Purported letter from Taliban to Malala Yousafzai: Why we shot you

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) --

In a letter to a Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head on her way home from school, a senior Taliban commander purportedly tells her that she was targeted not because she advocated education for all girls, but rather for her criticism of the militant group.

The letter attributed to Adnan Rashid was released just days after 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai took the stage at the United Nations, where she delivered an emotional plea for the right to go to school on behalf of all children.
Malala was 15 when gunmen jumped on her school bus and shouted her name, scaring other girls into identifying her, in the Swat Valley on October 9, 2012. The attack sparked massive protests in Pakistan and condemnation worldwide.

Malala: Taliban failed to silence us Girls defy the Taliban in Pakistan The story of Malala Yousafzai
"The Taliban believe you were intentionally writing against them and running a smear campaign to malign their effort to establish an Islamic system in (the) Swat Valley, and your writings were provocative," according to the letter, which was dated Monday and released to CNN by a Pakistan intelligence source.

edition.cnn.com...

The letter went on to say that the Taliban supports the education of women, as long as it adheres to Islamic law.
He urged her, according to the letter, to return to Pakistan and "use your pen for Islam and the plight of the Muslim community."

Imagine, for just a moment, being Malala, and receiving this letter. Would you trust it is authentic? Would you consider it another death threat?

Would you WANT to go back to Pakistan?

I have been looking into this "Girl Rising" series - CNN made a documentary about the plight of girls trying to get educated in places such as Africa, Asia, Cambodia, India, and the Middle East.

I did not see it on TV (supposedly premiered in June) and it's blocked from YouTube (copyright infringement), but there are bits of it available regarding the girls they followed.

Here's the trailer for it:


Is this the 21st century's answer to "feminism"? I wonder what will happen for these girls, as they get older; will they make the same choices that many Western women have made - to try to have a career AND a family? It's next to impossible to do BOTH very well - juggling career, home and family has caused frustration, anxiety, depression, exhaustion, and worse - but, in my opinion, education is critical EITHER WAY.

I promote mothers staying home with their children whenever possible - yes, it reduces "family income", but at a cost well worth paying, because the FUTURE is our children. It's a delicate decision - do I want to be a parent above all - ????? Or would I rather focus on my own career????
NOT TO BE TAKEN LIGHTLY.
Biological clocks notwithstanding, and excellent daycare providers as well - the BEST thing is for an EDUCATED, capable parent to raise their own child. I think. Maybe people disagree. It's, as I said, a touchy subject.

Experience and many, many interviews with women have revealed to me a pattern - EDUCATION is VERY IMPORTANT, no matter whether a girl goes on to become a business or social leader, or a parent -- good parenting relies on a good EDUCATION of the parents.

I am somewhat hesitant to post this, I don't really want to "fan the flames" of global unrest anymore - but somehow this seems important enough to bring it here for discussion. What would you do if you were Malala? What would you advise her to do if YOU WERE HER PARENT?

Please try to keep it polite, and I'll look forward to any responses to the struggle of girls/women everywhere to be allowed to enter the 21st century -
What do you think the answers are, ATS?

Sincerely,
~wild

So, basically they're saying "We're sorry our people shot you in the head. It wasn't because you had the nerve to learn HOW to call us filthy animals ...it's because you had the nerve to actually go and CALL us filthy animals"

I paraphrase a bit ...but close enough for translation I think.

Well.. Okay. I think they're not only filthy animals but some of the most worthless, cowardly and despicable trash this planet has ever produced on two legs with a heartbeat. Does that get me shot to?

...and these are the people we're trying to negotiate and work with? Oh.. Golly.. what could possibly go wrong?

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I think it's more about wanting to impose Islamic teachings in the schools; they don't want evolution taught in Pakistan, the Taliban (as I understand it, which is as an outsider/Westerner watching what's available to see - which ain't "objective" in many ways, I am aware) -

But it seems to me that the Islamists want Islam to be THE LAW OF THE LAND in ALL RESPECTS. Should they be allowed to do that? I really don't know. If that's what they ALL want, I'd say, then let them. But it certainly seems that MANY women in certain places DO want to be educated.....

I've heard Muslims talk about - and I've read about - how much they value education - how much they've contributed to the sciences, maths, etc. WHAT IS IT about not wanting to teach evolution? About "shunning" the Western culture so completely??

