I cannot help but feel most saddened for the real victims of the entire Malala saga: all the other men, women, boys & girls who have found their lives, their livelihoods, & their educations decimated due to the combined horrific messed of Western imperialism, political corruption & warfare, & local culture and ignorance passed off conveniently as Islam. One cannot deny how many thousands of people have suffered due to these factors.
I cannot simply swallow the convenient narrative spun by Malala (& those managing her) in either her autobiography or countless other interviews, articles, books, speeches, & more. It is glaringly obvious to those who critically read through this book that there is an agenda being pushed - one that thoroughly relies on Western presumptions & Orientalist stereotypes about Muslims in "the East."
The conflating of Islamic teachings with local culture, while vilifying perfectly legitimate Islamic positions (e.g. music as haram; beard being wajib; lowering the gaze as required); making common military tactics seem unique to "religious fundamentalists" (while never stopping to define such terms in the first place); spinning a tale of a heroine emerging as though from a vacuum, with no acknowledgement or discussion about the geopolitical context within which everything has taken place... it all comes together to fuel Western fantasies of oppressed brown girls being saved by the wonderful West.
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