Malala - first among unequals

Malala Yousafzai is a pretty impressive young woman, and I wish her well. I hope that the Taleban allow her to have a long, happy, and healthy life. And an equal life.

She has campaigned boldly for equality where there is none, and nobody could blame her for taking so eagerly the opportunities which have come her way.

But prima inter pares she certainly is not. Something has qualified her to be the universal voice of oppressed Islamic girls and women, and she has achieved success and celebrity far beyond that of her equals.

It's puzzling.

In this country, the UK, we do not have a good record in listening to young people. If Malala was British, home-grown, she (speaker at the UN, appearer on TV, political firebrand) would have to wait until she is 18 even to get a vote. We are more used here to denigrating young people, belittling their academic success, denying them a voice, blaming them for binge-drinking in town centres, mugging, vile music and a thousand social ills. It's all their fault.

Which British 16-year old gets the positive attention enjoyed by Malala ? Maybe some sporting prodigy. Perhaps the occasional entrepreneurial geek who sees an opening unseen by older and more experienced business predators.

Malala isn't the only young person with clear political views, with a burning social conscience. She isn't the only one who cares so passionately, so inordinately. It seems to me that young people tend to know right from wrong with razor-sharp acuity, and they care with an unreasonable and determined passion which ought to shame us all much more regularly than it does.

Why has Malala turned into the darling of the media and the politicians ? What special qualification has put her so firmly in the spot-light ?

There are thousands, maybe millions of young people who have strong political views. It is a privilege to know some of them. 

Have Malala's views changed since before she was shot ? No. She was already a campaigner. That's why she was shot. But who was listening to her ? Who had heard of her ?

It seems desperately sad that it takes being shot by fanatics to give air-time to views that would be blissfully ignored otherwise.