Evolution is REAL. I think it's important for people to know that, and to know that other cultures exist, and have good and not-so-good qualities. How else is one to navigate the world once they enter it as adults? Or should certain people NOT be allowed to actually enter "the World at large"?
Thanks for responding, Wrabbit.

Yousafzai -- who on Friday gave her first public remarks since she was shot by the Taliban last year for advocating that all girls should go to school -- will return to the United Nations in September to press her point, according to a statement from Brown's A World at School campaign.

Accompanied by Brown, she will address an education summit of world leaders during the week of the full General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, it said.

There, the 16-year-old will demand action on behalf of 57 million children around the world who have no access to any schooling.

57 MILLION kids have NO ACCESS to schooling

The above is a related article. Is this issue a powder keg??? It seems to me it could be one that makes the tipping point. It makes me nervous, really nervous.

Gordon Brown: Malala's U.N. speech is just the beginning

Some people ARE VERY NEGATIVE about comprehensive education....they don't want ANY exposure of non-Islamic material in the schools. Same with the Evangelical Christians - who don't want evolution taught. I think it's bizarre, and is putting an artificial strangle-hold on the next generation.

le sigh.

reply to post by wildtimes


Where did the focus on Evolution come from? They've been executing girls who dared be educated since the 90's. Executing for the extreme cases of students and pretty frequently for those desperado's that would dare teach a female to read or write beyond what the Taliban deemed cut off point. They're not just 'rumored' to...but made formal national law and policy of this while they had control of Afghanistan. (

I was being a little sarcastic above because I've followed this girl's case pretty close and it struck me a bit for how this got worded. I wrote a thread when she finally got out of the Hospital and walked free again after the last major surgeries in the U.K.. A very brave and very strong girl, without question. I'm glad she's out to spread the message of utter and outright intolerance preached with hate by the radical extremes the Taliban represents.

They aren't Islam.. They are a far flung remnant of it that I think most of modern Islam would just as soon forget ever existed for just HOW far they take it, IMO. This is an interesting P.R. Campaign move though. Their American adviser, Gadahn, must have advised they say something and not let her set the whole international tone.

They can write a letter like this, but I don't trust them. It is a PR ploy to try to make them look a little better in their own people's eyes.

These Taliban bastards oppose the education of women. We have seen plenty of evidence of that wherever the Taliban have been.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

Where did the focus on Evolution come from?

You mean for this thread? I recently posted a thread about how some schools - for example in Saudi Arabia, forced a teacher to tear out the pages of the science text that related to Evolution - and she was unable to access any other materials to show her students.

There ARE Muslims who want only Islam-based education - anything that doesn't promote the Koran is apparently taboo. I'm only still learning about it - but my own main focus is on the importance of well-rounded EDUCATION - for adults AND for kids.

reply to post by butcherguy

They can write a letter like this, but I don't trust them.

I wonder what Malala will do next. Talk about pressure!! Her speech at the UN (available to watch in the second article linked above - I don't know how to embed CNN videos) was very powerful and moving.

I am still learning about the recent history of the Middle-East (post 9/11) - but it's beginning to seem that what's happening in an "us vs them" thing - The Islamists DON'T WANT their kids or women influenced at ALL by western culture. It's confusing, to say the least.

reply to post by wildtimes

There ARE Muslims who want only Islam-based education - anything that doesn't promote the Koran is apparently taboo. I'm only still learning about it - but my own main focus is on the importance of well-rounded EDUCATION - for adults AND for kids.

I would certainly agree there. It was just brought to my attention here recently that privacy, as such a vague concept as it is, actually ranks in international agreements as a 'Human Right' and they're serious too. Not satire. While ink and effort is spent making such near undefinable values into 'Rights', I'd say the full court, international push ought to be for universal education to some generally agreed, basic level, in every nation.

How many people in these dirt poor nations would live/work for $0.25 an hour in the conditions they do if they knew how to tell their boss what an ass he is, in terms that made HIM feel like an idiot? (As just one benefit)

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

While ink and effort is spent making such near undefinable values into 'Rights', I'd say the full court, international push ought to be for universal education to some generally agreed, basic level, in every nation.

I fully agree - and it seems really unfathomable to me that ANY government or 'leadership' group would deny basic education - but, as you say, who would be willing to work for pennies in an unsafe environment if they had ANY OTHER CHOICE?

