Shove your cynicism up your "you know what"

[Wade]

So this happened:


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/09...73426.html

Makes me think of all those pseudo macho men who walk around with a gun at their hip. "Damn right I gots a gun! Anybody fucks with me I'll blow their goddamn head off. That's what they deserve!" I see a lot of those guys where I live, including in my own family.

This girl... that's what bravery actually looks like.

Just wanted to share.

[Woollyhats]

She's one of my favorite notable figures.

[Waylon777]

She sure got guts! I love people with big guts!

[MisterTinkles]

You GO gurlfriend!!! **SNAP SNAP**

[Wade]

Part of me wonders how much her father influenced her another part of me feels sad she has lost her childhood. And how many girls are still living the life she had?
I'm surprised the Taliban have not targeted her again, I worry about her future.

The Taliban have declared that they are targeting her, and yet she still says what she says...

I don't get the sense that she's coached by her father, or anyone, whatsoever. And I don't think many fathers would tell their 15 year old daughter, who just recovered from a bullet in the head by the Taliban, to go on television and say she wouldn't physically attack another attacker.

She seems very earnest

What I find amazing about this is that some people might be tempted to write off what she says as young idealism or naivete, but she's already been shot in the fucking head! She's already experienced the fear of an attack, the closeness of death, and the potential anger towards an aggressor. So she knows what she's talking about.

When this girl, who's seen the worst of humanity, who's stared death in the face, can say with conviction that she wouldn't bonk a Taliban member on the head with a shoe because she wouldn't resort to violence for anything...

That means something. I can't imagine her saying that if she didn't mean it, no matter what her father wants; not after what she's been through.

EDIT:

Childhood is overrated. And even though she's been through such a horrific event, she doesn't seem like she's lost her innocence. She's still a trusting person. Christ... I'm in awe.

I think most people in places like Pakistan have to grow up much quicker than us anyway. And I fear for her safety too, but if I can put words in her mouth, I believe that she believes that there are worse things than death, such as giving up on your faith, faith for a person's conscience to help them do the right thing, just for the sake of your personal safety.

[southbiochem]

Here's hoping that her gettin killed is not the price to be paid for wanting some quality of life for girls on countries such as these..

she has my utmost admiration

[Chase]

Makes me think of all those pseudo macho men who walk around with a gun at their hip. "Damn right I gots a gun! Anybody fucks with me I'll blow their goddamn head off. That's what they deserve!" I see a lot of those guys where I live, including in my own family.

This girl... that's what bravery actually looks like.

Agree to disagree, but I firmly believe self-defense is not a sign of cowardice. If I saw Malala, or any child, being attacked by a murdering terrorist, I wouldn't respect her pacifism, I would try to overpower the terrorist.
The thought of what Malala has been through makes me feel bad to say that I disagree with her, but while I agree girls deserve an equal education, I disagree with her saying we should fight terrorism with pacifism.
Humans are animals capable of great hatred, bigotry, bias, and violence. If you tell an Al Qaeda man girls need to be educated just as much as boys, people of other faiths and cultures can coexist, and murdering & torturing people for not accepting your faith is wrong, he will cut your head off.

[Pix]

^^

Yeah, there needs to be balance between "kill 'em all" and "do with me what you will, I'm just going to die praying for you." I don't consider either admirable or helpful.

But the question was too simplistic. What would she say to a terrorist who was attacking her? NOTHING. Because she'd be dying again if not dead. If she wants to be a pacifist, fine, but if everyone who wasn't a terrorist had that attitude then the Taliban (or equivalent) would rule this planet and not anyone else. Otherwise the only reason she has a chance of making this world a better place is because of others willing to do violence (ideally more defensive than tit for tat) on her behalf.

That said...I always thought this was worth keeping in mind:

http://www.deepleafproductions.com/wilso...karma.html

Then, returning from school one afternoon, Luna was beaten and robbed by a gang of black kids. She was weeping and badly frightened when she arrived home, and her Father was shaken by the unfairness of it happening to her, such a gentle, ethereal child. In the midst of consoling her, the Father wandered emotionally and began denouncing the idea of Karma. Luna was beaten, he said, not for her sins, but for the sins of several centuries of slavers and racists, most of whom had never themselves suffered for those sins. "Karma is a blind machine," he said. "The effects of evil go on and on but they don't necessarily come back on those who start the evil." Then Father got back on the track and said some more relevant and consoling things.

