Religious apathy !

It seems strange that a poorly acted short film which contained an insult to Islam's founding prophet would send rioting mobs through the streets of Muslim nations, torching cars and resulting in the death of innocent people, and yet the shooting of a fourteen year old schoolgirl in Pakistan by the Taliban fails to stir a similar wave of indignation.

Why did the Taliban decree that Malala Yousafzai be assassinated ?   Because she spoke out and demanded that girls be educated.    For asking for such a basic right, Taliban assassins waylaid her on her way home from school and shot her in the head and neck.   Fortunately, she is now expected to recover, but most likely she will never be safe again in Pakistan and it will be necessary to relocate her out of that country.

It is true that there was a wave of revulsion near where this atrocity occurred, but in the rest of the Muslim world it passed virtually unnoticed.   Education is still a work in progress in most Muslim countries.   In many cases, the bulk of schooling is provided by religious " Madrases "  which cater only for boys and concentrate on learning the Koran by rote rather than providing an academic curriculum.

The Taliban have extreme views on life in an Islamic society.  In particular, they insist that women be fully covered at all times, never leave their home without a male family escort - and under no circumstances be allowed to either work or gain an education.   Their aim is world jihad to impose this way of life on those liberated Islamic countries where educated women are a normal facit of the work force.

What Malala Yousafzai was seeking is the key to a modern Islam integrated with the rest of the world.   The reason that Muslims are not in the streets protesting this attack on her is because they lack the education to fully understand just what sort of hell the Taliban is trying to impose.   It is the more advanced Islamic countries that have improving living standards and universal education for both sexes, but the Taliban draws it's strength where poverty and ignorance are a way of life.

Malala Yousafzai had great courage for a girl of her age.  She spoke out against the apathy that many of her people seem to feel when religious leaders fail to connect with the modern world, and she understood that it is education that will open people's eyes to a better way of life for all in an integrated world - something that is anathema to the bigoted, inward looking Taliban leaders.

Unfortunately, there will be many more such future leaders who will suffer great harm as they try to change their world !