A deserving role model teenager

Malala Yousafzai, the brave Pakistani girl who struggles against the suppression of young people and is an advocate for the right of all children to education, is co-recipient, with Kailash Satyarthi, a children’s rights activist from India, of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014.

At 17, she is the youngest Nobel laureate ever, but her struggles may equal those of much older deserving individuals who work to make a dent, to make the world a better place to live in.

Malala’s activism started very early, at 11, when she wrote a blog, under a pseudonym, for the BBC, describing life under Taliban occupation.

Her views on promoting education in the Swat Valley, her birthplace, made her unpopular among the Taliban who, in 2012, shot her three times in the bus taking her to school.

She was lucky to survive and later recover, showing a resilience of body as strong as that of her spirit.

Even under the threat of death, with which the Taliban were trying to intimidate her, Malala continued her steady work for worldwide access to education, which raised her profile and made this outspoken teenager a role model for many.

On the occasion of her receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Malala thanked her parents for “not clipping her wings” and allowing her to pursue her fight for the right to education.

Coming from a conservative place like theirs, made even more hostile to education by the rigid Taliban dogma, her family’s behaviour is all the more deserving.

It should be emulated by parents the world over, but particularly by those living in countries — Arab and Muslim included — where girls and women are still struggling for equal treatment.

When women are allowed to develop their capacities to the fullest, when they earn their rightful place in society, countries stand to gain and can be called civilised.

Malala leads the way. Others should follow.