All in the name of God

In Pakistan Tuesday a 14 year old girl was the target of assassins. 14 year old Malala Yousafzai was shot, and critically wounded.

What made her such a political threat?

“I want to get my education and I want to become a doctor,” she said in an interview.

Three years ago at age 11, she appeared in a New York Times documentary about the Taliban’s decision to close all the girls schools in Pakistan’s Swat valley, including the one run by her father, Zahudin.

“This is my duty and if I die for it I think there would be no chance for me to die bigger than this,” he said.

And his daughter was worried about the day the gunmen would come.

“Sometime I think that I will hide in the bathroom and I will call the police and they will save my father,” she said.

The police would save her father. But Tuesday, she was target – on her way home from school, in broad daylight,only a few yards away from a military checkpoint. Some men stopped her van, asked which one is Malala, and someone pointed her out.

The Taliban claimed responsibility, “Targeted for her anti-Taliban views,” the statement said. Yes, all in the name of God, demonstrating his infinite love at gunpoint.

Malala and her father will win eventually. History is on their side. Societies that enforce ignorance doom themselves. But not today. Today the Daily Beast quotes Malala’s friend Aisha — the last person to talk to her — who says now she will have to quit school. Because to be an educated woman is too dangerous.