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| Reuters |
She has become an international icon for the struggle that women around the world suffer from, not solely in the face of the Taliban. Yet with fear and trauma that she must know, Malala cannot dismiss the call to action on behalf of all women who are challenged with similar realities. What is important here is not so much that Malala rise to the occasion as a result of this incident, but that the community and world rise to the occasion to support her personal struggle. Why is this so important?
Society is a very complex organism. We rise and fall in multiple fashions. There are times when ones demise is clear and others when it is merely a devolution of the circumstances that lead up to that moment. It is a rare occasion when the rise and fall occurs based on the events of a single person(though social media is making it a more common occurrence). In this particular instance we are faced with challenging the morays of a culture steeped in tradition. Yet and still tradition and violence are two very different events in human nature. So what society stands behind in this instance is an individuals right to a quality of life. No single person, group, organization, government or culture is entitled to dismiss the importance of one personal will.
It is easy enough to ask the question, would Malala Yousafzai desire to be punished this way, would she willingly chose the same fate? Not likely. This is not a political stance as to whether the perspective here is a judgement on the Taliban, it is not a judgement on the cultural traditions that have formed such a society. The matter at hand is the right to well being on one's own terms, absent of persecution for contrast of thoughts within the construct of the culture.
