Who is Malala Yousafzai’s husband, Asser Malik? And what is their partnership?
Asser Malik works for the Pakistan Cricket Board as the General Manager of High Performance (PCB). He was the owner of the ‘The last man standing’ franchise, which I felt sounded like Will Smith’s ‘I am legend’ film. I think it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, because in Pakistan he has indeed become a legend, marrying the most hated woman by the patriarchal men.
Asser envisioned establishing the world’s largest amateur cricket leagues in Pakistan, so that young men could join cricket, competing against international teams. I sincerely hope he supports Pakistan’s women’s cricket team, especially since he is married to Malala Yousafzai, a young Pakistani-British feminist role model, who belongs to the world, a Nobel laureate for peace, lending her voice to the voiceless.
The man who stole Malala’s heart also loved disco busing around Pakistan. Unlike the Las Vegas style buses, these were cultural tourism buses. This young man truly had big dreams for his country and a rebellious entrepreneurial heart from the looks of his ventures. It is no joke setting up disco bus touring in a country where music and dance is looked on as haram by fundamentalist pockets of its society, stating it to be unsuited for Islam. So, maybe it is this rebellious nature that Malala fell in love with, as she rattled the same people with her demand for basic rights of education.
Asser is also an Economics & political science graduate from the Lahore University of Pakistan’s 2012 class. The Oxford graduate in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the class of 2020, Malala must have a lot to talk with her husband about their common study subjects. The man she wants to spend the rest of her life with seems like someone with ambition, rebellious views, and a full dose of idealism that could steer the country’s youth towards cricket excellence. But, he also had a bit of football and hockey interests too in his Aitchison College activities according to his LinkedIn. So, maybe his focus could be excellence in amateur sports persons and not just cricket.
Malala Yousafzai is world renowned for her vociferous views on girls’ education that rattled the extremists in Pakistan. She believed society should not bequeath women like property for marriage, and instead she should be treated as an asset and an equal. She rallied for women to have an education. When she married the Pakistani national Asser Malik in a quiet Nikah ceremony, some haters roared. The girl is allowed to have an opinion on marriage being a partnership. What is so perplexing about that!
Malala Yousafzai opposes the institution of marriage as a means of transferring daughters to another man. Girls in Pakistan, where she’s from, marry as young as 14 or 15 years old in a Sharia-compliant ceremony. However, according to UK law, if she does not complete the nikah ceremony with a civil registration process, the marriage is not valid in the eyes of the state. Maybe that’s what she’s against: being bound by any legal system, whether Sharia or civil, that makes her a responsibility of another man, or to be called the wife of someone else, instead of standing on her own identity. In Malala’s case, she has achieved an identity, as the world will only ever know her as Malala Yousafzai, a woman in her own right.
Many women oppose the institution of marriage, but only the concept of marriage in a male dominated world.
So, when haters mocked her marriage and called her a hypocrite for her views on marriage, which she expressed on British Vogue, I realised that the world still doesn’t understand women who assert they only believe in a partnership. Women’s view on partnerships implies equality in every sense, something that religious ceremonies and civil law are yet to achieve.
She’s a bull in a China shop, wreaking havoc and uprooting centuries-old traditions.
For many men, being a bull in a China shop is a negative male metaphor.
No, I don’t believe so.
The saying strikes me as a metaphor for anti-totalitarian anarchists.
Chaos and confusion can defeat totalitarianism. So, ironically, Malala is now the Anonymous mask for the women’s right activists, perplexing patriarchs who don’t understand her or what she represents to girls who believe they are more than just their gender or race.
Is she against marriage or is she conforming to their views? Now, that is how you change a world that doesn’t understand women’s needs -by confusing them.
When people use the bull analogy negatively on a strong spirited woman opposing patriarchy, they mean, “Why be a bull when a woman can be a nurturing cow?”
I’d say be a bull or a cow, it doesn’t really matter, as long as you’re fearless and have the courage to question the norm in favour of human-rights, democracy and fairness.
The Taliban shot a younger Malala Yousafzai, the teenage girl who challenged traditional views of women’s roles, in the head. Her life, however, was saved, and she lives in Birmingham with her family.
If her life had not been saved in an alternate universe, the world would have lost its most promising young mind, demonstrating that one does not need to be born into privilege, live in a developed country, or have a large fan base to stand up for one’s values and principles.
Although she was just a girl surrounded by wolves, she questioned the wolves, who expected her to fall in line. She reminds me of the statue of the little girl in front of Number 10.
That girl confronted her oppressors and grew up to be the light of the world. And now she found someone to share her inner light with, and I wish her all the very best in her new partnership with Asser Malik.
