can die, no one is safe. No one was safe in Pakistan. - Not the women who were forbidden to walk the streets of their own towns. - Not the men who were being flogged to death for petty reasons. - Not the children who worked in the trash heap. - Not even children like me who just wanted to go to school. As I looked at the TV, a tiny voice in my heart whispered to me: "Why don’t you go there and fight for women’s rights? Fight to make Pakistan a better place?" I had recently done interviews with the TV news channels _Dawn_ and _Khyber News_ about girls’ education, and although I had been nervous, I had made it through. And I had liked it. As everyone around me cried, I kept my secret. I told myself, "I will continue this journey of fighting for peace and democracy in my country." I was only ten, but I knew then that somehow I would find a way.