I Am Malala: Radio Mullah and Taliban in Swat Valley PDF

# I Am Malala: Part Two: A Shadow Over Our Valley ## 6: Radio Mullah - The author was at a relative's house in Mingora when she heard a strange sobbing coming from the radio. - The women were cleaning up after a long day of cooking. - The radio was playing an imam giving advice about living a virt...

# I Am Malala: Part Two: A Shadow Over Our Valley ## 6: Radio Mullah - The author was at a relative's house in Mingora when she heard a strange sobbing coming from the radio. - The women were cleaning up after a long day of cooking. - The radio was playing an imam giving advice about living a virtuous life, but then he started crying. - He begged people to stop listening to music, dancing, going to movies, and to stop everything, or God would send another earthquake to punish them all. - Some women began to cry because they were haunted by the previous year's earthquake. ## I Am Malala: Part Two: A Shadow Over Our Valley (cont.) - The author knew that the Radio Mullah was wrong about earthquakes being punishments from God. - He felt that the women were frightened by the mullah's words because they had no education and followed their religious leaders. - This was a common topic at school, and the mullah's pronouncements were repeated by the students, even though their father told them not to listen. - The radio was broken, but the mullah's messages were heard at their friends' and relatives' houses, and they were repeated by older students. - Music was forbidden according to the mullah. - Men should grow their hair and beards long, not short, and women should only go out wearing a burqa only in emergencies and only with a male relative. ## I Am Malala: Part Two: A Shadow Over Our Valley (cont.) - The author's mother liked the mullah's sermons about praying, and many people admired him for his charisma, but he used his sermons to spread hateful messages. - His followers thought he was a good interpreter of the Quran, and they supported his desire to bring back Islamic law. - They blamed the slow, corrupt Pakistani justice system. - The mullah's followers chanted poetry. - This poetry was meant to motivate girls to stop going to school. - The author's father was opposed to the mullah from the beginning. - He said the mullah was just nonsense and trouble. - The author's mother told her husband that God would be angry. - The author's father was right. - He investigated the Radio Mullah and discovered that he was just a high school dropout with no religious credentials. - This "mullah" was spreading ignorance. - The voice on the radio belonged to Maulana Fazlullah. - He was a leader of the TNSM, and they helped people after the earthquake. - He took advantage of the trauma to spread fear. - Fazlullah's attacks then became personal, and he named men who had spoken out against him. - He called these men sinners, which seemed unbelievable to the author because she knew them well. - The mullah made it seem as if he and his men could see through walls. ## I Am Malala: Part Two: A Shadow Over Our Valley (cont.) - The author was getting older and it was hard to listen to men's discussions without being noticed. - She would offer to serve tea so that she could hear the news of the day. - The conversations centered around the Radio Mullah and the fighting in Afghanistan. - The author was four years old when the 9/11 attacks took place but grew up hearing about Osama bin Laden and 9/11. - It was believed that bin Laden planned the attacks in Afghanistan. - The US had been fighting in Afghanistan to defeat al-Qaeda and the Taliban government. - The Taliban was protecting Osama bin Laden. - When the author heard the word "Taliban," she remembered a conversation with her father. - It was the first time she heard the word. - They were in Shangla at the time. - Her father's friends believed that the Taliban was far away, but her father warned them that the Taliban would reach their valley. - He said they were already in the tribal belt and moving closer. - He used the proverb: "Coming events cast their shadows before." ## I Am Malala: Part Two: A Shadow Over Our Valley (cont.) - Fazlullah moved slowly, but his influence grew. - He cast a long shadow after the earthquake. - The author felt that her world was changing, and not for the better. - When the author went to bed, she prayed to God for guidance. ## 7: The Taliban in Swat - The Radio Mullah continued to fight against the West, and he encouraged people to refuse polio vaccinations, declaring them to be a plot from Western countries to harm Muslim children. - He attacked barbers who offered Western haircuts, destroying music stores along the way. - He encouraged people to donate their jewelry and money, which he used to make bombs and train militants. - The author had seen the Radio Mullah's followers. - They wore black turbans and white shalwar kamiz. - They carried guns and menaced people in the streets. - The author felt their presence even though she had not seen them in Mingora proper. - The police tried to stop them, but their movement was getting stronger. - In May 2007, the Radio Mullah signed a peace agreement. - He said he would stop his attacks against government property, vaccinations, and girls' education, but he was allowed to continue his broadcasts. ## I Am Malala: Part Two: A Shadow Over Our Valley (cont.) - Everything