Let Her Fly

by Ziauddin Yousafzai

  Malala did not want to travel alone to the United Nations in New York when she was sixteen. She did not want to travel to the refugee camps in Syria for her eighteenth birthday without me. But she is twenty-one now. In February, while she was at Oxford, she left for a ten-day trip. She went to the World Economic Forum in Davos and she went to Jordan, where she had a press conference with Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple and a Malala Fund donor. Mostly we leave her to manage her Malala Fund schedule, but her position means that she has many more demands on her time than an ordinary twenty-one-year-old. Only when we see signs of the workload becoming too much do we step in and suggest, “No more travel for a while. You must concentrate on being young.”

  I feel proud that there is this kind of human being on our earth, whose life is about others. I feel proud of this young woman called Malala, who tries to teach the world that love is all about others, that it is not all about you. I feel proud that this young woman called Malala has learned to love herself and value herself but places herself in the bigger perspective of the world, one that must provide twelve years of quality education to girls globally. And I feel proud, too, that this young woman called Malala is busy with her own education at Oxford, with going to parties, buying clothes, and counting her steps on her Fitbit.

  And only after all these thoughts do I allow myself to feel proud that this young woman called Malala was also that baby who lay in our secondhand cradle. I am so proud that Malala is my daughter.

  Epilogue

  Going Home

  FOR YEARS, IN my dreams I have returned to Pakistan, to Swat and to Shangla. And in the morning, I have woken up to find myself thousands of miles from home. For such a long time, Toor Pekai and I and Malala have longed to have those dreams come true.

  But for us, for Toor Pekai and me, since the attempt on Malala’s life, everything has been about safety, about safeguarding her life.

  It was Malala herself who could no longer bear not returning to Pakistan. “I left my home, I left my country, and it was not my choice,” she said. “I went to school that morning and I never came back. I left my country in an induced coma.”

  I will confess that although I am so happy for Malala to travel all over the world without us, I was nervous about her returning to Pakistan.

  “Please, Jani, let us just wait one more year.” Toor Pekai was also hesitant initially, and Khushal was frightened. For weeks he either had terrible nightmares or could not sleep at all. I would hear him moving about the house in the night, restless and anxious.

  But Malala meant to go. “If we all don’t go back to Pakistan together,” she told us, “I will go on my own. I have to go.” And so I said, “We are coming.”

  I cannot put into words how I felt when our plane touched down in Pakistan and we stepped onto the ground in Islamabad. I think not even poets have invented words for something like this. Words cannot do justice to such intensity of feeling. When words fail, smiles and tears come, and that expresses all that is inside you.

  Malala does not often cry. Since her attack, I have seen her cry only three times. The first was when we finally arrived at the hospital in the UK after a ten-day separation and she saw us by her bedside. The second time was on her eighteenth birthday, when we saw the refugees crossing the border from Syria to Jordan, and the third time was when she was listening to a mother talking about how her son had been badly wounded by the Taliban shooting in the army public school. But during her first official engagement in Pakistan, in front of three hundred people, she could not stop crying. The whole auditorium was crying. The whole world saw Malala crying because her tears were an expression of her happiness.

  “This is the happiest day of my life,” she said.

  When Malala was shot and fighting for her life, her body was lifted in a helicopter from a helipad in Mingora. As the helicopter carried us over the valley to the hospital in Peshawar, I sat beside her as she was on the stretcher vomiting blood. We had left Pekai below, standing there with her arms aloft, her scarf in her hands above her head, a direct appeal to God to bring back her daughter safely. I had seen nothing outside the helicopter then, no air, no land, because then I was with Malala, looking at her body, trying to gauge how she was responding to the trauma, how she was struggling to hang on to her life.

  This time, we five were together in the helicopter, healthy and safe, as it flew back over the same mountains to that same helipad in Mingora from where Malala began her journey away from her homeland. It felt like a triumph. We looked down on the fields and mountains and lakes and dams and familiar scenes of our beautiful Swat, the place that has shaped all that we are. It was like a gift from God, truly God’s gift to our family.

  When we got off the helicopter, on that helipad where I had once thought death was claiming my child, the five of us huddled together. We held one another so tightly. Toor Pekai and I could not stop our tears. The helipad is only a couple of minutes from our old house in Mingora. Malala had state-level security surrounding her, which the army was facilitating. We went to our house. When we reached its white walls and its gated courtyard, I fell to the floor and put my hands on the soil. I had to touch the soil of the land, I had to have it on my palms. I kissed that soil. I kissed it as when you might greet a beloved, a mother, after a long, long time. You just want to hug that precious thing close to your body.

  Malala and the boys ran to the rooms that had once been theirs. Malala saw the designs on the wall she had made when she was a child, and she saw the trophies that she had won as part of the education she had tried to save.

