Disclaimer: This post was originally published in TechNews on Oct 25, 2014
Malala Yousafzai and India’s Kailash Satyarthi were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in promoting children’s rights on Friday, October 10. Yousafzai became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. She is the first Pakistani to become a Nobel laureate since Abdus Salam who also shared the prize in 1979 with U.S. nominee Steven Weinberg for Physics.
What makes the event more thoughtful, though, is that she passed the two-year anniversary of the horrid event that tossed her and her cause onto the world stage just a day prior to the announcement.
Yousafzai was riding home from school on Tuesday, October 9, 2012. Gunmen halted the van she was in and demanded that other girls in the vehicle identify her. She was pointed out. At least one gunman opened fire, wounding three girls. Two suffered nonlethal injuries, but bullets struck Yousafzai in the head and neck. She was left in critical condition. Fortunately, she received proper treatment in time and survived.
Soon, Yousafzai became a global symbol for the fight to allow girls everywhere access to an education. She founded “The Malala Fund,” which invests in local educational initiatives for girls in Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya, and Jordan, where it focuses on Syrian refugees. She continued to advocate around the world for a girl's right to an education, speaking before the U.N.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the prize, stating that peaceful global development can only come about if children and the young are respected. “The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014 is to be awarded to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education,” the jury said.
For me, Yousafzai is a real life super hero who is ready to give up everything for the sake of education, not only for herself but for every individual in our country. Being a Pakistani girl and coming from a remote area of Pakistan just like Yousafzai, she has a very especial place in my heart. Not just for what she is doing, but for how she is doing it.
A citizen is awarded the highest moral award of our civilization. In the words of a former committee chairman, this is a symbol “of goodwill and purity of heart all over the world”. This is the Nobel Peace Prize after all, and it’s about the glory of the human ideal, and I think Yousafzai can be the perfect example for struggle and determination for a noble cause. But then it all goes wrong; A local paper screams “not to provoke the (…) people by rewarding this traitor to the nation.” Parts of the press call our hero a ‘puppet’ and ‘an insult’ to the country. Our local laureate is feted abroad and unwanted at home. Yes, the sane voices sigh, we haven’t heard this one before.
It really hurts me to see how she is being criticized by my fellow countrymen for getting this award. They say there are “candidates more deserving.” It should have been Abdul Sattar Edhi, an unsung angel they mention once a year (whenever Yousafzai might win another award). But an award for Yousafzai isn’t one less for Edhi because both of them are not in opposition to one another. If nothing else, her win leaves the door open for 2015, 2016, and any other year we’d want to spend making ad hominem arguments instead of volunteering at the Edhi Foundation. Instead of criticizing her, we should all be happy that she is presenting Pakistan on an international level. She is the one who is standing tall in front of the world, bearing the criticism and searching for positivity in every negative comment she gets. She is the one who is still not quitting, but moving forward to bring a change in the world. I just hope and pray that sanity prevails and we learn to love and accept our own people.
Link to original post: Nobel Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai and India’s Kailash Satyarthi were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in promoting children’s rights on Friday, October 10. Yousafzai became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. She is the first Pakistani to become a Nobel laureate since Abdus Salam who also shared the prize in 1979 with U.S. nominee Steven Weinberg for Physics.
What makes the event more thoughtful, though, is that she passed the two-year anniversary of the horrid event that tossed her and her cause onto the world stage just a day prior to the announcement.
Yousafzai was riding home from school on Tuesday, October 9, 2012. Gunmen halted the van she was in and demanded that other girls in the vehicle identify her. She was pointed out. At least one gunman opened fire, wounding three girls. Two suffered nonlethal injuries, but bullets struck Yousafzai in the head and neck. She was left in critical condition. Fortunately, she received proper treatment in time and survived.
Soon, Yousafzai became a global symbol for the fight to allow girls everywhere access to an education. She founded “The Malala Fund,” which invests in local educational initiatives for girls in Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya, and Jordan, where it focuses on Syrian refugees. She continued to advocate around the world for a girl's right to an education, speaking before the U.N.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the prize, stating that peaceful global development can only come about if children and the young are respected. “The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014 is to be awarded to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education,” the jury said.
For me, Yousafzai is a real life super hero who is ready to give up everything for the sake of education, not only for herself but for every individual in our country. Being a Pakistani girl and coming from a remote area of Pakistan just like Yousafzai, she has a very especial place in my heart. Not just for what she is doing, but for how she is doing it.
A citizen is awarded the highest moral award of our civilization. In the words of a former committee chairman, this is a symbol “of goodwill and purity of heart all over the world”. This is the Nobel Peace Prize after all, and it’s about the glory of the human ideal, and I think Yousafzai can be the perfect example for struggle and determination for a noble cause. But then it all goes wrong; A local paper screams “not to provoke the (…) people by rewarding this traitor to the nation.” Parts of the press call our hero a ‘puppet’ and ‘an insult’ to the country. Our local laureate is feted abroad and unwanted at home. Yes, the sane voices sigh, we haven’t heard this one before.
It really hurts me to see how she is being criticized by my fellow countrymen for getting this award. They say there are “candidates more deserving.” It should have been Abdul Sattar Edhi, an unsung angel they mention once a year (whenever Yousafzai might win another award). But an award for Yousafzai isn’t one less for Edhi because both of them are not in opposition to one another. If nothing else, her win leaves the door open for 2015, 2016, and any other year we’d want to spend making ad hominem arguments instead of volunteering at the Edhi Foundation. Instead of criticizing her, we should all be happy that she is presenting Pakistan on an international level. She is the one who is standing tall in front of the world, bearing the criticism and searching for positivity in every negative comment she gets. She is the one who is still not quitting, but moving forward to bring a change in the world. I just hope and pray that sanity prevails and we learn to love and accept our own people.
Link to original post: Nobel Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai
No comments:
Post a Comment