A Cause Worth Rallying Around

What makes an entire nation, even the entire world rally around a person?

It takes a hero.  Not because they think of themselves as a hero, but because they find the courage to stand up against something that makes no sense to them.  In this case, Malala Yousufzai, a fourteen year old Pakistani girl making good on a personal commitment to get an education, no matter what the cost.  The rest of the world looks at their actions, listens to their words, and aspires to be like them.

It also takes a villain performing a cowardly, hateful and inhumane act.  It takes a group, like the Taliban, that through some twisted logic believes itself to be right, and superior to all creation.  It takes a few of these cowards to walk into a school bus, identify our hero, and shoot her in the head.

But our hero survives.  If this is not divine intervention, what is?

Over the last few weeks, since this heinous act by the Taliban, all sides of the political spectrum in Pakistan has spoken and acted in unison against this heinous act.  Talk about a rainbow coalition.  Then the support has spread outside the boundaries of Pakistan.  The US, the UN, the EU and other countries and organizations have come together in support of Malala Yousufzai and against the Taliban.

This little girl, now fourteen, was eleven when she was blogging against the Taliban’s policies – atrocious then, and atrocious now – against educating women.

For her courage, last year she became the first-ever recipient of the Pakistan national peace award.   In addition, KidsRights Foundation, an advocacy group, also nominated her for the International Children’s Peace Prize.

She was becoming an international symbol of hope, a peaceful and powerful young voice against the insanity of the Taliban mind.  So they did what their warped logic dictated.

Now, further demonstrating their utter lack of humanity, they have renewed their vow to kill Malala, whose precious life a community of doctors in Pakistan and the UK are trying to save, and for whom entire nations are holding prayers.

What do you say to people whose minds function like this?  Is it even worth sitting down with them?

One can only hope that the news reports about the Pakistani government catching hundreds of the people involved in this tragedy are actually true, and that the responsible people will actually be brought to justice.

One can even try to find the silver lining in this difficult chapter of the life of this precocious fourteen year old girl, and pray that this be the straw that broke the camel’s back, causing the Muslim world wakes up to openly acknowledge that the religion the Taliban claim to profess has nothing to do with Islam.