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  The Youngest Noble Peace Laureate The Noble Peace Prize has drawn polarized praises and criticism as this award is often conferred upon politicians. Some have argued the name of the Prize should be Political, not Peace, as some of the recipients, at the time of being awarded, either had barely any contributions to impactful peace or later turned out to be anti-peace in their actions following their awards. Among the very few non-politicians who became the laureates, Malala Yousafzai was not only the handful of Middle Eastern recipients, but the youngest so far and a true non-politicians.  Yousafzai is a human rights advocate for the  education of women  and children in her native homeland,  Swat , where the  Pakistani Taliban  had at times banned girls from attending school.  On October 9 in 2012, Malala was shot in the head on a bus by a Taliban gunman in an assassination attempt for her activism. She was in a coma while she remained a fighter who did not give up. The incident cause
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Peacemakers Needed Each semester this blog focuses on a theme. Last semester's theme was focused on identity. For the Fall 2023 semester, the theme will be "PEACEMAKERS." The draft for this entry was started on 9/11/23, which marked 22nd years since the devastating events in New York City and near the Pentagon. I reflected on the ultimate cause of such terrible acts and believe that the world then and now needs more peacemakers. On  August 28, 1963 , Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. imagined a world " that one day. . . the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood." If in 2001 there were peacemakers who could reach across the gulf between some extreme religious factions and the US, the tragedies of 9/11 might have been prevented. Many would assume that history should have taught us to be more understanding of one another regardless of our differences. Contrary to that assumption, the world