Malala Yousafzai attacks military spending in Nobel speech

This video, recorded in the USA, is called Malala Yousafzai To Obama’s Face: Drones Fuel Terrorism.

Alfred Nobel, a Swedish arms businessman who opposed both capitalism and war, founded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1895 for people who had contributed to “the abolition or reduction of standing armies”; for people who had contributed directly to stopping militarism and wars.

In his will, he bequeathed the decisions over this prize to the parliament of Norway; then a neutral country.

However, Norway is a NATO country now. Nobel Peace Prizes have quite often gone to people or organisations which had not contributed to peace at all.

Or, better but still not Alfred Nobel’s intention, to people who had contributed indirectly to peace.

Malala Yousafzai, this year’s Nobel Peace laureate, is best known in Western media as a supporter of girls’ education; which contributes to peace indirectly. She is not as well-known in the media as a supporter of socialism.

She is also not as well-known as an opponent of wars; like the Pentagon’s and CIA’s drone war which kills many civilians in Malala’s Pakistan. Malala’s speaking out against this is a direct contribution to peace; in the spirit of Alfred Nobel.

In her Nobel Prize acceptance speech today, Malala combined the indirectly and directly pro-peace sides of her activities.

From British daily The Guardian today:

Malala Yousafzai accepts Nobel peace prize with attack on arms spending

Pakistani education activist was jointly awarded prize with Indian child rights campaigner Kailash Satyarthi

Alexandra Topping

Wednesday 10 December 2014 14.35 GMT

The Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai has used her Nobel peace prize acceptance speech to launch a searing attack on “strong” governments that have the resources to begin wars but not to enable universal education.

From her speech today:

Dear brothers and sisters, 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?

This video from the USA says about itself:

Socialist City Councilmember on Nobel Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai: “Socialism is the Only Answer”

13 October 2014

We speak to socialist Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant about the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai, who has expressed support for socialism. In 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman who boarded her school bus, but she survived and continued to campaign for the rights of girls to go to school. While she was recovering in England, she sent a message to a meeting of Pakistani Marxists in Lahore that “I am convinced Socialism is the only answer and I urge all comrades to take this struggle to a victorious conclusion. Only this will free us from the chains of bigotry and exploitation.”