Culture

Malala’s Nobel Prize Speech Was Exactly As Incredible As You’d Imagine

Because some 17-year-olds are just a lot better than others.

by Luke Ryan  11 December 2014

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If there was ever someone to make you feel like you really squandered your teenage years, then surely it is Malala Yousafzai. Now 17, she just accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for her ceaseless efforts to ensure children everywhere – and in particular young women – are given the privilege of an education.

In the six years since she burst onto the Pakistan political scene with a speech entitled “How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?” (when she was 11…), Malala has blogged for the BBC, campaigned tirelessly against the Taliban, been shot in the face by the Taliban, recovered, written an international bestselling memoir, rendered Jon Stewart speechless, started her own NGO and had the UN name an entire day after her.

And me? Well, I became pretty fucking good at Mario Kart 64, I tell you now.

The speech she delivered as she accepted her award earlier today is already being touted as one of the best the ceremony has ever seen. By turns funny, sad and insightful, the youngest ever Nobel Laureate took aim at the foolishness of those adults who seem so threatened by the idea of a child who thinks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkDpJyGJVpg&feature=youtu.be

It’s worth watching in full, but for the sake of a highlights reel here’s a few particularly great moments:

– “I tell my story not because it is unique but because it is not. It is the story of many girls. Today, I tell their stories too.”

– On life before the Taliban came: “I always loved learning and discovering new things. I remember when my friends and I would decorate our hands with henna on special occasions and instead of drawing flowers, we would paint our hands with mathematical equations. We had a thirst for education because our future was right there. We loved to wear neat and tidy school uniforms and we would sit there with big dreams in our eyes. We wanted to make our parents proud and prove we could excel in our studies and achieve those goals that some people think only boys can.”

– After the Taliban arrived: “Education went from being a right to being a crime. But 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 be killed. I chose the second one. I decided to speak up.”

– “The so-called world of adults may understand it, but we children don’t. Why is it that countries which we call ‘strong’ are so powerful in creating wars but so weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy but giving books is so hard? Why is it that making tanks is so easy, but building schools is so difficult?”

– “I am pretty certain that I am also the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who still fights with her younger brothers. I want there to be peace everywhere, but my brothers and I are still working on that.”

There was also the weird moment when a Mexican protester went all Kanye at the VMAs on her, but it’s sort of hard to begrudge the guy given Mexico’s own issues right now…

Before the ceremony, Malala had told the BBC she wanted to become Pakistan’s Prime Minister. At this rate, it’s hard to see how anything could stop her.