Malala to become youngest ever Nobel Laureate in history tomorrow

Malala Yousafzai will become the youngest ever Nobel Laureate in history when she will get her Nobel Peace Prize shared with Kailash Satyarthi of India in Oslo, Norway on Wednesday December 10.

Malala will become the second Pakistani Nobel Laureate after the late Dr Abdul Salam. Pashto singer Sardar Ali Takkar will sing Pashto poem (Te Bibi Shireena Ye) for the first time ever in the Nobel Award ceremony on December 10. The poem has been written by senior journalist Behroz Khan for Malala.

Though the entire world is proud of Malala who fought for the right of education for children, especially girls, there was hardly any celebration in Pakistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. A few low profile functions were held in Peshawar and other parts of the country to pay tributes to Malala. Awami National Party (ANP) deputy parliamentary leader Jaffar Shah submitted a resolution in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly in October to set up the Malala University in Swat to pay homage to the 17-year Malala, who belongs to Mingora in Swat district. The assembly, however, has yet to take up the resolution.

Malala, who was born in July 1997, was shot by the militants while going home from school in Mingora on October 9, 2012. The uniform she was wearing when she was shot has also been placed for exhibition in Oslo.

“Malala’s blood-stained uniform is a strong and heartbreaking symbol of the forces many girls are fighting for the right to go to school,” Bente Erichsen, executive director of Nobel Peace Centre, said in a statement.

“Despite her youth, Malala Yousafzai 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 did under the most dangerous circumstances. Through her heroic struggle she has become a leading spokesperson for girls’ rights to education,” said the Nobel Committee when she was awarded the prize in October.

An ordinary girl from Swat, Malala shot to fame when she was nominated for the International Children Peace Prize by a Dutch organisation, Kidz Rights in October 2011. She was nominated for writing diaries for BBC, with the pen name of Gul Makai, in favour of girls’ education in Swat despite difficult circumstances prevailing there at the time.

Her first diary appeared on January 3, 2009 when she was only 12. Though she couldn’t win the Kidz Rights Award, a newspaper story prompted the then Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani to announce a cash reward as encouragement for Malala. She also won the first ever National Youth Peace Award.

The then chief minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Ameer Haider Hoti later announced a cash reward for her. The Sindh and Punjab governments and public and private organisations honoured Malala in their own way.

After coming into limelight, she was seen attending talk shows on television channels and giving interviews to local and international media, advocating girls’ education and vowing to bring an end to corruption in politics.

Despite threats to her life for publicly speaking out against Taliban, her family didn’t take precautionary steps that resulted in a shocking attack on her in Mingora town on October 9, 2012. Armed men shot Malala in the head and neck when she was going home from school in a van along with fellow students. Two other girls Shazia Ramazan, who shifted to UK last week, and Kainat Riaz were also wounded in the attack.

As Malala fought for life at the Combined Military Hospital in Peshawar, where she was airlifted from Swat, the militants claimed responsibility for the attack. After a three-hour operation, doctors successfully removed the bullet that had lodged in her shoulder near her spinal cord but she was still in coma.

Pakistan has announced one of its top gallantry medals, Sitara-e-Shujaat, for Malala besides naming a degree college and a few schools in Swat and rest of the country after the brave girl. Malala has won a number of awards. She was named by Foreign Policy magazine on its list of top global thinkers. She was awarded Mother Teresa Memorial Award for Social Justice, Rome Prize for Peace and Humanitarian Action by the Mayor of Rome on behalf of the city government, Tipperary International Peace Award, Simone de Beauvoir Prize in 2013, Fred and Anne Jarvis Award by the National Union of Teachers in the UK and several others.