Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai and Indian activist Kailash Satyarthi have received their joint Nobel Peace Prize award during a ceremony held in Oslo, Norway and attended by the Norweigan royal family, Steven Tyler, and Queen Latifah.
Malala, who has now become the youngest ever recipient of the Prize, took the opportunity to not speak of the work she has done, but rather the work there is still left to do in a moving speech that has quickly sparked a wave of adoration from media and the public internationally.
“I tell my story, not because it is unique, but because it is not. It is the story of many girls,” the 17-year-old said.
“Why is it that countries which we call strong are so powerful in creating wars but are so weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy, but giving books is so hard?”
“We are living in the modern age and we believe that nothing is impossible. We have reached the moon 45 years age and maybe we will soon land on Mars. Then, in this 21st century we must be able to give every child a quality education.”
In the speech, which was met with a rousing standing ovation at both the beginning and the end, Malala spoke of the way the Taliban’s control changed her home of the Swat valley, “Education went from being a right to being a crime. Girls were stopped going to school. When my world suddenly changed, my priorities changed too. I had two options: one was to remain silent and wait to be killed and the second was to speak up and then to be killed. I chose the second one; I decided to speak up.”
Malala, who gained attention for her 2008 speech in Peshawar, Pakistan titled ‘How dare the Taliban take away by basic right to education?’, has been blogging for the BBC about life under the Taliban and striving for an education since 2009. After an assassination attempt in 2012, her family moved to Britain where she underwent significant surgery, but nothing has stopped this truly incredible teenager from getting her voice heard. Before her speech, she told the BBC she wanted to become Pakistan’s prime minister.
Malala Yousafzai Nobel Peace Prize Video:
