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Saturday, 11 October 2014
take a bow, Malala! AT 17, PAKISTANI TEEN EDUCATION ACTIVIST IS THE YOUNGEST RECIPIENT OF THE PRESTIGIOUS PRIZE IN ITS HISTORY AND THE SECOND PAKISTANI AFTER RENOWNED SCIENTIST DR ABDUS SALAM TO HAVE WON THIS AWARD OSLO
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AGENCIES
POTLIGHTING the struggle for children’s rights, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Pakistani girls’ education activist Malala Yousafzai and Indian children’s rights activist Kailash Satyarthi, the Nobel committee announced Friday. Still a high school student, Malala Yousafzai, 17, is the youngest winner in history of a prize that is infrequently awarded to women, and the second Pakistani after renowned scientist Dr Abdus Salam, who won it for his contribution in the field of Physics in 1979. The choice is likely to be among the most inspiring and popular in years. Both Malala and Satyarthi have made exceptional sacrifices, facing the very real possibility of death for their work advocating children’s rights and education. The decision was also packed with symbolism: a shared award for a Pakistani and an Indian, both struggling for children’s rights in two neighbouring rival powers, whose disputed borders in Kashmir have been wracked by intense
MALALA TO SHARE PRIZE WITH INDIAN CHILDREN’S RIGHTS ACTIVIST KAILASH SATYARTHI ‘FOR THEIR STRUGGLE AGAINST THE SUPPRESSION OF CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE AND FOR THE RIGHT OF ALL CHILDREN TO EDUCATION’
shelling in recent days. The difference in the recipients’ ages — 17 and 60 — underscored that the struggle for fundamental human rights is everyone’s business, no matter how young or old. The committee said the pair will receive the award “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.” The committee “regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism”. Malala Yousafzai captured the world’s imagination by refusing to bow to terrorism after a Taliban gunman shot her in the face in 2012. Miraculously, she survived and recovered to undertake an international media and online campaign for the rights of women to be educated in her native Swat Valley. In October last year, on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” she softly expounded on her philosophy of peace: If a member of the Taliban attacked her again, she said, she wouldn’t stoop to her first reaction — to hit him with a shoe. “I said to myself, if you hit a Talib with your shoe, there will be no difference be-
SATYARTHI TO ‘JOIN HANDS’ WITH MALALA FOR PEACE
tween you and the Talib. You must not treat others with that much cruelty and harshness. You must fight others, but through peace and through dialogue and through education.” She said, “I will tell him how important education is and that I even want education for [his] children as well.” The Nobel committee noted that despite her youth, Malala Yousafzai had become a global advocate for girls’ education, showing that young people could foster change. “This she has done under the most dangerous circumstances. Through her heroic struggle she has become a leading spokesperson for girls’ rights to education,” the committee said. Malala Yousafzai’s hashtag, #StrongerThanFear, sums up her philosophy after the terrifying gun attack, which occurred when she was 15. The gunman asked for her by name before firing a bullet that went through her head, neck and shoulder. Four months later, declaring that she was not afraid of being attacked again, she set up a foundation promoting girls’ education. Addressing the United Nations in July last year, she said she didn’t hate the man who shot her.
MALALA MISSED OUT ON PEACE PRIZE IN 2013 FOR BEING TOO YOUNG, NOBEL INSTITUTE ADMITS LONDON AGENCIES
NEW DELHI: India’s Kailash Satyarthi dedicated the Nobel Peace Prize that he shared on Friday to children in slavery, pledging to “join hands” with fellow laureate Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan as their two countries fought over the territory of Kashmir. The 60-year-old children’s rights campaigner was recognised for his battle against child trafficking with Bachpan Bachao Andolan – or Save the Childhood Movement – a group he founded in 1980 after quitting his job as an electrical engineer. “It’s a great statement from the Nobel committee, looking at the present scenario in India and Pakistan,” Satyarthi told reporters who besieged his office in New Delhi after the prize was announced in Oslo. “Beside our fight against child slavery and against the menace of illiteracy on the subcontinent and globally, we hope both of us will be able to fight for peace,” he said referring to Malala, a campaigner for girls’ education rights who, at the age of 17, became the youngest Nobel Prize winner ever. “I will talk to Malala soon. I know her, and I will invite her to join hands to establish peace for our subcontinent – which is a must for children, which is a must for every Indian, for every Pakistani, for every citizen of the world.” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has taken a tough line on Pakistan since his general election victory in May, congratulated Satyarthi. In a tweet, Modi said: “Kailash Satyarthi has devoted his life to a cause that is extremely relevant to entire humankind. I salute his determined efforts.” He also described Malala’s life as “a journey of immense grit & courage”. AGENCIES
“They thought that the bullets would silence us. But they failed. And then, out of that silence came thousands of voices. The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: Weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born. I am the same Malala. My ambitions are the same. My hopes are the same. My dreams are the same,” she said. She told the BBC in an interview last year she didn’t want to live “just sitting in a room and be imprisoned in my four walls and just cooking and giving birth to children.” Satyarthi, one of the world’s leading campaigners against child slavery, has staged countless raids in India over 30 years to free child slaves in the rug-making industry. The former electrical engineer has led mass marches across India to draw attention to the plight of children and their parents bonded into labor. Satyarthi founded
The Norwegian Nobel Institute has admitted for the first time ever that the global figurehead for a girl’s right to an education — Malala Yousafzai missed out on the Nobel peace prize in 2013 for being too young. She however won the world’s most coveted prize on Friday. This still makes her the youngest Nobel laureate ever at the age of 17. So far, 47 Nobel prizes have gone to women between 1901 and 2014. Malala became the 16th woman being awarded the Nobel peace prize which also includes Mother Teresa from India. Director of the Nobel Institute in Oslo Geir Lundestad told TOI in an exclusive interview “It is a tremendous responsibility to win the Nobel prize.