changed in July. - The author was ten years old. - The Pakistani army surrounded a women's madrasa in Islamabad, and the militants inside took hostages. - The madrasa was known as the Red Mosque. - The army attacked the madrasa, which lasted for days and ended in many deaths. - Fazlullah declared war on the government and called for people to rise up in violence. - He broke his peace treaty. - The government ignored Fazlullah, like an annoying fly. - The author was angry with both the government and the terrorists. - They were trying to ruin her way of life. - The author's father wanted his family to ignore the terrorists. - He said: "We must live a full life, if only in our hearts." - He encouraged conversations about things of the mind, like Einstein, Newton, and philosophers, even though their family still argued about everything. ## I Am Malala: Part Two: A Shadow Over Our Valley (cont.) - The author's father said that fighting with her brothers was part of a full life. - Fazlullah joined forces with the Tehrik-i-Taliban-Pakistan/TTP or the Pakistani Taliban. - He banned women from public places. - The men in a family were to enforce the rules and keep women in control. - If they didn't obey, they would be punished. - Women disappeared from the streets, because they were afraid to go out and shop. - DVD shops closed down because the mullah said watching movies and TV shows was a sin that caused men and women to lust after one another. - The Taliban used terror to enforce Fazlullah's orders, with people hiding their TVs, DVDs, and CDs. - They burned them in public squares. - The Taliban patrolled the streets in trucks and shouted orders through megaphones. - They bashed in the doors of houses and smashed televisions. - The students at Khushal School did not drop out. - They appreciated their education, and they wanted to run their classroom more like a democracy. - One student suggested switching seats every week so that the studious girls would not always sit up front. - The idea emphasized that all girls and all people were equal. - However, outside of the school, Mingora was like a prison. ## I Am Malala: Part Two: A Shadow Over Our Valley (cont.) - Banners were strung up that read "WOMEN NOT ALLOWED". - All music and electronics shops closed down. - Even a childhood game called Carrom was outlawed. - The Radio Mullah announced the names of schoolgirls who had stopped attending school, as if they had died and gone to heaven. - He congratulated parents whose daughters stopped attending school. - The author's mother was afraid that her daughter would be seen alone in her school uniform. - Every day more girls were missing. - The mullah announced that girls who went to school were not good Muslims. - He said that they would go to hell. - One of the author's teachers told her father that she would not teach girls anymore. - Another teacher said he was leaving to help Fazlullah build a religious center. - School was no longer a refuge. - Fazlullah had set up a public court to enforce his edicts, and he used his men to flog and kill policemen, government officials, and other men and women. - Hundreds of people gathered to watch people being flogged. - They cheered and shouted "Allahu akbar" (God is great). - Sometimes, Fazlullah appeared on horseback. ## I Am Malala: Part Two: A Shadow Over Our Valley (cont.) - Fazlullah's justice was carried in out in the dead of night. - People were dragged from their homes and killed. - Their bodies were displayed in the Green Square. - Notes were often pinned to the bodies declaring that they were spies or infidels. - The Green Square became known as the Bloody Square. - The author was frightened by these stories. - She prayed to God to help her. ## I Am Malala: Part Two: A Shadow Over Our Valley (cont.) - The author overheard her parents talking late at night about a meeting her father was attending to speak out against the Taliban. - Her father was also traveling to Islamabad to tell the government that they weren't protecting their citizens. - He was taking on the two most powerful and dangerous forces in the country. - He was stepping out to speak the truth. - The author's mother was standing by her husband. ## I Am Malala: Part Two: A Shadow Over Our Valley (cont.) - The author knew that most Pashtun men would ignore their wives, but her parents were different. - Her father is like a falcon, and her mother's feet are firmly planted on the ground. - She took on the responsibility of lock the house before her father went out. - She was worried about her father, and she often heard her mother praying. - She was traveling with her family by car, when a cousin drove them to Shangla. - On the way there, men in black turbans and camouflage vests carrying Kalashnikov automatic weapons stopped their car and searched it. - The men were looking for anything forbidden by Islam, and they made sure to let the author's family know that they were in trouble for not wearing burqas. - This made the author feel frustrated. - When they returned home, they found a letter from a Taliban member. - It denounced the author's school as Western and infidel. - Her father was told to stop teaching girls. ## I Am Malala: Part Two: A Shadow Over Our Valley (cont.) - The author was afraid. - She had just learned that the Taliban had threatened her father. - The letter was signed "Fedayeen of Islam," or devotees of Islam.