It seemed like everyone knew I had written the BBC diary. Some thought my father had done it for me but Madam Maryam, our principal, told them, ‘No. Malala is not just a good speaker but also a good writer.’
That summer there was only one topic of conversation in my class. Shiza Shahid, our friend from Islamabad, had finished her studies in Stanford and invited twenty-seven girls from the Khushal School to spend a few days in the capital seeing the sights and taking part in workshops to help us get over the trauma of living under the Taliban. Those from my class were me, Moniba, Malka-e-Noor, Rida, Karishma and Sundus, and we were chaperoned by my mother and Madam Maryam.
We left for the capital on Independence Day, 14 August, and travelled by bus, everyone brimming with excitement. Most of the girls had only ever left the valley when we became IDPs. This was different and very much like the holidays we read about in novels. We stayed in a guesthouse and did lots of workshops on how to tell our stories so people outside would know what was going on in our valley and help us. Right from the first session I think Shiza was surprised how strong-willed and vocal we all were. ‘It’s a room full of Malalas!’ she told my father.
We also had fun doing things like going to the park and listening to music, which might seem ordinary for most people but which in Swat had become acts of political protest. And we saw the sights. We visited the Faisal Mosque at the base of the Margalla Hills, which was built by the Saudis for millions of rupees. It is huge and white and looks like a shimmering tent suspended between minarets. We went on our first ever visit to the theatre to see an English play called Tom, Dick and Harry and had art classes. We ate at restaurants and had our first visit to a McDonald’s. There were lots of firsts although I had to miss a meal in a Chinese restaurant because I was on a TV show called Capital Talk. To this day I still haven’t got to try duck pancakes!
Islamabad was totally different to Swat. It was as different for us as Islamabad is to New York. Shiza introduced us to women who were lawyers and doctors and also activists, which showed us that women could do important jobs yet still keep their culture and traditions. We saw women in the streets without purdah, their heads completely uncovered. I stopped wearing my shawl over my head in some of the meetings, thinking I had become a modern girl. Later I realised that simply having your head uncovered isn’t what makes you modern.
We were there one week and predictably Moniba and I quarrelled. She saw me gossiping with a girl in the year above and told me, ‘Now you are with Resham and I am with Rida.’
Shiza wanted to introduce us to influential people. In our country of course this often means the military. One of our meetings was with Major General Athar Abbas, the chief spokesman for the army and its head of public relations. We drove to Islamabad’s twin city of Rawalpindi to see him in his office. Our eyes widened when we saw that the army headquarters was so much neater than the rest of the city with perfect green lawns and blossoming flowers. Even the trees were all the same size with the trunks painted white to exactly halfway up – we didn’t know why. Inside the HQ we saw offices with banks of televisions, men monitoring every channel, and one officer showed my father a thick file of cuttings which contained every mention of the army in that day’s papers. He was amazed. The army seemed much more effective at PR than our politicians.
We were taken into a hall to wait for the general. On the walls were photographs of all our army chiefs, the most powerful men in our country including dictators like Musharraf and scary Zia. A servant with white gloves brought us tea and biscuits and small meat samosas that melted in our mouths. When General Abbas came in we all stood up.
He began by telling us about the military operation in Swat, which he presented as a victory. He said 128 soldiers and 1,600 terrorists had been killed in the operation.
After he finished we could ask questions. We had been told to prepare questions in advance and I had made a list of seven or eight. Shiza had laughed and said he wouldn’t be able to answer so many. I sat in the front row and was the first to be called on. I asked, ‘Two or three months ago you told us Fazlullah and his deputy were shot and injured, and then you said they were in Swat and sometimes you say they’re in Afghanistan. How did they get there? If you have so much information, why can’t you catch them?’
His reply went on for about ten to fifteen minutes and I couldn’t work out what his answer was! Then I asked about reconstruction. ‘The army must do something for the future of the valley, not just focus on the military operation,’ I said.
Moniba asked something similar. ‘Who will reconstruct all these buildings and schools?’ she wanted to know.
The general replied in a very military way. ‘After the operation, first we will have recovery, then rehabilitation, then hold and transfer to civil authorities.’