The next day Luna was her usual sunny and cheerful self, just like the Light in her paintings. "I'm glad you're feeling better," the Father said finally.

"I stopped the wheel of Karma," she said. "All the bad energy is with the kids who beat me up. I'm not holding any of it."

And she wasn't. The bad energy had entirely passed by, and there was no anger or fear in her. I never saw her show any hostility to blacks after the beating, any more than before.

The Father fell in love with her all over again. And he understood what the metaphor of the wheel of Karma really symbolizes and what it means to stop the wheel.

Karma, in the original Buddhist scriptures, is a blind machine; in fact, it is functionally identical with the scientific concept of natural law. Sentimental ethical ideas about justice being built into the machine, so that those who do evil in one life are punished for it in another life, were added later by theologians reasoning from their own moralistic prejudices. Buddha simply indicated that all the cruelties and injustices of the past are still active: their effects are always being felt. Similarly, he explained, all the good of the past, all the kindness and patience and love of decent people is also still being felt.

Since most humans are still controlled by fairly robotic reflexes, the bad energy of the past far outweighs the good, and the tendency of the wheel is to keep moving in the same terrible direction, violence breeding more violence, hatred breeding more hatred, war breeding more war. The only way to "stop the wheel" is to stop it inside yourself, by giving up bad energy and concentrating on the positive. This is by no means easy, but once you understand what Gurdjieff called "the horror of our situation," you have no choice but to try, and to keep on trying.

And Luna, at 13, understood this far better than I did, at 43, with all my erudition and philosophy.... I still regarded her absolute vegetarianism and pacifism as sentimentality.

Finding that right balance is hard, however...perhaps why too many people embrace simplistic extremes.

[Wade]

I don't believe there is a right balance. I don't think there is a "just perfect" amount of violence. And I don't believe that any violence, whether perpetrated by an individual or a nation, can begin and remain only in self defense. I don't think violence can be stopped with more violence, I think that's naive.

As I mentioned earlier, I think Malala has the most authority on the subject and I truly respect her feelings on the matter, and not in a patronizing sort of way.

[MisterTinkles]

I don't think violence can be stopped with more violence, I think that's naive.

No offense to you Mr. Wade, or anybody else who thinks this....but only people who have never been outside their comfort zone or living bubble say this. In the real world, if you dont fight violence with violence....then all you are doing is being a doormat for violence to propagate itself further.

Extreme rare occurrences do happen where peace wins out over violence, but that does not make them more powerful than violence. Violence is an extreme force, peace is not. Thats like fighting a an aggressor with a machine gun, with a toothpick. MacGyver can probably get away with it and maybe Gandhi and the Dali Lama, but I dont see anyone else getting away with it.

Hopefully this young lady is the new Gandhi for the 21st century. We all know someone over there needs to be spreading some sanity around. With a Nobel Prize nod in her direction now, more leaders will listen to what she has to say. Lets hope they do, and they actually listen.

Until then, the only way to end violence is to destroy the violence itself. And that in itself is a violent act.


This also has a negative effect. Ive seen too many people who could not be bothered to spank their kids when they were young. NO...Im not talking about a beating or doing it hard enough to break skin or leave red marks on the kid.
Im talking about a slap on skin, loud enough and just forceful enough to give a slight sting. Kids who have not learned that there is a price to pay for the bad things they do, grow up thinking everybody owes them something and that they can do anything they want with no punishment or deterrents of any kind when they grow up. They turn into hateful, nasty, vile humans who have no respect for anyone, anything , property, or life itself.

If you dont learn there are consequences to your actions at an early age, you wont grow up to respect anything or anyone, or learn the lesson that there IS a consequence when you say, act, or do the wrong thing. Why do you think the prisons are SO overcrowded???

Only kids of high intelligence levels can understand, without spankings, that there is consequences to bad deeds.
This is rare.

In my eyes, you need violence to circumnavigate around there being more violence later on. Preventative measures.

Thats why the world is the way it is now. NO preventative measures. Every sits around saying "oh no, that will never happen to me". Then when it does, its all "OMG!! WHHHYYYYY did this happen to MEEEEEEE"!!??? Nobody believes in preventative measures anymore. Parents, guardians, teachers, politicians, presidents, leaders.....they all wait until it gets to the stage of war and death before they even take notice.

And WHO'S fault is THAT?!