add malala yousafzai to the list of those who fought for truth

. . . .

But make no mistake: Islam is not their religion. It is their excuse. There are two reasons
this story crossed the ocean. The first is that it is appalling. Human garbage does not get much ranker than a man who boards a school bus to kill a child. The second is that it is recognizable, that we see in their mad religious and ideological fundamentalism ghostly shadows of our own.

Granted, the outspoken child in this country is not in particular danger of physical violence from religious or ideological zealots. But the abortion doctor is. The gay couple is. The Muslim-American is.

Fundamentalism is fundamentalism wherever it breeds, always the same dark stain of unbending literalism, always the same shrill claim that it guards the one true path to enlightenment, always the same crazed insistence that the one unforgivable crime against faith, the one inexcusable heresy of ideology, is to ask questions.

But where there are no questions, there can be no true answers. And where there is not freedom, there cannot be real faith. How real can faith be if it is not a thing freely held, if it is something required, coerced, enforced? This is something fundamentalists never
understand. They think people can be intimidated or mandated into silence. They think people can be shot or bombed into obedience. Perhaps, for a while, they can.
. . . .

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-add-malala-yousafzai-to-list-of-those-who-fought-for-truth-20121012,0,4437051.story