Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. College is often a time to figure out who we are, to fall in love for the first time, to experiment, to fail, to question what we believe. But for Malala Yousafzai, it was different. She spent her college years experiencing all of these things under scrutiny and 24-hour security.
When she was 15, Malala survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban, a gunshot to the head while riding home on a school bus. But long before that, she'd been standing up to them, demanding the right for girls to go to school in her hometown of Mingora and Pakistan's Swat Valley.
The Taliban had taken control, closing schools, banning women from public life, and brutally punishing anyone who resisted. After the shooting, Malala's life changed overnight. She became a symbol of resistance, praised, politicized, and picked apart.
While the world saw an unshakable young woman with a message, Malala was also a teenager, undergoing surgeries to reconstruct what was destroyed by the Taliban, experiencing post-traumatic stress, and navigating others' expectations of who she should be. Her new memoir, Finding My Way, reveals the person beyond the symbol.
It's the story of a young Malala learning the bounds of what it means to be a free woman, trying on jeans for the first time, falling in love, failing exams, and confronting the trauma of a shooting that for a long time she had no memory of. Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for her efforts to combat the suppression of children and advocate for their education.
She's written several books, including I Am Malala and We Are Displaced, True Stories of Refugee Lives. The 2015 documentary, He Named Me Malala, chronicles her family's activism. Malala Yousafzai, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you. This memoir, in a way, in many ways, picks up where your first memoir left off.
Just to put ourselves in this place, I mean, such a dichotomy here, and how remarkable this is, because here you are entering college.
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Chapter 2: What challenges did Malala Yousafzai face during her college years?
I mean, you won the Nobel Prize at 17. So it's an unbelievable honor that I know you take great pride in, but it also comes, as you say, with this tremendous responsibility to always live up to all that you had endured and what you've accomplished, what it represents, did that expectation also feel like a cage in the way? Like you wanted to come into college almost as an anonymous person.
Going to Oxford was my childhood dream. And I wanted to be Myself, make as many friends, but I think with these titles and recognitions, like the Nobel Peace Prize, I thought I had to act differently. And because, you know, a lot of the people who receive these titles are much older in their life and they, you know, they're usually in their 50s, 60s.
They have, you know, like a family life already established. I received the Nobel Peace Prize when I was in my chemistry class.
Yeah.
So I was still a school student. So I see it as a big responsibility. And I always have felt that now I need to live up to the expectation. You know, it was given for the work I had done, but it was also given for the work that that is ahead of us. So for me now, like I have to work for the rest of my life to prove that it was well deserved.
And and for me, that is just, you know, seeing this dream of girls education becoming a reality in every part of the world.
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Chapter 3: How did the assassination attempt by the Taliban impact Malala's life?
But at the same time, I thought, okay, like, but do you have to change as a person? Like, are you supposed to live a certain way? In college, though, this was the first time that I allowed myself to be more of myself to really just test it. And to be honest, I didn't even know who I was. Am I funny? Am I not? What do I enjoy? Like, I didn't know any of that. I have never seen boys my age.
I have never, you know, been away from my parents or lived on my own. I can decide. I can go to a Diwali party. I can stay up late at 3 a.m. And, you know, like my parents would not know about this. And, you know, I could sign up for rowing or I could go to the aerobics 80s themed party. Any of that. We could do all of that.
I was somehow feeling that I was reliving all the missed years of my childhood because of the activism that I had to take from such a young age that I missed.
Was there a particular moment when you realized you're at college, when you realized, wait a minute, I could do whatever I want, you know?
You know, I think about the roof climbing experience oftentimes because that was offered to me by a stranger at college who told me that there is this crazy thing that only cool college students do. And he offered it to me and I said, OK, I'll see you at midnight. I told my security, like, I'm done for the day and you guys can go to sleep.
And I just want to note for folks that you had 24-hour security because during this time period and the years after you were shot, you received lots of threats against your life. That's why you had 24-hour security. In addition, in the same way that many heads of state have security in the United States. Yes.
Yeah, I mean, it was awkward to have like guys following you. But at the same time, it just helped me have the opportunity to experience these things and not be worried about safety and security. So yeah, but for that night, the roof climbing night, I told them, I think I'm going to be safe on my own. I said, you guys can go to bed. So it's midnight. I follow the stranger.
We go up to the fourth floor of the building and there's a small window in this room. And he tells me that we need to sneak out through the window and then walk by this narrow path on the roof. One misstep and you could fall. And I am just nodding and I laugh. And I follow him, and it was a really scary way, making it up to the rooftop.
And on the rooftop, there's this bell tower, like the clock tower. And that moment just felt surreal. I just thought I had conquered something. I was breathing in. The fresh air, and I was looking down, just seeing some students still up at night, or the lights were still on in some rooms, and I was thinking maybe they're still trying to finish their essay, or just feeling a moment of victory.
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Chapter 4: What themes are explored in Malala's memoir, Finding My Way?
You really did experience a lot of things in college that many students do, including getting high. Your spring year of college, first year at Oxford, you're with friends, you're hanging out as college kids do, and you're offered marijuana, specifically a bong. And You join in with your friends, and as the hours tick on, you have a reaction. You can't walk. Everything goes black.
And this, you realize, is a very familiar place. Could I have you read what you wrote about it in the book?
Suddenly, I was 15 years old again, lying on my back under a white sheet, a tube running down my throat, eyes closed. For seven days, as doctors tended to my wounds, I was in a coma. From the outside, I looked to be in a deep sleep, but inside, my mind was awake, and it played a slideshow of recent events. My school bus, a man with a gun, blood everywhere.