And when you give it to someone too young or too unknown, it changes their life forever. We throw them out to the world stage overnight. We felt the same about Malala last year and thought it was too early for her to receive the prize.” The Nobel committee was also wary whether Malala would be able to handle the pressure that comes from global fame and expectation after winning the Nobel prize. “However, Malala has performed very well over the past year as a global ambassador for education and we felt it was time to give her the prize,” Lundestad told TOI. The Norwegian Nobel Committee had awarded the prize in 2013 to the International Chemical Weapons watchdog that is destroying poison gas stockpiles in Syria, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
the Indian anti-child slavery movement, Bachpan Bachao Andolan, in 1980, and set up the Global March Against Child Labor in the 1990s, a network of organizations committed to wiping out child labour and slavery. Malala Yousafzai and Satyarthi were selected by the Nobel committee from a record field of 278 nominations, covering the year to February 2014. The Nobel committee has drawn criticism in the past for an underrepresentation of women among the Peace Prize laureates and for some controversial awards, including one to President Obama shortly after he became president, and to Yasser Arafat and Henry Kissinger. Among the other nominees this year were Pope Francis, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden and Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which has seen at least six of its journalists murdered in an atmosphere of increasing repression in Russia.
Malala is Pakistan’s Pride! ISLAMABAD INP
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has congratulated teenaged education campaigner Malala Yousafzai on winning the Nobel Peace Prize Friday, calling her the pride of Pakistan. “She is the pride of Pakistan. She has made her countrymen proud. Her achievement is unparalleled and unequalled. Girls and boys of the world should take the lead from her struggle and commitment,” said a statement by Sharif. Other political leaders, including Pakistan People’s Party Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari, National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, Muttahida Qaumi Movement Chairman Altaf Hussain, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Marvi Memon, women’s rights activist Farzana Bari, Assefa Bhutto and ISPR DG Major General Asim Bajwa have also congratulated Malala for winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
Malala — idol to the world, outcast at hoMe ISLAMABAD AGENCIES
Malala Yousafzai, who won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, is hailed around the world as a champion of women’s rights who stood up bravely against the Taliban to defend her beliefs. But in Pakistan, many view her with suspicion as an outcast or even as a Western creation aimed at damaging the country’s image abroad. Malala, now aged 17, became globally known in 2012 when Taliban gunmen almost killed her for her passionate advocacy of women’s right to education. She has since become a symbol of defiance in the fight against militants operating in Pashtun tribal areas in northwest Pakistan — a region where women are expected to keep their opinions to themselves and stay at home. “The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: Weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and
courage was born,” she told the United Nations last year. “I do not even hate the Talib who shot me. Even if there is a gun in my hand and he stands in front of me. I would not shoot him,” she said in a speech which captivated the world. Malala has also won the European Union’s human rights award and was one of the favourites to win the Nobel Prize last year. Now based in Britain, she is unable to return to her homeland because of Taliban threats to kill her and her family members. The current Taliban chief, Mullah Fazlullah, was the one who ordered the 2012 attack against her. Yousafzai has enrolled in a school in Birmingham and become a global campaigner for women’s right to education and other human rights issues, taking up issues such as the situation in Syria and Nigeria. In her native Swat valley, however, many people view Malala — backed by a supportive family and a doting father who inspired her to keep up with her campaign — with a mixture of suspicion, fear and jealousy. At the time of her Nobel nomination last year, social media sites were brimming with insult-
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ing messages. “We hate Malala Yousafzai, a CIA agent,” said one Facebook page. She was a young student in the Swati town of Mingora in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province when she became interested in the rights of female students. At the time, the Taliban were in power in the strategic valley after they took control over the region and imposed strict rules, including their opposition to women’s education. She wrote an anonymous blog describing her life under the Taliban controlled the region. In October 2012, after the Taliban were pushed out of Swat by the Pakistani army, she was shot in the head on her way to school by a Taliban gunman. She survived after being airlifted to Britain for treatment and recovered from her life-threatening wounds. “The wise saying, ‘The pen is mightier than sword’ was true. The extremists are afraid of books and pens,” she told the United Nations. “The power of education frightens them. They are afraid of women. The power of the voice of women frightens them.”