Several months ago, while I was still taking GPP 115 with Professor Ananya Roy, I was asked by the Daily Cal to write an article for them. They had seen me post a status on my Facebook profile discussing the the relation between White Saviour Complex and the Western co-optation of Malala Yousafzai and her work to further the status of female students in the Pakistani education system. 

(Here is the article I had posted on my profile in  early October 2013: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/assed-baig/malala-yousafzai-white-saviour_b_3592165.html, with the caption "Finally, something that actually critically analyses what's happening on the international stage of geopolitics, instead of simply utilising Malala as a tool and celebrating their 'work'.

Here is the link to the Daily Cal article that I wrote about a week later: 

http://www.dailycal.org/2013/10/18/malala-ours-adopt/

Note: both my GSI and Professor Ananya Roy tweeted my article while I was still taking GPP 115, definitely one of my finer moments in that class.

Here is another article/video that is extremely illuminating of the situation for young women in the education system in Pakistan:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/world/asia/the-making-of-Malala.html?smid=fb-share&_r=1&)

The reason I bring this up more than six months later is that this is still a problem that continues to bother me. I completely understand the need to give young leaders like Malala a platform from which they can reach out not only to international media and government but to other young leaders like themselves, whom they can connect and work with, and other young children whom they can teach and inspire through their actions. 

I feel that there has to be some way to accomplish this without us taking any attention or credit away from the issue at hand, and from the young people who have had to deal with and take the issue into their own hands, because no one else has or will. 

It is extremely sad to witness Malala being shunned by her own people and society for standing up for herself and the right she and other young women like herself have to an education. After all the things she has faced, from being shot in the face by the Taliban to having to give up living in Pakistan among her friends and family, Malala should not have to face any more injustice.