Rise and Rise Again.

“Rise and Rise again, until Lambs become Lions”.

This is a quote from Ridley Scott’s 2010 film, Robin Hood, a line said by Robin’s father, which was supposedly the impetus for the Magna Carta. It means trying and trying again, never giving up on the ideas of liberty and freedom.

I was reminded of this line when I read a quote from the father of Malala Yousafzai, the fifteen year old Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban for advocating education for everyone. He said that

“The person who attacked her wanted to kill her. She fell temporarily but she will rise again”

Nothing terrifies a fundamentalist group or a totalitarian regime more than an educated population. That’s why the Taliban targeted Malala, because she called for education for everyone. An uneducated population can be cowed and convinced that whatever the regime is doing is right, because they don’t know any better. But an educated population do know better. They know right from wrong and how things should be. That’s why the first thing many totalitarian governments do is ban and burn books.

Education, to quote the West Wing, is “the Silver Bullet”. It is the key to stopping pretty much anything, disease, war, you name it. Hence the old maxim, “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Education allows for self-improvement. Education not only affects one person, it affects an entire population, benefiting one and all.

And if one thing is more important than education, it is education for everyone. There are whole countries where education is the preserve of either the upper classes, the elites or of men. There are countries where women can’t even write their own names. All of this, in the 21^st Century. We are supposed to be better than this by now.

 That was what Malala was fighting for, and why she was shot. She wanted everyone, regardless of gender to have the chance of a full time education, something we should all support, and something we should all be in favour of.

That is why I encourage everyone who reads this blog – yes all six of you – to get involved in Gordon Brown’s “Day for Malala” on November 10^th – one month since she was shot – and send a message to governments and groups, that education is one thing we will not give up on. By 2015 we will have every child in Primary School.

We need to send a message across the world, a message that will be heard loud and clear by governments, regimes and the Taliban alike. You can shoot one fifteen year old girl; you can silence whole groups of journalists and activists. But you cannot shoot; you cannot silence the whole world. No matter what you do, no matter how many of us you try and kill, more will rise up to take our place and our voice and our message will ring out all the louder, until the world takes notice. We will not be silenced.

RISE AND RISE AGAIN. UNTIL LAMBS BECOME LIONS.