This is one story about President Obama that doesn’t quite fit Mitt Romney’s narrative about a US President Obama who fails to inspire pro-Western people abroad. 14-year-old activist and outspoken advocate for the education for girls Malala Yousafzai was shot today, October 9, in the head on her way home from school in Mingora, Pakistan.

The Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat Valley took responsibility for the shooting, telling Reuters in a telephone interview that Malala “was pro-West, she was speaking against Taliban and she was calling President Obama her idol”.

Agreeing that Malala is young, Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan— charged that “she was promoting Western culture in Pashtun areas”. If Malala Yousafzai survives, the Taliban say they will shoot her again until she is dead.

The New York Timesreports that another girl who was wounded in the attack said that a man had stopped the school bus on which Malala was riding, stepped into the bus and asked which girl was Malala before opening fire.

We all pray that somehow this astoundingly courageous young woman Malala Yousafzai will survive. And we grieve deeply for her wonderful father who had the courage and fortitude to see the potential of his young daughter and cultivate her voice, mind, and strong convictions. ~ Anne

Updates:Pakistani schools protest after shooting of young girl USA Today

Malala Yousafzai: Pakistan bullet surgery ‘successful’ BBC News Asia

Taliban Gun Down Girl Who Spoke Up for Rights NYTimes

… a neurologist said Ms. Yousafzai was in critical condition at a hospital in Peshawar, though doctors had been able to remove a bullet. A government official in Peshawar, speaking on condition of anonymity, said arrangements had been made to send Ms. Yousafzai abroad for treatment, but that doctors had said she should not be moved for now.

Previously on Anne of Carversville:

Pakistan’s Girls

Pakistan’s Girls: Uneducated, Radicalized & Anti-West 12/23/2009

Leaving no doubt how they feel about educating girls, the Taliban blew up a girls’ school in Pakistan’s Khyber district, where government troops are fighting against militants.
Militants detonated explosives overnight at the government-run school in Bazgarah town, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Peshawar, capital of the violence-plagued North West Frontier Province.”The building had 21 rooms. All have been completely demolished,” local administration chief Shafeerullah Wazir told AFP by telephone. No one was injured.
This was the ninth school to be blown up in the Khyber region over the past six weeks. Militants have blasted more than 185 schools in the NWFP. Estimates are that about 130 schools were girls only.
A 2007 article in Christian Science Monitor reminds us that the education of girls is perceived as a moderating force against growing Islamist militancy. An educated mother not only impacts her family’s standard of living but the values of her children, both boys and girls.

Pakistani Women’s Rights Heroine Mukhtar Mai on NBC Dateline 9/12/2009

Also: Women in Swat VAlley Abandon Burqas

Peace Treaties & Macaroons

Young women in Peshawar, PakistanGlobal Peace Treaties and the Meaning of Macaroons 12/22/2009

Posting now a story about Women of the Wall, a group of Jewish women long protesting the exclusion of women from the primary place of worship in Jerusalem, I discover a movie that they’ve made.
There’s a NYT photo with the story and I’m struck by the orange and green umbrellas in a sea of black ones. I realize this is another reason that I don’t like burqas and the coverings of women in some countries.
Black is so sad, so lacking in joy.
So I go looking for a more expressive photo — perhaps there’s a Google news photo of the “Women of the Wall” protesting in Jerusalem.
Instead I find this gorgeous National Geographic photo of women sitting on the wall in Pushkar, Pakistan. The American US terror suspect David Coleman Headley was in Pushkar, allegedly planning the Mumbai massacre… .
In IWR my next story posted is about a direct appeal to women bombers from the wife of Al-Qaeda’s second in command. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s Egyptian deputy and second-in-command, encouraged Muslim women to join jihad as an “obligation.” Umaima Hassan is challenging women to become terrorists as an obligation of Islam.
This past week I’ve been very sad, coming to grips with this fact that religion is the biggest stumbling block in liberating women. Religion mostly seeks to keep women in their places. That includes Catholicism, which is hijacking health care in America. I do believe that Roe vs Wade will be overturned in the US. American women have no will on women’s rights any more.

Religion & True Grit Women

‘True Grit’ women walk the talk of feminism.Drawing a Line in Lubna’s Sand, Saying ‘No More’ to the Growing, Global Erosion of Women’s Rights in the Name of Any Man’s Religion 8/12/2009

There comes a time in everyone’s life when s(he) must draw a line in the sand. It’s a line that says “no more; I’ve had enough”. There’s no doubt that Lubna Hussein has drawn her line in the sands of Sudan…
On the subject of fundamentalism, I no longer wear rose-colored glasses. Like Lubna Ahmed Hussein, I am drawing a line in the sand and saying ‘no more’.
Peaceful, intelligent people of every culture and faith, who want to coexist MUST gather together. We must have our own songs and images that inspire us as a group.
Deadly, irrational, automaton forces — with no conscience, just march and kill — are snatching women around the word. They operate on autopilot, asking no questions. There is no reasoning, no logic, no peace table for these robotic wasps.
Fundamentally savage men round up women and rape them unmercifully, frequently in the name of their respective Gods and generals and minerals, too, I imagine. Africa’s warfare is not only about religion.
We have more than one god involved here, I’m sure, although one in particular seems to be particularly hard on women.