Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi are glaringly different, but the Nobel Peace Prize winners this year represent humanity’s noble face and the dreams of the world’s oppressed for a decent life. Malala champions the right of women to education, Kailash fights to bring dignity to poor youth. In a crazy, selfish world they are symbols of hope and courage.

 

They represent stark contrasts. Malala is 17, Kailash is 60. Malala is a girl, a Pakistani Muslim, Kailash a man, an Indian Hindu. Malala has acquired global fame, Kailash remains relatively unknown. Malala wrote a blog for a couple of years and spoke, was filmed, shot at and zoomed to celebrity status. Kailash toiled tirelessly for decades and has rescued 80,000 youth from crippling child labor. 

 

Both have worked to help others, in different ways and circumstances.

 

Malala will come to Canada on October 22 to accept the honorary citizenship of Canada that was announced last year by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The honor has been bestowed so far only on the Dalai Lama of Tibet, Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the Aga Khan, South African icon Nelson Mandela and Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who risked his life to save Jews from Nazi barbarity. 

 

Malala’s book  I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban, which she authored with British journalist Christina Lamb, has been on Maclean’s magazine’s best-seller list ever since its publication in October 2013.  

 

In May 2014, the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada conferred on her an honorary law degree. It also established a scholarship in her name that offers $30,000 a year to poor girls to study in Halifax. 

 

Malala and her father Ziauddin Yousafzai established the Malala Fund, which helps girls’ education in several countries.

 

Malala has received the National Youth Peace Prize and Sitara-e-Shujaat award from Pakistan, the Mother Teresa Memorial Award for Social Justice,  the Simone de Beauvoir Prize, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament and numerous others globally.

 

This success was possible because of support from her father who has set up schools in Pakistan, from the Government of Pakistan which supports her generously and from organizations and individuals the world over who see her as a champion of women’s education and dignity. 

 

Critics in Pakistan, and elsewhere, assert that there are others whose achievements are more outstanding and that the West is using Malala to subvert Muslim values. There is, of course, no shortage of people doing excellent humanitarian work. In Pakistan, Sattar Edhi and his wife have devoted their lives to helping victims of violence. Lawyer Asma Jehangir has fought tenaciously to defend human rights. Both have braved huge peril. One of the nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize from Canada is Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian physician who lost three daughters and a niece when they were killed by an Israeli attack. But Dr. Abuelaish  promotes the idea of a just settlement in the Middle East, wrote a best-selling book I Shall Not Hate, and established a charitable foundation that provides scholarships to Arab and Israeli women for higher studies.

 

Malala’s call for the right of women to education and her criticism of the Taliban’s efforts to deprive them of education was courageous but relatively minor compared to the lifelong efforts of some people to build a better world in the face of dangers.

 

However, Malala won sympathy not only when she was almost killed by the Taliban but by her passion, common sense and humility. She champions women’s education as an Islamic value. In avoiding inflammatory accusations, she has shown civility. In telling President Obama that drone attacks kill innocent people, she spoke for justice. In starting her address to the United Nations with the name of Allah the beneficent, the merciful, she displayed her loyalty to her faith. In diligently pursuing her studies, she underlines her commitment to education and to practicing what she preaches. 

 

It is gratifying that she won the award with Kailash who has worked since he was six years old to help the poor and has saved 83,000 children from bonded labor in 144 countries. He has founded organizations to protect children from brutal exploitation. He has organized a march against child labor through 60 countries, and he has survived several attempts on his life. 

 

He has also received coveted awards - Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, Golden Medal of the Italian Senate, Alfonso Comin International Award, Heroes Acting to End Modern Day Slavery Award (US), Freedom Award and Wallenberg Medal from the University of Michigan, among others. He works with UNESCO and sits on the board of international organizations, including the Center for Victims of Torture.

 

These are only a few of the awards the two have received and the work that they have done. It is fitting that Malala expressed the hope that the leaders of India and Pakistan would attend the ceremony when she and Kailash get their awards. She says she’d like India and Pakistan to live in peace and friendship. That, too, is a worthy goal in our troubled world.