A question on Quora: What has Malala Yousufzai done to deserve Nobel Peace Prize? My answer here.
Considering the fact that the same committee awarded Obama for just replacing Bush a few years back, Malala is a good pick. The level has only improved.
A little more seriously, unlike the other Nobel categories, the Peace price is a political one, and sometimes they tend to give out the award to give some fillip to certain ideas and to bring limelight to certain issues. After all, if you can prevent a war, it is far better contribution to peace than stopping it. Otherwise, what could explain UN getting this award in the early 2000's when they were pretty much irrelevant? The committee just wanted the world to note that there is an organization called UN that exists and it needs some help. Likewise, Obama got the award not for doing anything, but just to tell him NOT to do anything silly. What other time is better to give the award to Malala than today, when her home country is in a mess & she showed a courage that was absent in the Government of her own country WHEN SHE WAS JUST 11 (many people doesn't know that she had a history even before she got shot)? May be the committee is hoping that this award would help generate a spine in the back & clear smoke in the head of a few people in her home country. (And may be they intended the same with her co-recipient also. Not only that somebody as anonymous as him exists there with such a life-time of work when people are hoping that magicians will transform his home country, but also a reminder that there are plenty of things to be done at home before thinking of becoming an international bully).
In any case, it is pretty sure that the Peace Prize will be the first of the Nobel prizes that will lose its relevance. That's what happens when you award for potential, not for performance. (And this is on the assumption that it has some relevance after the Gandhi-fiasco. One mistake is pardonable).
Considering the fact that the same committee awarded Obama for just replacing Bush a few years back, Malala is a good pick. The level has only improved.
A little more seriously, unlike the other Nobel categories, the Peace price is a political one, and sometimes they tend to give out the award to give some fillip to certain ideas and to bring limelight to certain issues. After all, if you can prevent a war, it is far better contribution to peace than stopping it. Otherwise, what could explain UN getting this award in the early 2000's when they were pretty much irrelevant? The committee just wanted the world to note that there is an organization called UN that exists and it needs some help. Likewise, Obama got the award not for doing anything, but just to tell him NOT to do anything silly. What other time is better to give the award to Malala than today, when her home country is in a mess & she showed a courage that was absent in the Government of her own country WHEN SHE WAS JUST 11 (many people doesn't know that she had a history even before she got shot)? May be the committee is hoping that this award would help generate a spine in the back & clear smoke in the head of a few people in her home country. (And may be they intended the same with her co-recipient also. Not only that somebody as anonymous as him exists there with such a life-time of work when people are hoping that magicians will transform his home country, but also a reminder that there are plenty of things to be done at home before thinking of becoming an international bully).
In any case, it is pretty sure that the Peace Prize will be the first of the Nobel prizes that will lose its relevance. That's what happens when you award for potential, not for performance. (And this is on the assumption that it has some relevance after the Gandhi-fiasco. One mistake is pardonable).
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