(Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. Learn to take a joke; you’ll live longer.)
I am Malala, for it is she who has given me the courage to dream of a better world. These were the operative words of a new op-ed written in the New York Times by the Emir of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Mullah Fazlullah.
“Her courage, her resilience and her undeterred commitment to the cause of education, women’s education in particular, all of them colour the committed person that I am today,” the Emir wrote in his now viral column.
“Who can forget that day when she was shot? I remember it like yesterday,” he wrote. “In fact, I still have the entry that I made to my diary that day.”
“The entry for the day read, ‘We need more education – and training,’” he said, reading out loud from his dog-eared, leatherbound journal.
“I am inspired by her every single day, and I hope to be able to meet her some day. It is difficult for a simple fan like myself to be able to meet her because of the security detail that she had around herself all the time, but one can dream, right?”
(The article appears next to Indian PM Modi’s op-ed about how India and the world needs Gandhi’s vision.)
