Malala’s Nobel disappointment

There will have been disappointment in many hearts and homes around the world on October 11 with the winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize announced as the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and not Malala Yousufzai. It is a year since she was shot by the Taliban — they have repeated their desire to kill her several times in the last week — and she has become an iconic figure in the battle to get children educated everywhere. She was the youngest person ever to be nominated for the prize, with 62 being the average age at which it is awarded. Malala is 16. Only 15 women have received the prize between 1901 and 2012, out of the 93 made in this period.



The organisation that did get the award is a worthy winner and may go some way towards repairing the dented image of the Peace Prize, which in recent years, has gone most controversially to US President Barack Obama eight months into his first term, and last year to the European Union (EU) to the perplexity of many. Compared with those who have an awareness of Malala, global awareness of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons will be almost vanishingly small. Yet, its work has been of crucial importance in a year that has seen, at least, one deadly chemical attack in Syria.

Malala and her family can now return to whatever passes for normal for them. She has already been garlanded with honours and tributes in recent months and there is little doubt that greatness beckons her. Her confident and forthright manner have won hearts and not a few minds, as has her courage, and she is, no doubt, an inspiration to many across the world, but as she said herself in the last two days, she has much to do before being worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize. Malala sits now on the cusp between childhood and adulthood and still has many years of her own formal education ahead. Political ambitions are surfacing and an expressed desire to be the prime minister of Pakistan speaks to a far vision. A Nobel laureate Malala Yousufzai is not, but she is a daughter of Pakistan to be proud of.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 12^th, 2013.

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