They blew up the region's ancient Buddha statues, and then they began blowing up schools.
“They destroyed everything old and brought nothing new,” Malala writes.
Malala considers herself a believing Muslim and a proud member of the Pashtun ethnic group, but recounts how from an early age she questioned her culture's attitude toward women.
“When I was born, people in our village commiserated with my mother and nobody congratulated my father,” she writes.
Her father felt differently.
The book recounts her debt to Ziauddin Yousafzai, an educator who founded the school Malala attended and kept it open to girls in the face of pressure and threats.
