Adil Najam
My posts over the last few days have all been designed to build up to this (here, here and here).
Irrespective of whether Abdul Sattar Edhi is a Pakistani or not, irrespective of how much most Pakistanis hold his selfless zeal in reverence – and irrespective also of all the ways in which a few have tried to malign him – I believe that Abdul Sattar Edhi deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. I need your help in putting together a nominations package.
I do not wish to make this a nationalistic thing. He would not like that. For me it is a humanistic thing. As he has made clear again and again, humanism and humanitarianism is more important than everything else; certainly it is bigger than nationalism.
Here is a man who has dedicated his whole life to serving the most marginalized and the most wretched in society. The destitutes, the mentally ill, corpses left by the roadside, children abandoned at his doorsteps, women kicked out by their families. When there is no one to go to, there is always Edhi Sahib to go to.
As importantly, he has done this – in his words – ‘wholesale’. He has single handedly built – literally by begging – a social services structure at a national scale. Bigger than what governments have. He has never taken a ruppee as salary himself. He lives in a two room apartment that most middle class Pakistanis would not call home and he oversees the largest ambulance network in the world, now with airplanes and helicopters, a multi-million dollar enterprise of relief, of goodwill, and of humanitarianism. If he does not deserve the Nobel Award, I do not know who does.
As I had mentioned in the last post, the Edhi Foundation is collecting signatures on a petition that he be given the Nobel Award. I like other bloggers (here, here, and here) would urge you to sign that petition and join the thousands others who already have.
But I think we can do a little more. Here is how.
I checked out the website of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee and looked at their nominations procedure. It is not clear whether they accept petitions or not, but it turns out that they do have categories of individuals who can make nominations (which are due by February 1). One of those categories is “university professors of social science, history, philosophy, law and theology.” I am not sure if I have much standing with them, but I fit into that category, and therefore I believe I have the ability to formally send in a nomination, and I plan to write in a nomination letter over the next few days.
What I would like to do, then, is to ask you all to write your own testimonials to why Abdul Sattar Edhi deserves a Nobel Award in the comments section. We want to gather as many testimonials/comments as possible.
Personal stories and examples of how he touches people’s lives and meets the ideals of the Nobel Peace Prize are especially useful.
So let me please request you for your help. If you agree with me that Abdul Sattar Edhi deserves a Nobel Peace Prize:
- Please leave a testimonial in the comments section saying that he deserved the award why you believe that Abdul Sattar Edhi deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.
- Please email this post to your friends and ask them to do the same.
- If you are a blogger, please spread the word on your blogs and to your readers and ask those who agree with my proposition to leave a testimonial.
And to meet the deadline we need to do all of this in the next few days. I have no pretensions that a letter from one professor will do the trick. But since I have this ability, I want to at least give it a shot. At least we would be able to say, we tried.
What do you say, folks?
Abdus Sattar Edhi receives 2010 Ahmadiyya Muslim Peace Prize
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z-W21tTpws
If anyone deserve the Nobel Peace prize it is Edhi Sahib. But he is a Pakistani and a Muslim. They will never give it to him.
I had been thinking for sometime, why is that Abdul Sattar Edhi’s name had not yet mentioned for Nobel Peace Prize,knowing what he is doing for so long.
People like him are born, once in a life time, and it will be such a waste, not to acknowledge the great contribution he has been doing to save and serve suffering humanity.I strongly recommend him for his selfless social work, for Peace, and serving the mankind.
Abdul Sattar Edhi is an iconic symbol, that guy is so simple and task oriented, wish all of us and specially those people in parliament and power seats get some inspiration from this living legend.
Dear Mr. Najam!
Sometimes a fortunate combination of the national situation, personal strength of character, ambition and nobleness of the cause itself can produce an individual with a capacity to understand the challenges and develop appropriate responses to this challenge. Such an individual in the case of Pakistan is Abdul Sattar Edhi, the founder of International Edhi Foundation and the most popular and respected humanitarian in Pakistan. I am also promoting this thought from couple of years.By all token he deserves for a Nobel Peace Prize and I would urge all Pakistanis to join my voice in recommending the same. If he doesn’t than who does? Its a high time, kindly ‘pursue’ further. Thank you & Best of Luck!
Author of this published article and generous people do you know what Nobel price is? I can talk for hours about Alfred Nobel; the price gives to those who have done extra ordinary work in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. Now you tell me why Abdul sattar Eidhi is the right person?
I have to say that Edhi is one of the only people in Pakistan who give a ray of hope to others because of his hard work and persistence in serving humanity. I don’t know what Pakistan would have done without him. He is there for us in every disaster and calamity. I seriously wish he gets the Nobel Prize.
Mr. Abdul Sattar Edhi is one in few names in Pakistans total history who dedicated his whole life along with his wife to serve the humanity and man kind. He is person that we can’t be able or we have no words to explain his good deeds in his entire life.He did lot for the mankind,humanity irrespective of borders, and colour. What I like to say that I saw very few people like Mr. Abdul Sattar Edhi in my life.He started his humantarian worked from one of the street of karachi,there is one corpse of a man fully covered in mud and dirt and lot of smell was coming out of the corpse and no one was ready to go near that corpse.And Mr. Abdul Sattar Edhi is the one Mard-e-Mujahid(God Man) who picked that corpse gave bath put funeral clothes to that corpse and then burried it. From this first incident he started his humantarian career.One incidence I remembered one of the Student of University of Engineering & Technology Lahore who had suffered from such disease wwhose treatment is impossible in Pakistan.And only treatment was available in Developed country.And that poor student had not enough money to spend on his treatment abroad.And his father was school teacher. So his different classfellows arranged to called Mr. Abdual Sattar Edhi to collect funds from people of Pakistan in Lahore,And within one hour or few Mr. Edhi collected a heavy amount of money from the roads of Lahore. These are few examples.But there are uncountable examples about Mr. EAbdul Sattar Edhi work for humanity.There are few people like Mr. Edhi in the Pakistan so thats why our Pakistan is stands.May God give Mr. Abdul Sattar Edhi and his wife a very long life.And his mission will always live long.I strongly recommend Mr. Abdul Sattar Edhi .
Regards,