Malala Yousafzai: Her way of expressing herself

Malala Yousafzai was born in 1997 in Mingora, Pakistan. During her whole life, working for girls' education has been important to her, which led to her getting a dead threat from the Taliban a few years ago. She was shot in the head on October 9, 2012 by a gunman, but she luckily survived. She did not let this incident stop her, and continued her work for giving children education. Malala was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013, and last year when nominated again, she won. She then became the youngest person that has ever received the prize. In Malalas lecture, she uses the three rhetorical modes of appeal very well. Both ethos, pathos and logos are used widely in the speech, and we are going to take a closer look at these now.


When you are presenting a subject to make people believe in you, it is important to establish credibility and convince people you are worth listening to. First of all, Malala achieve this by talking about herself and her experiences around the subject. She also brings in her family and her relationship with her siblings, and joke about how she use to fight with her brothers. This makes the audience get to know her better, and it emphasizes the fact that she is still just a young girl.


The use of pathos in a speech is very important since it appeals to the audience's emotions. Malala does this frequently in her speech. She tells dramatic stories, not only about others, but also stories from her own life. Along with this, Malala talks in a way that lets the audience hear how she feels, both when she mention good things, and things that frustrate her. Lastly she appeals to the audience's responsibility, and how we together can make a change. The latter is a particularly important and an effective type of pathos.


Malala builds logic around the subject by referring to facts, however her arguments should of course be logical to most people. She talks about the situation before and after all that has happened, and how positive the development has been. In addition, her use of contrasts support her argument.

Even though Malala is just a seventeen year old girl, she has accomplished very much on what she is working towards. She presents the subject and her arguments in a great way, and the way she uses the rhetorical modes of appeal is almost professional. Malala is a big inspiration for both adults and younger people, and she gives hope for the people that deal with the issues she works for.

«<a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Malala_Yousafzai_par_Claude_Truong-Ngoc_novembre_2013.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Malala_Yousafzai_par_Claude_Truong-Ngoc_novembre_2013.jpg">Malala Yousafzai par Claude Truong-Ngoc novembre 2013</a>» av Claude Truong-Ngoc / Wikimedia Commons - cc-by-sa-3.0. Lisensiert under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0" title="Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0">CC BY-SA 3.0</a> via <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/">Wikimedia Commons</a>.

Global issues; Hidden cameras that film injustice in the worlds most dangerous places

I have watched the Ted talk above by the "Videre" co-founder Oren Yakobovich. He is a former Israeli soldier and a human-rights activist. Along with his organization, Yakobovich helps everyday people to uncover, share and verify human-rights abuses to show the world what the reality is, and what we don't see and therefore may not believe is true. The organization help people by using hidden cameras that are placed around on the most dangerous places in the world, as this is the only way to get such types of occurrences on tape. It is terrible to watch how the everyday is to many innocent people.

I decided to write about this topic because it shares an important message that should be more focused on. It definitely points out the fact that something has to change, and that everyone can do something. It is a great eye-opener to see a life in some of these places from the eyes of a person in the situation, because it gives much more understanding.

"To see is to believe" - Oren Yakobovich

My thoughts about this issue are many. I think it is horrible to watch how badly some people are treated, and it gives me the feeling that I have to do something to stop this. However, at the same time it is great to see that there actually are people like Yakobovich and organizations like Videre, who make such a great effort in order to work for these people's rights. It does not only give hope for a change, but it also inspires others to stand up and to the same thing.

This issue is absolutely important, not only because it affects people's life but also because it is a reminder of how grateful one should. Knowing that there are many people constantly living in fear of being beaten, absolutely makes you think. Besides I find the speech very interesting, since we get to see how Oren and his colleagues manage to get the film clips. It is funny and interesting how they put hidden cameras in different items like electronics or jewelry, and hide them in creative ways that are almost impossible to discover.

I was surprised by many things the speaker said, however I especially reacted when he showed the video clips from some of the dangerous areas. Even though he told he was not showing the worst tapes, it was still worse than I had expected.