Nobel Prize to the Best
By Dr Ghulam M. Haniff
St. Cloud, MN
Smiling in her well-adorned, colorful and immaculate hijab, Tawakkul Kamran, was pictured as the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize and the second to become a Nobel Laureate. Dressed in her modest Islamic attire, Tawakkul, represents the hopes and aspirations of the millions throughout the Muslim world.
The global community of Islam has been waiting for a person exactly like her to be honored on the global stage. She epitomizes the best in achievement and the pursuit of a cause with dedication.
In choosing her the Nobel committee encapsulated many cultural firsts, such as: the modest Islamic attire, struggles for rights and democracy in one of the most violent nations, open challenges to the military dictator, sparking hopes for the millions around the world, and making the traditional culture as a bridge for change.
Photographed with two of her colleagues, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the President of Liberia, and Leymah Gbowee, a social activist in Liberia, the three serve as symbols of excellence to the countless females living on the edge of survival in many of the Third World nations. Almost overnight these three have become an inspiration to the world crying for change.
The award to Tawakkul Kamran, recognizing a woman for extraordinary achievement, must be a nightmare to Saudi Arabia next door, the most misogynist country in the world. Nevertheless, many Muslims will congratulate Tawakkul for an honor well deserved.
Political change is long overdue in Islamic nations to which only a tiny handful are exceptions. For many years Tawakkul has been a vocal activist in her country and in 2005 she founded the group “Women Journalists Without Chains.” Much before the Arab Spring she was a strong figure in “Islah” the opposition struggling to bring democracy to the impoverished nation of Yemen.
When the award was announced Tawakkul was moved to say: “I give the prize to the youth of revolution in Yemen and the Yemeni people.” To change a nation one needs to have enlightened women in positions of power.
Even before the recognition she was one of the best in Yemen and now she has been certified as such by one of the most prestigious organizations in the world. She has been congratulated by most leaders in the world though it is unlikely that Ali Abdullah Saleh, tethered as he is to his monumental ego like every tyrant in the Arab World, will extend his hand out to her.
No one expected an ordinary woman from a country that comes in at the bottom of all the indices of social achievement to be honored by the Nobel committee.
Leadership for Muslim women is not an easy matter. Neither is achievement of any type. They are deliberately and cruelly kept at the bottom of the society by the power of oppression and beatings. We see that in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia almost every day, or for that matter in Pakistan.
Most countries take pride in cultivating the best and the brightest, especially the women. Not so the Muslims.
The key to development is in the hands of achievers, such as Tawakkul Kamran. It is their work which will move the Muslim nations, in fact the entire world of Islam, forward.