  When we left Mingora, the helicopter took us to Swat Cadet College, a school run by the army, at the bottom of the mountains. A red carpet waited for Malala, and she walked across it to the place where we were given lunch. On the way back to the helicopter, in the distance we saw a big crowd of army soldiers, lined up with their vehicles. As we walked past them, Malala waved and the soldiers in their uniforms took off their caps in salute to her, a sign of their deepest respect for her. This was one of the beautiful highlights of our Pakistan tour.

  Malala’s very presence in Pakistan was a change for our country. It symbolized change. She did not even have to speak because her physical presence itself was the embodiment of peace and education.

  We held two lunches for our family and friends from Shangla and Swat, almost all of whom we had not seen since we left suddenly in 2012. We were expecting one hundred people from Shangla, but more than three hundred traveled to the hotel in order to meet Malala and see us. It was an eight-hour drive. My second mother was among this group. I had not seen her for six years, and when she was wheeled through the door in her wheelchair, it was such a moving sight. I felt a rush of love for her, and it suddenly occurred to me that I wanted to present her with some flowers, as a sign of my deep affection. But I had no flowers. When I looked around, however, I saw that there was a hotel display. It was a white arrangement, and I would have preferred colored flowers, but even so, I grabbed several of the stems and I knelt down beside my mother and gave her the flowers and told her I loved her. It felt a bit like I had stolen these flowers, but the hotel was very kind and generous about my taking them. I think perhaps I was overcome by a kind of madness. The second day, we were again expecting around one hundred people from Swat, but again more than three hundred arrived. In these crowds, there were families of three generations, from babies to old men in their nineties. It brought me such happiness to see everybody sitting together in the same room, celebrating our journey back home. Malala moved about the tables, ensuring that everybody felt they had been personally welcomed by her.

  When Malala was in the presence of Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, he stood four times for her as she passed him to go to the stage to deliver her speech. “Malala,” he said, “you are no longer an ordinary citizen of Pakistan. You are the most famous Pakistani woman in the world.”

  “The bad days are gone,” I thought. “Jani is back in her country and the people a
re supportive. She will carry on her campaign for every girl in every village, in every city, and in every country, for the 130 million girls who do not go to school.”

  And one day, we might all be able to finally come home.

  Photos

  Receiving the best-debater award at postgraduate Jehanzeb College, Swat, from the late principal Danishmand Khan, around 1986.

  Receiving awards at the annual prize ceremony from then education secretary Mehmood Hahn, Jehanzeb College, Swat.

  My wife, Toor Pekai, and me as newlyweds in Shangla.

  Toor Pekai and me holding Malala and Khushal on the bank of the river Swat, around 2001.

  My father, Rohul Amin, laughing with his three grandchildren, Malala, Atal, and Khushal.

  Holding Atal, with Malala.

  Talking at morning school assembly in Mingora in 2008.

  Dr. Fiona, mentor to my two sons, enjoying fish and chips in the gardens of Warwick Castle, June 2013. Copyright Adrian Bullock

  Our family and Kailash Satyarthi’s in Oslo after the presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize 2014 to Kailash and Malala.

  Eating corn on the cob with Malala in Santa Barbara, California.

  Speaking to an all-girl secondary school in Maasai Mara, Kenya, sponsored by Free the Children.

  Building a wall at a school in Maasai Mara, Kenya, with Malala and Craig Kielburger, cofounder of Free the Children.

  Meeting Syrian refugees in Jordan.

  With Malala at the Maasai Mara safari park in Kenya.

  Islamabad, 2018: Malala receiving a kiss from my mother, Maharo Bibi, with her maternal grandmother, Del Pasanda, next to her, as Toor Pekai, Toor Pekai’s brothers, and I watch from behind.

  Malala meeting her uncle, my brother Saeed Ramzan, in Islamabad.

  My nephew Mubashir Hassan with Khushal, Malala, and Atal.

  At our old family house in Mingora, sitting in front of Malala’s school trophy cabinet.

  2018: An emotional moment after landing at the same helipad in Swat from which a wounded Malala was airlifted to Peshawar in 2012.

  Acknowledgments

  The great Urdu poet Saleem Kausar has a beautiful verse that reads: . (“There is my reflection in front of the mirror, but there is another [are many] behind the mirror.”)

  Although this book has my name on it, this verse speaks for all the people, family and friends, who helped bring it to life.

  Writing it has been a journey for me, as it has been for many others, and I believe myself to be very lucky to have found Louise Carpenter as my coauthor. Therefore, my first and foremost gratitude goes to her. This has been an intellectually challenging and emotionally charged journey. With Louise being an amazing listener and a wonderful writer, this journey was an incredibly enriching experience. She laughed, cried, and smiled with me while I was sharing my stories and experiences. She put her heart and soul into articulating my story in the best possible way. Thank you, Louise, for making this book a reality with me.

