Today Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize. She is just 17 years old, making her the youngest recipient of the award. Since being shot by the Taliban for the crime of wanting to go to school, this young woman has become the darling of the international media. This is not to say she is not deserving of the award or the attention. She certainly is a brave person and worthy of the accolades.
But no more worthy than Kailash Satyarthi with whom she shares this year's prize. Satyarthi has devoted more than half his life to children's rights and has saved nearly 80000 lives through his efforts to eliminate child slavery. Yet, in the sycophantic coverage of this year's award he is merely an afterthought, hardly mentioned.
Just goes to show that truly good people often go about their lives with hardly any recognition. Probably more telling is that such people hardly ever seek the recognition.
To be sure, the Peace Prize, more so than the other Nobel prizes, allows the Committee to make a political statement. They certainly wanted to make a statement to the Bush Administration when they gave the 2009 award to Barack Obama during his first year as President.
And they make mistakes. In 2007 Polish born Irena Sendler was nominated for her efforts in World War 2 to smuggle children out of the Warsaw Ghetto. She saved over 2500 lives from the Holocaust. She, too, never really sought recognition for this and quietly passed away the following year at the age of 98. Instead the Nobel Committee decided to give the prize that year to Al Gore for a fucking Power Point presentation.
Another person certainly deserving of the award was Mahatma Gandhi who was nominated numerous times. At least the Nobel people have come to admit their mistake. As one of the committee members said in 2006, "The greatest omission in our 106-year history is undoubtedly that Mahatma Gandhi never received the Nobel Peace prize. Gandhi could do without the Nobel Peace prize, whether Nobel committee can do without Gandhi is the question." He's right. Gandhi probably couldn't have cared less about it.
If the Committee actually followed the directive of Nobel's will, they would would stick to giving the award to a person, not any group or organization. For all the good work of Amnesty International, it was Peter Beneson's idea to start the group. Like so many others deserving of the recognition, Beneson, probably shied away from the spotlight and let others take the credit.
The real peace makers in the world go about their lives quietly, doing good things their entire lives. They feed and clothe the poor. They try to right wrongs. They fight injustice when they see it. They speak their minds without fear of consequences. They disobey unjust laws and go to jail for it willingly. In short, they try to do the right thing.
We've heard a lot about one brave 17 year old girl. Maybe we should award those other people, too.
