Malala Yousafzai is not the usual type of Nobel peace prize winners. She is a real life heroine. She had to be told of her award by a teacher because she does not carry a mobile phone. Malala, known in her native Pakistan for her diary of life under the Taliban, became a global figure two years ago when she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman for advocating girls education. When she was in intensive care her survival was in doubt, let alone a complete recovery. But operations and treatment, initially in Pakistan and then in Birmingham, pulled her through. Most of us would have opted for a quiet life but she is made of sterner stuff.
On her 16th birthday she addressed the United Nations and her campaign for education for all has been given the recognition it deserves. Now 17, she says that what she has done so far is “just a beginning” and there are still 57 million children who are not in school. She will continue the fight and work to overcome the scepticism about her motives from some groups in Pakistan.
Malala, and her fellow Nobel peace prize winner Kailash Satyarthi, the Indian children’s rights campaigner, are the kind of people who add lustre to this prize. They intend to invite their respective leaders, Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan and Narendra Modi of India, to Oslo for the awards ceremony in an effort to bring reconciliation between their two countries.
Most of all, both have been working to improve the lot of children - in today’s troubled world the best route to lasting peace - without any expectation of reward. Better to give the prize to such inspiring individuals than to a war-monger or even a democratic political leader such as Barack Obama who was awarded his on entering the White House. Recent Nobel peace awards - to the European Union or the International Atomic Energy Authority - have made people scratch their heads.
Malala and Satyarthi do their work because they want to improve the human condition. They do it because they believe it is possible to overcome prejudice and injustice. We applaud them for it as we celebrate their prize. The Nobel committee has got this one right at last.
Malala's main preoccupation now is her GCSE exams. She is worried about the lessons she will miss while attending the award ceremony.
The 17-year-old spent her first evening as the youngest Nobel laureate at home in Birmingham with her parents watching Pakistani television. “I had caught a cold and wasn’t feeling so good,” she said. Messages poured in from all over the world for the Pakistani girl who two years ago was critically ill after being shot in the head by the Taliban for standing up for the right of girls to go to school. “I’m feeling really honoured and happy,” she said.
“People’s love really helped me recover from the shooting and be strong so I want to do all I can to contribute to society.” Aware that she might win the Nobel prize, she had arranged for a teacher to come into her chemistry class after 10 am on Friday once it had been announced.
“We were learning about electrolysis of copper. I don’t have a mobile phone so my teacher had said she’d come if there was news. It was 10.15 am and she hadn’t come in so I thought: oh well, I didn’t win. I’m really young and I’m just at the beginning of my work.”
Then the teacher appeared a few minutes later and told her the news. “I think my teachers were more excited than me. Their smiles were bigger than mine. I just went to my physics lesson,” Malala said.