The shining light in Pakistan: Fifteen year old Malala’s Nobel Peace Prize nomination

The Nobel Prize for Peace is an award of the highest prestige, counting among its laureate Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, and Aung San Suu Kyi. For the 2013 award, after her nomination by the Norwegian government for her efforts to promote girls education, Malala Yousafzai, at only fifteen years old, stands to be by far its youngest ever winner. In the UK, we are perhaps more accustomed to hearing fifteen year old’s complaining about school, or possibly hoping it has been cancelled due to the snow. This fifteen year old girl has been nominated for her attempts to improve access to education – this certainly belittles anything I was doing at fifteen!

Malala Yousafzai is a girl who wanted to become a doctor but, at the age of eleven, was denied an education. Writing in an anonymous blog for the BBC in 2009, she reveals how the Taliban issued a decree stating that there will be no more education for girls. Her articulate and down to earth style of writing gave a real insight into the difficulty she faced growing up in her region, and she gained global recognition for speaking out against her oppressors. At just eleven years old, Malala was becoming a global symbol for the fight for universal education. In a 2009 documentary for the New York Times, Malala’s heartfelt words about the desperate situation in her region of Swat, Northern Pakistan, effectively brought to the public’s attention with how much we take for granted in the West, and how difficult life can be for those elsewhere. In one instance, we are told how a teacher at her school failed to show up. Malala’s father revealed that this is because the Taliban had left the beheaded corpse of someone who spoke out against them on show on one of the roads leading to the school. For this region of Pakistan, these fear-mongering tactics, which we may associate with times long gone in our part of the world, appear to be commonplace. The indifference the leaders of the Taliban have with regard to taking life, along with the humiliating public beatings its members give out for acts you would deem as meaningless and undeserving of punishment (such as being out of the house without your husband) is truly shocking. One struggles to comprehend exactly how a situation of such severity has come about.

What is very clear, however, is the determined belief Malala has in her own sense of purpose, how she remains so dignified in the face of events the emotional effects of which we cannot even begin to imagine, while all the time speaking of her right to education in terms which only few can disagree with. But what is perhaps most endearing about her is her unfaltering optimism that she will get her education. Despite the fact she frequently hears on the Taliban’s daily radio message that girls will not be allowed to go to school, she then turns to the camera saying how she has changed her wish to become a doctor, as she now wants to become a politician, because of the challenges the Pakistani society faces. Upon winning the 2011 National Youth Peace Prize in Pakistan she called upon politicians to recognise the unhappiness there is for girls who, like her dream of having more of a life than being confined to the home. Her willingness to speak out for her rights make it easy to understand why comparisons to the likes of Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto have been made.

Unfortunately, the similarities to Gandhi and Bhutto do not end there as Malala was, at the age of fifteen, the target of an assassination attempt. It goes without saying that her beliefs run contrary to those of the Taliban, and, perhaps seeing her as a threat to their way of life, a member of the Taliban boarded her school bus and shot her in the head. It was a miracle that Malala survived. The huge outpouring of support for her in Pakistan marked what many hope will be remembered as the major turning point in the fight against the Taliban, as the moment they could no longer conceivably claim to be working for Islam, and the start of their decline from power.

It is therefore difficult to think of an individual more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize than Malala; she stands ready to lead not only her nation but the entire global community towards a world where all children have access to education. She fights for a world free from religious extremists who, afraid of losing their grip on power resort to public executions, humiliating tortures, and terrorist attacks. The strength of public opinion is such that history has and always will be on the side of those who seek progress, strive for fairness, and refuse to bow down to oppression. In attempting to assassinate Malala, the Taliban have made it clearer than ever before to which side of history they belong; Malala, on the other hand, will continue to be recognised long after their inevitable demise.