In Attacking Malala Yousafzai, Taliban Assault the Mind

After shooting schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai in the head last year but failing to kill her, Pakistan’s Taliban have sworn to assault her again—in case anyone needed another reminder of the evil of which Islamic terrorists are capable.

Malala’s alleged crime? She advocates girls attending school—a practice that’s contrary to the Taliban’s religion of Islam.

Malala—recipient of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought—deserves respect and admiration for acting in defiance of the subhuman barbarians known as the Taliban. (Unfortunately, she calls for pacifism toward the Taliban, but the blame for this lies primarily with the adult intellectuals who push such nonsense.) Malala also deserves her government’s active protection against these monsters. Let’s hope she gets it.

As for the Taliban (who deserve only to be exterminated) they have, by seeking to murder a child—by means of a bullet to the brain—for the “crime” of advocating education for girls, offered the starkest possible illustration of the conflict between consistently practiced religion and the fundamental requirement of human life: the use of one’s mind.

Like this post? Join our mailing list to receive our weekly digest. And for in-depth commentary from an Objectivist perspective, subscribe to our quarterly journal, The Objective Standard.

Related:

• “No Substitute for Victory”: The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism
• On the Anniversary of 9/11, Relativism and Religion Still Paralyze American Self-Defense

About Ari Armstrong

Ari Armstrong blogs at AriArmstrong.com, and he has written for publications including the Denver Post and Complete Colorado. He is the author of Values of Harry Potter: Lessons for Muggles, a book exploring the heroic fight for life-promoting values in the Potter novels.

View all articles by Ari Armstrong →