I was chatting with my mom about the working conditions thing yesterday - it is true that global corporations DO offer SOME kind of employment to millions of people - she says it's their governments that are responsible for the appalling conditions. She mentioned something about them not being aware of the horrible conditions - but I thought about Romney's caught-on-video remarks about the plant/factory in China - so HE at least, KNEW EXACTLY what the conditions were.

It seems they just don't care, as long as their goods are produced.

reply to post by wildtimes


We agree here too. I'd looked into that building collapse story here not too long ago in a garment factory in Bangladesh that killed so many. I was shocked to find the building conditions that pretty well caused it to collapse were common in their major cities ...and then found near all of their economy is export based and all but a little of that, textile industries. The stats show they have a 5% unemployment rate ...but at a $2,100 annual average income..and that's GDP broken down.

Heck.. places like that aren't being exploited from the outside as much as their own Government offers their people up on a platter as cheap labor to the world. Education ..it's the only true cure, IMO.

Pakistani Taliban target female students with acid attack This one is from early last November:

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- It's the latest cruel tactic in the Pakistani Taliban's battle to stop girls and women from getting an education: acid thrown in their faces to scar them for life and deter others from following in their footsteps.
A doctor who treated the victims of an acid attack on a college van in the city of Parachinar in northern Pakistan last month told CNN that two girls had been left with severe burns to their faces.

The Pakistani Taliban have taken responsibility for the attack in threatening pamphlets distributed around the city. They also warn local girls against going to school, Dr. Shaban Ali said.

"We will never allow the girls of this area to go and get a Western education," said Qari Muhavia, the local Pakistani Taliban leader, when contacted by CNN by telephone.

"If and when we find any girl from Parachinar going to university for an education we will target her (in) the same way, so that she might not be able to unveil her face before others," Muhavia said.

So, the local leader - Qari Muhavia - spoke to CNN by phone - not the same guy as -- Adnan Rashid --the one who wrote the letter to Malala. (Who reportedly never received the letter, and her parents will NOT be taking her back to Pakistan - according to the video attached to the OP).

So, which one are the Pakis - and the rest of the world - supposed to believe?

DO THEY want to allow education? Or DO THEY NOT?
What a mess.

Pakistan Taliban Lambastes Schoolgirl for U.N. Speech THIS ONE IS FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:

Anti-Western View Shown in Verbal Attack Permeates Pakistani Society

ISLAMABAD—Malala Yousafzai, a teenage campaigner for girls' education who was nearly killed by Pakistani militants, was feted at the United Nations last week. Here at home, however, she has been widely portrayed as part of a Western conspiracy against Islam and the developing world.

A 1,800-word open letter in imperfect English by Adnan Rasheed, one of the most feared Taliban leaders in Pakistan, outlined these conspiracy theories Wednesday, describing the type of secular education that Ms. Yousafzai championed as "satanic" and arguing that the U.N. wanted to "enslave the world."


A senior Pakistani Taliban commander, in an open letter to Malala Yousafzai, calls her part of conspiracy by Western elite to enslave the world, though he says he personally wishes the attack on her had never happened. Saeed Shah has details. Photo: AP.

Even as the 16-year-old girl is celebrated abroad as a hero, such radical views are becoming mainstream in Pakistani society, where even commentators hostile to the Taliban widely portray Ms. Yousafzai as a pawn of the West or even a CIA agent.

Good Grief. Wonder why CNN didn't cover THIS PART of the story? Hmmmm.....

"Public opinion is confused about the Malala issue. Many people hate Malala," said Zubair Torwali, a newspaper columnist from her home valley of Swat. "Anything here in Pakistan related to the West or America becomes a thing of conspiracy. The Taliban's ideology is flourishing in Pakistan. It is victorious."

When the shooting happened, there was an unprecedented outpouring of public sympathy for Ms. Yousafzai, and anger against the Taliban, inside Pakistan.

However, since then, opinion has hardened against the girl. Last week, on the local Pakistani language versions of the BBC website, in the national language Urdu and the Pashto spoken in her native Swat, the majority of comments were venomously against the schoolgirl. Some even described her as a "prostitute."

Detractors seized on the assistance and attention Ms. Yousafzai received from Western governments and media after the attack. Her appearance at the United Nations seemed to confirm the view that she was somehow working on a Western agenda.

Folks, They REALLY, REALLY hate us. Should we just let them be haters and leave them alone?
I don't know. Very scary world we live in right now.