STOCKHOLM—European royals, U.S. celebrities, 6,000 schoolchildren and thousands of honorary guests gathered in Oslo and Stockholm on Wednesday to celebrate the winners of the 2014 Nobel Prizes. The center of attention was the youngest-ever Nobel prize winner, 17-year-old Pakistani Malala Yousafzai. Also honored was French writer Patrick Modiano and scientists from the U.S., Japan, Norway and France. Here are some highlights from the two Nobel Prize award ceremonies, held in Stockholm and Oslo.
MALALA'S SPEECH
Malala’s acceptance speech at Oslo City Hall was delivered with a powerful sometimes trebling voice. “I had two options,” she said of her life after being shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in her homeland more than two years ago. “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.” She said the terrorists tried to stop her and her friends, but that their bullets could not win. “We survived. And since that day, our voices have only grown louder.”
“Let this be the last time that a child remains out of school,” she said. “And let us build a better future right here, right now.”
SATYARTHI'S SPEECH
The 60-year-old, who shared the Peace Prize with Malala, gave up a promising career as an electrical engineer in India in 1980. In his speech, he said he was angered when the father of a boy who was polishing shoes at the gates of the building where he started school said his son would not go to school because “we are born to work.”
“His answer made me angry. It still makes me angry. As a child I had a vision of tomorrow, a vision that the cobbler boy is sitting with me in my classroom. Now that tomorrow has become today. ... Today is the time for every child to have the right to life, right to freedom, right to health, right to education, right to safety, right to dignity and right to peace.”