  I may be the narrator of this book, but I couldn’t have completed it without my better half, my great friend and companion, my wife, Toor Pekai. Throughout this process, sitting with Louise in our sessions, sometimes I would glimpse a memory without fully recollecting it. I would call out “TOOR PEKAI!” and she would come running. Having an elephant’s memory, she provided full details of the stories I wanted to tell. Thank you, Toor Pekai, for being generous and passionate in your contributions and for being there for me every single time I needed you in my life.

  The world rightly knows me as Malala’s proud father. But I am also blessed in being the father of my two amazing sons, Khushal Khan and Atal Khan. Both of them are unique and special in their own way. This book is a story of father and sons, too. Thank you, Khushal and Atal, for being honest in your input.

  Malala asked me for a long time to write a book. As her book I Am Malala has many of the stories of our family, in this book she wanted me to give my unique perspective. She helped me in setting the vision of this book, and in spite of her very busy schedule at Oxford, she shared her part of the story and penned the foreword. Thank you, my dear Jani, for being my strength and for standing with me from your childhood to this very day, every day!

  Apart from my family, I am thankful to Darnell Strom and Jamie Joseph, who were keen to motivate me. Adam Grant, the coauthor of Option B, inspired me so much when he wrote with words of encouragement. Thank you, Adam, for your kind words.

  My friend and my son Khushal’s mentor Simon Sinek deserves my gratitude, too. In just one session, he resolved my dilemma about the title and suggested Let Her Fly, which resonated with me and all those involved. Thank you, Simon, for your wisdom and vision.

  Our family has been very lucky to have had great people around us since we moved to the UK. One of these is Karolina Sutton, a wonderful woman whose professional honesty has always impressed me. She is a sincere family friend whom we trust very much. Thank you, Karolina, for supporting our literary work.

  I am very thankful to Judy Clain from Little, Brown for her personal interest in the book and for her constant encouragement, and for strictness on the deadlines. She has all the great qualities an editor should have. Thank you, Judy; much respect.

  I am also immensely grateful to Maria Qanita, our family friend and coordinator, who supported this project in so many ways, from managing my itinerary to engaging in intellectual discussions. Eason Jordan, a great family friend, was quick to help when I requested family photographs. Eason, thank you. As I have often said, “Where there is Eason, there is a way.” Thank you to Qasim Swati and Tom Payne for their poetic translations of my poems, which add more value to the book. And finally, thank you to Usman Ali, who is like an adopted brother to me and has helped our family so much over the years.

  I hope this book is an enriching and joyful experience for all the readers and conveys the love, warmth, and affection that my friends and family hold for one another.

  In gratitude, Ziauddin Yousafzai

  There are many people who helped me along the way with their insights and hospitality: Maryam Khalique, Hai Kakar, Dr. Fiona Reynolds and her husband, Adrian Bullock, and Toor Pekai’s friend and teacher Janet Culley-Tucker. I am also grateful to the extended Yousafzai family in Pakistan who gave their various help and permission to use their stories. Usman Bin Jan provided the delicious food. I love an English cup of tea, but I concede that dhood patti is the best. Samina Nawaz was such a happy presence.

  I would like to thank the Yousafzai family. Toor Pekai, for tolerating my long days with Ziauddin and trusting me with her story, so important in its own right; Khushal and Atal, for being honest about difficult periods in their lives while also making me laugh; and Malala, for finding the time in an insane schedule to talk to me.

  Thank you to my agent, Karolina Sutton, for keeping us on the right road; Judy Clain, who guided me with a mixture of clarity and trust; Betsy Uhrig, a respectful and diligent production editor; and Jamie Joseph, my British editor, for strong support. I could not have met my deadline without Sophie Swietochowski, who accurately transcribed hours of conversations.

  The literary judgment and love of my husband, Tom Payne, are invaluable, and my dear children have been patient and involved throughout.

  Above all, I would like to thank Ziauddin. It has been hard work but also such tremendous fun. There is no other word for it. We laughed and very often we cried. I feel privileged to have helped tell this story of bravery and goodness. And in doing so, I feel I have made a friend for life.

  Louise Carpenter

  About the Authors

  Ziauddin Yousafzai is an educational activist, a human rights campaigner, and a teacher. He hails from Pakistan’s Swat Valley, where, at great personal risk in an atmosphere of fear and violence, he stood up and peacefully resisted the Taliban’s efforts to shut down schools and limit personal freedoms. He continued his campaign for education after moving to the United Kingdom and, as the cofounder of the Malala Fund
with his daughter, Malala, he is building a movement of support for twelve years of girls’ education worldwide. He has been conferred with an honorary doctorate of law by the Wilfrid Laurier University of Canada, and he serves as the global ambassador for the Women in Public Service Project, on the leadership council of the Global Women’s Institute (GWI) of the George Washington University, and as the United Nations Special Advisor on Global Education.