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?
Adil,
Thank you for allowing so many of us to express the deep pride and wonder we share for Dr. Edhi. You seem to have had your work cut out for you and in this grand endeavor, wish you all the best. I am sure your words and proposal will make a strong impact to the committee. Knowing that time is short, it makes it does make it difficult to obtain first hand experiences, but the evidence, facts and results are abundantly available, so I think the proposal will still be a strong one. As you requested of the many ‘bloggers’ out there, I’ve included my write up on http://www.boundlessmeanderings.wordpress.com, in the hopes that others out there (those not familiar with Dr. Edhi or non-Pakistanis) will have a chance to learn about this humble yet revolutionary individual.
Here is the link to the entry. – APZ
He is honest man & working as an angel for the human being. He desrve for Nobel Award
Abdul Sattar Edhi is the most deserving personality for noble prize because of his extraordinary social services.
In my opinion Mr. Abdul Sattar Edhi is a most suitable person for this award.
First, my gratitude to everyone who has expressed their reverence for Edhi Sahib here. It has made for heart-warming reading. I just wanted to give people an UPDATE on where I am with the nomination process.
I have been entirely consumed with the preparation of the nomination document over the last many days. I guess I did not realize just how big a task I was volunteering for. However, I am glad that I did. The nomination portfolio has to be a reasoned and thorough case for why someone’s work is such an important contribution to all humanity that they should be awarded the Nobel. It is not a question of getting lots of votes or signature, it is a question of making a reasoned case. I have tried to do so, using many excerpts from his biography, information that is otherwise publicly available, my own various meeting and conversations with him, and other publicly available information. Given that I did not have access to the most important material – testimonials from those who he has directly worked with – I took the more academic route to make a case that his work is not only exemplary but is distinct from other efforts in the world and has worldwide application, not only because he is now working internationally but because the ideas are applicable globally.
I will not bore you with the details, but we now have a significant document (around 70 pages) with heavy footnoting and much empirical information on the scale, scope and reach of Edhi’s work. I have one section in it on his influence on public perceptions (of him, his work, and of social welfare in general) and within it I use a number of quotes from the comments here and elsewhere (those that relate to WHY people are moved by his work or HOW they have seen its impacts). I have also added a list of web links to various discussions on the web (including this) that might give the committee a sense of just how dear he is to his people.
Anyhow, to get to the Nobel Committee in time, the document will leave first thing Monday. To be honest, I do not think that my own nomination is complete (importantly, it does not have first hand testimonials from his direct beneficiaries). However, I am hoping that this will be one amongst a number of nominations for him and I hope this will fill in things that others might not have (including, for example, a detailed analysis of his approach to relief in comparison to other approaches and an analysis of its reasons for success). I have no idea whether my small effort will make any difference. I hope it does. At least we tried.
Thank you again to everyone who has commented here. I hope the Nobel committee will follow the link in my document to this and other web discussions on him. Also, in many ways your comments have kept me going over the last few days of very intense work on this. (If you do have other comments and experiences to share, please keep doing so since this has a life beyond this nomination).
P.S. The Nobel process requires that nomination proposals NOT be shared publicly, hence I will not be doing so.