Malala Yousafzai opens UAE film screening

Malala Yousafzai, the outspoken 18-year-old Pakistani activist and youngest Nobel laureate, was in the UAE's capital on Wednesday to promote a new documentary film chronicling her unwavering defiance against Taliban terrorism.

He Named Me Malala was released on October 2 by American filmmaker Davis Guggenheim and was screened here yesterday ahead of the November 5 premiere at cinemas in the UAE.

Malala encouraged audience members to protect a girl's right to education and reasserted her deeply held belief that no child should be turned away from school. "The project has captured great moments of my life. I haven't seen my country yet and my dream is to go back and continue the campaign against terrorism,” she told viewers after the screening.

It's been three years since a Taliban hit man targeted her school bus on October 9, 2012, in Pakistan's northwest Swat Valley and shot Malala in the head — one of three bullets fired in rage passed through her face and into her body.

The Taliban attempt on Malala's life was in response to her fearless blogging on the BBC which exposed the Taliban's attempts to prevent girls from going to school in her part of the world.

"Basic education is the right of every child, and in a way it's about Islam because the Taliban use the name of Islam to stop girls from going to school,” Malala told the audience yesterday.

On a lighter note, Malala quipped that the film focused too much on her brothers and allowed them to say whatever they wanted about their world-famous sibling.

Seated next to Malala at the screening, proud father Ziauddin said he believes the film does a good job countering misinformation spread by the Taliban. "We hope this film will give a very powerful message to the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, keeping in mind that we are a peace and education-loving people who want to live in harmony, love and respect because this is what we know from Islam and this is what we believe contrary to the ugly picture that is painted by the Taliban.”

Ziauddin — who was once wanted by the terrorist organisation for speaking out against them — reminded the audience that the first word in the Quran is Iqra'a meaning ‘read'.

"It does not specify only men read — it just commands ‘read',” he said.

Filmmaker Guggenheim, who is also known for his documentary An Inconvenient Truth, said his film largely focuses on Malala's family life and displays the work she is doing to promote education worldwide in contrast to her daily homework and school life.

"Working on this was one of the great privileges of my life because only now do I realise, coming from Los Angeles, how ignorant I was about Islam. The Yousafzais have taught me about forgiveness and tolerance. There was a whole dimension about culture and religion that I was unaware of despite my research into the issues. I saw a commonality — their family is very similar to mine,” Guggenheim said.
Source: Gulf News