My body carried through a crowded street. Strangers hunched over me, yelling things I didn't understand, my father rushing toward the stretcher to take my hand. As the images repeated in the same sequence over and over, I raged against them, trying to beat them away. This isn't true, I told myself. The real Malala is the one trapped in this nightmare, not the girl on the stretcher.
Just wake up, and it will stop. Wake up. I had tried to force my eyes open to see something other than this carousel of horrors. Inside, I screamed.
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Chapter 5: How did Malala navigate her identity and expectations after winning the Nobel Prize?
Outside, my lips stayed closed, motionless. I was awake and buried alive in the coffin of my body.
Hmm.
It's hard to read. It's hard to read it.
The Bong incident just turned out to be an experience not that I had imagined. I had heard cool things about it. And of course, it's different for everybody. But I think in my case, there was this unaddressed trauma. The memory, the visuals, everything, I think, had been there. My brain had tried to suppress them because, you know, it's just a moment of fear that you do not want to see again.
And when the bong incident happened, my body froze, and I was reliving the Taliban attack. You know, I could see the gunmen. I thought, this is happening all over again. I often say that I received my surgeries and I recovered so quickly from the Taliban attack. But just when this happened, I realized that maybe I actually had not fully recovered.
There was this unaddressed part of my recovery, which was mental health, which was the trauma that we did not actually count in the treatment process.
There are some dark moments that you experienced after that night. You started to experience these intrusive thoughts that didn't stop, even after the high went away. You describe being afraid of a kitchen knife, not that someone would hurt you with it, but that you might hurt yourself. And I just kept thinking as I was reading this, for someone the world has called the bravest girl on earth,
What was it like to suddenly be frightened of your own hands, of your own self?
It was frightening. And even now, like, when I think about it, it's just... It's a really frightening place to be in. You feel trapped. You do not see a way out. That's exactly what I was going through in those days. I was shaking. I was shaking every minute. I could not look at... harmful objects. I could not look at a knife.
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Chapter 6: What experiences did Malala share about reliving her childhood in college?
If more men are brave enough to to allow the girls to do what they want or to not stop them, then we will hear different stories. We will hear more women and girls get the opportunities that they deserve. I know both of them are very kind and caring parents, but...
they are not just thinking as parents, but I think they're also thinking as representatives of the bigger community in Pakistan or relatives. And sometimes I feel like there are just too many voices that are speaking when they are speaking. And it It affects everything, like even a decision like what I was packing for college. My mom was packing all the traditional Pakistani clothes for me.
I just wanted to wear jeans and gray jumpers or sweaters. And I did not want to stand out at all. So I remember packing all of these like more normal college clothes. I remember going on Google and looking up Selena Gomez casual 2017. Because I was like, you know, what is like a cool outfit, a casual outfit that everybody's wearing?
There's this moment in college when you wore jeans to rowing practice. Yes. And a picture was taken of you wearing these jeans wearing Pakistani media went into an uproar. Your father wanted you to issue a clarification and I'll just say there's something almost comical in the way that you write about that. What did he say to you? What did he want you to say?
You know, both my mom and dad were really upset when they saw the whole backlash in Pakistan. I remember like on phone with both mom and my dad and just being so mad at them because I said, like, I am here at college, not for some pilgrimage or some like religious ceremony. This is this is my college life. And I want to be like every other student.
What am I even going to say in a clarification statement like apologies? I'm not going to wear jeans tomorrow or whatever. OK, let me defend jeans and say, you know, there are like Muslim people who wear jeans. There's no fixed dress code for Muslims or, you know, like it's like this is this is going to be a whole another debate. Can women and girls just wear what they want?
So my dad in the end agreed. My mom was still arguing with me. But then she sort of.
accepted it but I told them I said you know you just never know jeans was like the last thing that I was worried about to be honest I was more worried about people taking photos if I were seen like with my friends at a party where we were maybe like dancing together I thought like all of these things could be taken out of context I was super aware of that but when it happened with jeans I was like okay you know what I'm just gonna I'm just gonna go for everything now because like
People could criticize anything, like people could even criticize you for your existence. Where do you draw the line?
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Chapter 7: How did the bong incident affect Malala's mental health?
The documentary Mr. Scorsese spends its first installment on his early days. His childhood, making student films at NYU, being on the movie camera crew at Woodstock, and eventually getting his break with low-budget movie producer Roger Corman to direct a Bonnie and Clyde knockoff called Boxcar Bertha. When Scorsese showed it to his filmmaking friends, they were unimpressed.
And when he showed it to his mentor and hero, independent filmmaker John Cassavetes, their reaction was even worse.
So he looked at Dr. Scarbertha. I saw him afterwards. He looked at me, and he was like 10 feet away from me, and he goes, come here. And I went up there, and he embraced me. And he held me aside, pushed me aside. He goes, you just spent a year of your life making a . Don't do this again. Don't do this again.
And he didn't. Instead, Martin Scorsese made mean streets with Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro and took all their careers to a higher level. Mr. Scorsese takes us on that journey, and some of the stops along the way are breathtaking. The Last Waltz, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Casino, The Aviator, The Wolf of Wall Street.
There are a few regretful omissions in Mr. Scorsese, but in an overview of this type, that's inevitable and completely acceptable. This new Apple TV Plus series is self-described as a film portrait by Rebecca Miller. And as portraits go, it's by no means a hasty sketch.
With its many interviews and film clips, and its exciting use of split-screen comparisons and music by the Rolling Stones, Mr. Scorsese is closer to a patiently painted masterpiece.
how constantly changing tariffs, AI, the immigration crackdown, and uncertainty in the job and stock market affect everything from the global economy to our daily lives. We speak with Zannie Mitten-Beddoes, editor-in-chief of The Economist. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air.
Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Heidi Saman, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nakundi, and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper.
Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.
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