"Brand Malala": Interpretation

                                                                                                                  Moubarak 1

Racha Moubarak

            Prof. Dania Adra
            English 203
            25 September 2015

“Brand Malala” interpretation

    In this blog, the author highlights on Malala"s story and exploitation by the western media   and policies.

In a social perspective, we found this blog very useful because it gives an opinion on a subject of popular interest which is Malala's story and exploitation. According to the author point of view, Malala has become a very marketable western commodity(Carol 593), what indicates how the world and the western media benefit from a person problem and/or weakness, to increase their own interests. Also the blog shows that there are some secret and hidden reasons behind every immense media coverage of a story, and also shows the lack of honesty and transparency in the big prizes given to some people and not to others: "what makes one person more deserving than others?"(Carol 595). In addition, Grayson thinks that Malala does fit in a "popular narrative"(Carol 597) so that her story was allowed to be published and highlighted, and this takes us to the point of discovering the mechanisms on which the big awards and prizes (like the Nobel Prize) are given. So this blog does not only reflect a modern situation, but also it pushes us to review some old immense stories, searching for their reasons and honesty.

 In an emotional perspective, Grayson did not include many emotions, but preferred being more analytic in her description of Malala’s story. In some places, she used a sarcastic tone to criticize Malala’s environment, the western media and some PR companies, using sometimes words between quotation marks as “mentors”, “gender justice”, “save”, “deserving”, and sometimes referring to a world press citation: “I guess I was worried that she was probably a pawn in a bigger game and was being unduly influenced by the people around her”(Carol 595) (by Jonathan Rao). Also, the author seems mocking, but also unpleasant about the values transmitted through Malala into the western societies and specifically in the UK, when she ironically describes Malala to be the “acceptable face of Islam”.(Carol 596)

In a rhetorical perspective, this blog is a an argumentative text because Grayson had used many connotations and specifically the ones written between quotation marks, in addition to some rhetorical questions that encourages the reader to think deeply about the author point of view and accept it as possible: “how many people can name the other girls injured when Malala was shot? What quality of care and support did they receive? Are they represented by PR companies?”(Carol 596) In such questions, Grayson invites the reader to search for the reasons that make out of Malala a special case to be discussed worldwide. Also, Grayson’s text seems in some places impersonal because she had made a specific description of malala’s story, narrating all what happened to the young girl since she was shot and even more, she was fully interested in Malala’s family and environment in order to illustrate the honesty of her explanation and point of view; she talks about Ziauddin (Malala’s father) who owns “for profit” schools which just happen to be high on the agenda of Gordon Brown, global envoy for education at the UN(595). And finally, we can see that Grayson is a little bit subjective in that blog because even though her writings are based on objective events, her analysis became more subjective and personal.

In a logical perspective, Grayson’s text illustrates a debate around Malala’s exploitation; while some people think that Malala merits all the media coverage she had taken, Grayson has shown that Malala’s story does not differ from other women stories and humiliation. In the same time, Grayson didn’t attack Malala as a person, but she blamed her father in a way and most of all the western media, the PR companies, some celebrities and painters… to conclude with the following statement:

As an intelligent young role model, I don’t imagine Malala would want this. I would think all she wants to do is knuckle down and get on with her education and hopefully will be allowed to do so in peace.

  So Grayson’ text is deductive, going from examples and clarifications about Malala’s exploitation to end up with a fair conclusion. But Grayson has shown in her text some hasty generalization like describing all the western media as exploiters and avid, and from another point of view she has been repeating the same idea along her text confirming that Malala’s story  is not the only “deserving” case to talk about loudly and to benefit from an “immense media coverage”.(Carol 597)

In an ethical perspective, this text carries a strong moral weight based on a true story and on a singular interpretation of a worldwide event. Malala is usually seen as a symbol of peace of justice while she’s not the only person to fight for such great values, so this text calls upon our responsibility to protect girls like Malala from being exploited and in the second hand our responsibility to raise the voices of those unheard victims that “no matter how vocal they may be or what risks they take, they simply don’t fit in to a popular narrative”.(Carol 597) Also, this text illustrates the “wrongness” of the big prizes and awards, and invites us to discover that a person is not being valued by the award he receive, but by the perseverance and the effort that he makes in order to reform better rights and values; and what matters in the end is not the number of certificates we hang in the wall or the amount of prizes we get, but the self-satisfaction we live in.

 

 

 

                                                                                             Moubarak 2

Work cited

            Grayson, Carol Anne.  “”Brand Malala”: Western Explotation of a Schoolgirl”.  Shifting narratives.  Zane S. Sinno, Lina Bioghlu-Karkanawi, Dorota Fleszar, Najla Jarkas, Emma Moughabghab, Jennifer M. Nish, Rima Rantisi, and Abir Ward.  Mazraa, Beirut:  Center for educational consultation and Research, Educart,  2015.  Print.