I am on record decrying members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee for awarding the hallowed Peace Prize to people who were so plainly underserving. I did so, for example, when they awarded it jointly to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat,Shimon Peres, and Yitzhack Rabin in 1994 for brokering peace between Israelis and Palestinians that never was; and again when they awarded it to Barack Obama in 2009 for the forlorn hope of ushering in world peace that remains even more forlorn today … five years later.
But I finally have cause to applaud those clueless old farts. And, ironically, it’s because they have awarded this year’s prize to a person who is not only eminently deserving, but also the youngest recipient in Nobel history.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014 is to be awarded to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzay for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education…
Despite her youth, Malala Yousafzay has already fought for several years for the right of girls to education, and has shown by example that children and young people, too, can contribute to improving their own situations. This she has done under the most dangerous circumstances. Through her heroic struggle she has become a leading spokesperson for girls’ rights to education.
(Nobelprize.org, October 10, 2014)
Incidentally, with all due respect to Mr. Satyarthi, being Malala’s co-winner is rather like being the father who chaperones her around the world. In fact, Malala is so young (at 17), one could be forgiven for thinking that the Nobel Committee selected the most respected grownup in her field as a de facto guardian of her prize.
In any event, here is why I so thoroughly approve:
The Nobel Foundation would go a long way towards reclaiming some credibility if it were to award this prize to a 16-year-old Pakistani, Malala Yousafzai, for fighting for the right of Muslim girls to an education (even after defying a near-fatal assassination attempt by the Taliban).
Not least because her fight is every bit as inspiring and Nobel worthy as Gandhi’s was….
(“Higgs Boson Nobel Prize Based more on Hope than Accomplishment,” The iPINIONS Journal, October 9, 2013)
Granted, they are a year late, but better late….
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