This year the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize was greeted everywhere with a chorus of approval. It could not have been otherwise when the award was assigned to two very different people (Malala Yousafzai, a 17-year old Pakistani girl, and Kilash Satyarthi, a 60-year old Indian, she is a Muslim and he is a Hindu), but united by one of the most noble and undisputed causes; the right of all children, poor and wealthy, boys and girls, to receive an education. The Nobel Peace Prize certainly needed this consensus, allowing one to set aside certain past decisions which were legitimately criticised and had tarnished its prestige.
Such decisions, in particular, involved the prize awarded in 1973 to Henry Kissinger and Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho, who had indeed negotiated the end of the Vietnam War, but were difficult to consider as champions of peace. Kissinger was a master of realpolitik and a believer in the theory of war as a continuation of politics through other means, and Le Duc Tho represented a small country that had been able to defeat the American super power thanks to the militarisation of all its people. In summary, not two pacifists, but two intelligent and realistic militarists.
And what can one say about the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to President Obama? It was certainly premature, awarded “on trust” to a politician welcomed as the bearer of a promise of peace – a promise that, in spite of the American president’s good will, he has unfortunately been unable to keep. On the contrary, the idea that the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner should personally decide which (suspected) terrorists should be eliminated using drones cannot but leave one disconcerted.
And what about the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the European Union? While it is true that the creation of Europe was inspired by peaceful ideals achieved through economic means such as development and integration, Europe now progresses with the means becoming the objective, so much so that nowadays its contribution to peace and its importance as an international player are completely secondary compared to the economic aspects. Just as the Peace Prize awarded to Obama was a wager projected towards the future, the one assigned to the European Union is rather like a lifetime achievement Oscar awarded to great personalities in the world of films with a glorious past, but who, in the present, do not stand out for new achievements or creativity.
The Nobel Peace prizes awarded to Malala and to Satyarthi are important because they place the right emphasis on the link between education, human rights and peace.
Malala’s story moved world public opinion due to the symbolic way it which it dramatically revealed, considering the ferocious manner in which she was attacked, that those who use violence, the obscurantists, the oppressors of women and the sectarian assassins, fear a brave young girl perhaps more than the drones whose excessively imprecise attacks end up killing innocent people, thus increasing the consensus and recruitment capacity of those attacked.
So, for once, the Nobel Peace Prize was been awarded to two real peace-makers.
However, before indulging in comforting feelings of optimism and hope, one should pause and reflect on a disturbing phenomenon that allows one to understand to what extent the peace process has become difficult and precarious in a world torn apart not only by conflicts, but by hatred, reciprocal suspicion and even the spreading of unbelievable conspiracy theories when faced with an overall crisis of nation-states and disconcertment arising from globalisation without governance.
Malala cannot return to her own country, Pakistan, and not only because of threats made by the Taliban. With the exception of the enthusiasm shown by the inhabitants of her region, Swat, Malala is more popular here than in her own country. In Pakistani public opinion, even the part not identifying with extremists, there are widespread negative and even hostile feelings. Malala “agent of Westerners”, Malala who “gives her country and Islam a bad name” and indeed even “Malala who perhaps was not really shot by the Taliban.”
Such suspicions are in blatant conflict with reality, if one bears in mind the fact that the message sent by the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner in history not only avoids bitterness, controversy and accusations. She instead concentrates on a positive commitment, with extraordinary pacifist coherence, without even a trace of resentment that would be more than legitimate, saying that those who shot her in the head should understand they are wrong and that theirs is above all a cultural defect.
Saying that Malala is one of America’s recruits in the “war on terror” reveals only the disconcerting moral and intellectual deficiency of those who believe it. It would be sufficient to bear in mind that Malala, as confirmed by White House sources, took advantage of her meeting with President Obama in October last year, to tell him that using drones was a mistake that should be rectified. When she was a guest on Jon Stewart’s popular TV show, and he asked her what she thought of Obama, Malala candidly and mischievously answered without saying much, “You know, he’s a politician…”
She is a brave young girl, a real person. The Nobel Peace Prize has at last been deservedly awarded.
Translated by Francesca Simmons