Until power is fairly shared among the four provinces the threat of secession will be a cloud hanging over the country. Malala writes of her beloved father, Ziauddin, wearing a black armband on Pakistan's 50th anniversary "because there was nothing to celebrate since Swat joined Pakistan", presciently foreshadowing a deepening ethnic imbalance so profound that only an extraordinary common enemy could distract from it. The burgeoning power of the Taliban in today's Pakistan should not be much of a surprise to those who understand, as Malala does, the need to redress these ethnic wounds.