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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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From WHYY in Philadelphia, I'm Terry Gross with Fresh Air Weekend. Today, Malala Yousafzai. She was only 11 when she started to demand the right of girls to go to school after the Taliban invaded her town and banned girls' education. She was 15 when she was shot by a Taliban gunman. Looking back now, does she think she understood the risk that she would become a Taliban target?
I had pictured it many times that this could happen. I had pictured it at school. I had pictured it in my school bus. I had pictured it on the street. I knew that the Taliban could do anything.
Also, we hear from actor Oscar Isaac. He's currently starring in the Netflix series Beef and recently played Dr. Victor Frankenstein in Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein. And Maureen Corrigan recommends three books for spring reading. This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Terry Gross.
As remarkable as it is that my guest Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize when she was 17, there are remarkable ways she's been living her life since then. Let's start with a famous part of her story. She was born in 1997 and grew up in a remote region of Pakistan's Swat Valley near the Afghanistan border.
In 2008, after the Taliban invaded her town, terrorizing the people, they banned girls' education. She publicly spoke out for her right and the right of all girls to go to school. As payback in 2012 when she was 15, she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman. She was flown to a hospital in England where she continues to live. Her recovery was miraculous.
It's when I read her recent memoir, Finding My Way, that I learned how the bullet changed the course of her life, thrusting her into a new culture and changing her in ways that didn't quite fit her public image as an inspirational hero and top student, and sometimes even challenged her own self-image. When she was admitted to Oxford University, a dream come true.
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Chapter 2: What motivated Malala Yousafzai to advocate for girls' education?
She wanted to live the life of a teenager and find time to make friends, have fun, have adventures, including jumping from her dorm roof to the campus bell tower. She defied some of her culture's traditions and her parents' expectations, from how she dressed to who she married.
At the same time, she was experiencing PTSD and panic attacks for the first time, recovering from her multiple surgeries and continuing to to raise money for the foundation she co-founded with her father, to advocate and raise money for girls' education in places where that is banned.
All this took time from her college studies, and she felt like a fraud, a symbol of female education who was barely passing some of her classes. Another thing I learned from her book and from hearing her speak is that she's very self-aware, introspective, and funny. I spoke with her in front of an audience at WHYY, where she was given this year's Lifelong Learning Award.
Malala, it is such an honor to have you here tonight. I'm so excited to have the opportunity to talk with you.
It's so nice to be here. Thank you so much. Thank you for the honor and good evening, everyone. It's always so nice to be in this beautiful, warm, welcoming city.
So, you know, your father, as I mentioned, founded a school. It was a school you went to. So he was passionate about education and passionate about it for girls. And when the Taliban came and took over your area, they had a deadline for when they were going to close down the schools.
It was the 15th of January, 2009.
And you attended school until the last day, even though I think you're only allowed to go up to fourth grade and you were in fifth grade?
Yes. And we were, you know, we would wear just our home clothes. We could no longer wear our school uniform. It would give you away. Yeah. We said like the Taliban should never know that girls are daring to go to a school. We would wear these long, hefty like scarves and just, you know, wrap them around our body so we could hide our school bag like any bag will sort of hide.
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Chapter 3: How did Malala's childhood experiences shape her activism?
I put my life at risk. But at the time, what scared me more was a life without an education as a girl. It terrified me. And think about women's struggle for equality, for justice everywhere around the world. We are fighting to protect ourselves against violence, against oppressions. Women are literally being murdered and killed You know, that's how extreme it is.
And I said, you know, education is that pathway, that hope that I can have, that I can have a better future. So the best thing I can do is actually speak out and see if there is some hope that things will change for us.
I think it's when you were living in the area where your parents grew up, which is very remote and very mountainous. I think it was then that you were on a school bus when you were shot.
It was in 2012 that they attempted to kill me.
And you weren't expecting that, right? You didn't think that you would be a target?
It wasn't that I never pictured it. I had pictured it many times that this could happen. I had pictured it at school. I had pictured it in my school bus. I had pictured it on the street where I used to walk to school. I knew that the Taliban could do anything. And I used to wonder, could I save myself? How could I make them understand that I'm actually not a threat?
I actually want education for myself, for girls, even for their children. Um, well when the, you know, when the day arrived, it was the 9th of October, 2012. Um, it was a normal school day for me. And, uh, you know, when we were driving back to our home in our school bus, that's when like, you know, everything pauses in my memory. I don't remember anything.
I have different visuals, different flashbacks, but I'm never sure what I really saw and what I'm sort of picturing because of what I heard. But my best friends tell me that story because they were on the school bus with me. And my very best friend, Muniba, she was sitting on my right and
She tells me this story that two gunmen stopped the school bus and this one guy, he walks to the back of the bus and asks, who is Malala?
