TOW #8 "Malala and Nabila: worlds apart"

"Malala and Nabila: worlds apart" is an article from Al Jazeera by Murtaza Hussain. It describes the struggles a young Pakistani girl named Nabila has faced with her family. She and her siblings were injured and her grandmother was killed by a drone US drone strike on her family. When she and her family came to Washington D.C. to find out why this had happened, hardly anyone showed up to the hearing, and no one could answer why an innocent family had been attacked. Hussain then contrasts this action and response of the US government to its reaction to the struggles of Malala Yousafazai. He contends that the US and other powers praise and sympathize with Malala because she can be used as a symbol for the justness of their cause in fighting in the Middle East. However, they ignore those such as Nabila who they themselves are harming. This article greatly appears to pathos by describing the plight of Nabila and her family and how they were ignored by the US government. He writes of the tradegy "Seven children were wounded, and Nabila's grandmother was killed before her eyes, an act for which no apology, explanation or justification has ever been given," (Hussain par. 1). This image intends to make the audience sympathize with Nabila and to evoke emotions of sadness and horror. The further explanation of how this was annoyed by the government is also intended to evoke anger at the injustice and cruelty of the situation. However, this article is not only based on pathos, it also appeals to logos through a logical comparison of the reactions to Nabila and Malala. It also appeals to ethos, because of the presentation of shared values between the audience and the author, that the killing of innocents is wrong and that the government's response was unjust. Thus this article mainly appeals to pathos, but is built on a foundation of ethos and logos. Its appeals effectively target the audience to achieve its purpose of showing how the US has unjustly and immorally harmed millions of innocents in its operations.