Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai today spoke of her love for Britain — but insisted that she hopes to return home one day.
The 16-year-old pupil, who was shot in the head by the Taliban, is now being schooled in Birmingham, where she and her family have settled following the attempt on her life.
But the teenager said she will never change or become “Western”.
“I don’t know why people have divided the whole world into two groups: West and East,” she said.
“I don’t know what’s the difference between West and East. The only thing they [the terrorists] see in the West is women wearing short dresses and skirts; that does not mean they have different ideology.”
She added: “I’m not becoming Western. I’m still following my own culture — Pashtun culture.”
She pointed out that her dress sense had not changed and that she still wore a head shawl.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme ahead of a Panorama episode on her story tonight, Malala described settling into her new life.
She said: “I was feeling a little bit embarrassed and worried ... the school was quite different.”
She said she was also particularly surprised at the level of freedom afforded to women, adding: “It was difficult to adjust to this new culture and this new society, especially for my mother, because we have never seen that women would be that much free, that they would go to any market, they will be going alone with no men and with no brothers and fathers, because, in our country, if you want to go outside, you must go with a man.
“Even if your five-year-old brother goes with you it’s fine, but you must have someone else, a girl cannot go outside all alone.”
Although she has been warned against returning, Malala said she could not allow the fear of a future threat to frighten her away from her mission to help Pakistan.
In Malala’s home town of Mingora, her friends have told how they hope and pray in secret that she wins the Nobel Peace Prize this Friday.
The schoolgirl was shot by a gunman on her school bus in Pakistan’s Swat valley a year ago after angering the Taliban with her outspoken and courageous pleas for girls’ education.
