eye for an eye makes the whole world blind

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I was expecting something a bit more revelational other than "I'd have peaceful dialog with mean people."

While I agree with you on a philosophical and an intellectual level, I'm not sure I'm a nice enough person to try to reason with a fundamentalist freakjob who wants to kill me.

This girl is amazing

While she was attacked by members of the Taliban, there is no indication that 100% of Taliban supporters want her dead. Also there are very serious grievances that need to be addressed. She is taking the braver and more mature route while I'm sure also protecting herself reasonably.

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The Pakistani Taliban leadership spoke out emphatically after the shooting to be very clear they did it and were proud they did it. The Taliban leadership just this week spoke with Al Jazeera to reiterate that they fully intend to finish the job if they ever have the opportunity. That seems to me pretty strong indications of the Taliban supporters wishes, no?

It's not revelational, it's powerful.

That said, I think I'm too much of a realist and still believe leaders like her require people protecting them with the force required to stop people like the Taliban. Benazir Bhutto was in many ways a grown version of many of Malala's own ideals, and she is now dead at the hands of the same militant fanatics that tried to kill Malala. Female politicians in Pakistan have a regrettably short life expectancy, much like any male politicians who support them or anything remotely secular. For example the two politicians assassinated in the last year and a bit for asking to lift the death penalty for the crime of blasphemy.

Pakistan is in the middle of a very bloody war between the people like Malala and the people who tried to kill her. The trouble is the side we relate with is being decimated by assassinations which are either killing the moderates outright, or forcing them from the country to safety but more limited impact within Pakistan. Bhutto was similarly in exile for a long while for the same concerns, which proved out to be all to well founded.

I think I understand you, but correct me if I'm wrong. You're saying it's powerful not for what she's saying, but because of the context of her being a female activist for education in an area of the world with typically extreme patriarchal resistance to these ideas. Yeah?

Context is important, I suppose. It's just that talking about peace and education isn't new. And I wonder if in twenty years from now if some woman raised in a primitive tribe in the bush stood up and said "peace and education!" will we, Westerners, all again be awestruck like Jon Stewart in this video? It just seems ridiculous to be shocked and "speechless" over something so pedestrian and accepted in our culture.

No it doesn't. Just like how Obama doesn't speak for the population of the United States even though he's our elected leader. When you're in a desperate situation and there is a power vacuum it is filled and you support it. That doesn't mean they represent you, or anyone rational.

Yes, it does. The members of the Taliban aren't born into it. They sign on, they join up, they make a choice to follow the Taliban leadership. Every day they continue to identify themselves as Taliban is a reaffirmation of that. We don't have to kill every last one of them to eliminate them. If they all renounced the group and ideology it'd be gone just like that. You need to understand, the regions the Taliban are thriving in are filled with people readily joining them NOT to get back at the west, but the whole package. Men are superior to women, the true believers are superior to the infidels, killing those that disagree and taking from them by force is not only acceptable, but noble. Those core 'values' hold very large appeal to the tribal youth in those areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. It's ugly, it's brutal and trying to call it something else is ignoring the real depth and heart of the problem.

The Taliban are a minor irritation for us outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is the moderate muslims and secular populations of Afghanistan and Pakistan that are the real victims of the Taliban thugs. Failing to call them thugs and to condemn them is doing nobody any favors.

So this situation is completely uncomplicated to you, we've done nothing wrong it's all their fault and they either need to renounce their countrymen or die. You see the world in black and white, I can't change that but maybe do more research before just making proclamations about how people who you know nothing about should conduct their lives.

I was referring to the idea of steadfastly facing down violence with nothing but a message of peace and goodwill. It can turn the tide of public opinion against her attackers.

Maybe you need to get off the fence if you think giving the people who attempted to assassinate a little girl on a school bus the benefit of the doubt is wise.

So you didn't watch the video at all because that's exactly the position Malala takes. I'm not under any illusions that those who attack her and threaten her are good people. I just recognize that you cannot fight them with more terror. I recognize that as a citizen of the worlds leading terrorist state.

I like that idea. But it's essentially the same as civil disobedience. When people use peaceful noncompliance to combat violence and coercion. But, again, it's nothing outside of the norm. I applaud what she's saying, but I certainly do not see why anyone would be "speechless" and shocked as if it were revelational somehow.

You need to watch her video again, because she most assuredly does not affirm, defend or apologize in any fashion for the Taliban. She states only that she wishes to appeal to them to stop. Asking them to stop suppressing and killing schoolgirls doesn't sound like sitting on the fence to me.

The Taliban leadership also reasserted their intentions to finish Malala off earlier this week. Probably very nearly the time this was recorded:

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2013/10/taliban-renew-vow-attack-malala-2013107153959169272.html

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I didn't do any of that either, I agreed with her I think she is right. You meet these guys with force and people will rally around them, like al Qaeda.

Extended Interview

But if you fail to meet them with force you also run the risk of ending up like Poland, and well, most of the rest of Europe in WW2.

Or like Afghanistan.

Like it or not, the Taliban are openly waging war on moderate and secular society within Pakistan and have been doing so for a long time. Malala's not the first to be shot by them, she's not the most recent. As I pointed out earlier as well and you seem to think isn't relevant.

After reading you comments and replies to such I don't know if you are sadly mistaken or just dumb.

Either way trying to reason a man with a knife at neck is a poor defense tactic. I'll send flowers to you funeral.

I loved this interview and I respect her with every ounce of respect I have. We need people with hearts like this in this world. However, This only reaffirmes my belief in fighting the Taliban in whatever means it takes to protect yourself. I would want me or my wife of my mother to have a means to protect themselves without relying on faith and idealist philosophies. I hope it works for her but I have to think it would not end well if she employed the tactics she espouses. I love her though. She is wonderful and I wish her the best of luck. In this arena, and this area of the world...I feel it will take a massive upswell of individuals deciding that fighting back in a very physical and literal sense is the only answer.

I agree with this, and yet I also agree with the philosophies of Rambo and Commando.

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