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Chapter 4: What was the impact of the Taliban attack on Malala's life?
And I was not covering my face and he looked at me and then he pointed a gun at my head and pulled the trigger. And I asked my friend, I said, like, did I scream? Did I say anything? How was I reacting in that moment? And she said, you just held my hand really tight.
You were silent, you were looking at that person but you were not saying anything and you just held my hand really tight that I could feel the pain for days and then you fell into my lap. They also went through a lot of trauma because I was recovering from the Taliban bullet injury It had caused facial paralysis, hearing loss, and swelling in my head as well.
So I had to replace the skull piece with the titanium plate. I had to go through a lot of recovery things.
And surgeries, many surgeries.
Many surgeries.
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Chapter 5: How did Malala navigate her recovery and new identity after the attack?
But my friends actually saw what happened.
Your friend Moniba, who was the one sitting next to you on the bus, she later told you she was covered in blood after you got shot. And she really thought that she must have gotten shot too because there was so much blood on her. And she was traumatized. She had nightmares all the time.
And I could never compare the two. I was carrying the pain and they were carrying the memories. So I always talk to my friends. I ask her for the same story again and again, and I'm like, tell me what happened that day. And every time I hear it, I'm like, I can't believe we all saw it that day. So I also really admired their resilience.
We're listening to the interview I recorded with Malala Yousafzai at an event where she received WHYY's Lifelong Learning Award. Her recent memoir is called Finding My Way. We'll hear more of the interview after a break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air Weekend. So let's get to the flashback.
So one of the things you did in college is you took some hits from a bong at the encouragement of your friends. And then you had this really bad flashback to something you didn't even remember in the first place, which was getting shot by the Taliban gunmen.
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Chapter 6: What challenges did Malala face while attending Oxford University?
Would it be triggering if I asked you to describe it?
No, not at all. And I want to share this story because I wish somebody had told me that this is something that could have happened.
That post-traumatic stress.
Yes, that this was a thing. And it happened to me seven years after the attack. That's something that I could not fathom. I said, I was OK this whole time. Why is it happening to me now? So when I tried that bong, time slowed down. And I felt like I was stuck. I couldn't move. And I was reliving the Taliban attack once again. I thought it was all happening.
And I couldn't understand if I was alive or not. And it was a really terrible experience. And I started getting panic attacks after that. And that's when I realized that I actually need help. So I started sharing with my friends as well that I was not feeling okay. I was not enjoying the social events or anything. And then it still took me a few months.
And then a friend of mine suggested that I start seeing a therapist. And that's when I started getting therapy. I had never received therapy before.
Well, you said that even in the Pashto language, there's no word for anxiety. I can't imagine that.
Yeah.
So it must have been really terrifying. And also, did it challenge your own identity? You'd always thought of yourself as like, I'm really brave.
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Chapter 7: How did Malala balance her activism with her education?
Everybody tells me I'm brave. I don't remember the experience of being shot. I'm still not afraid.
Chapter 8: What insights does Oscar Isaac share about his acting career?
And suddenly you were afraid to go to sleep. You were afraid to dream. You were afraid of a lot of things. How did it challenge your sense of yourself?
I did feel very disappointed with myself that I was no longer living up to the expectation of being brave and courageous. But I had to unlearn a lot this whole time that actually true bravery is when you keep fighting for what you believe in, even when you are scared. So it helped me think very differently.
Do you still have flashbacks and panic attacks?
Yes. And I think... Like I try to look after myself. And it has just helped me understand that if I want to do my work in the best way possible, I have to make sure that I look after my mental health and my physical health. I'm raising awareness about therapy as well, that we should get therapy.
And especially for women from communities where I come from, like the South Asian community, Muslim community, Pashtun community, encouraging it in those places as well. And in therapy sessions, like, of course, like those things really help you. But then I also thought it's also about the physical health.
I thought, like, if you are an activist, you're not allowed to get, you know, sleep or you're not allowed to eat well or not allowed to look after yourself because it's just all about work, work and work. And then I realized I was actually not doing that job well because I was not in the best shape. So when I started looking after my physical health as well, I've started going to the gym now.
I do weightlifting and running. And when it's leg day, my husband and I go together. So leg day is my favorite day. And he's literally crying because I'm like, we have to lift heavier weights. So he doesn't like it, but I love it. Yeah.
So you go to Oxford University. You're still recovering from surgeries. There's still more surgeries to come. You were schooled at first in your father's school in a fairly remote region of Pakistan. You didn't get the kind of education that most Oxford students get. And yet you were held to the same standard.
And I understand why the leaders of the university would not want to make like you a special student with a different standard. And you probably wouldn't have wanted that for yourself either. However, it seems to me so unfair that you who were, you know,
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