Differences And Similarities Between Malala And Elie Wiesel

Everyone lives on the same planet, but we all come from different worlds. From saying you are going to kill yourself if you have to go to school, to getting killed because you went to school. From starving yourself to lose weight, to starving yourself so your kids can eat. From continent to continent people live in different situations, have different experiences, and make different impacts on the world. For those who are in less than adequate situations, civil rights activist like Malala Yousafzai and Elie Wiesel fight for them, fight for what they deserve and what they should have had a long time ago.

First, Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani civil rights activist fighting for equal education in her country. Both Malala and her father, who ran a school close to their house, were threatened by the Taliban to stop allowing girls to go to the school and stop speaking outright about equal rights. However, Malala was already an advocate for girls education, writing on a BBC blog under a pseudonym, and neither her nor her father would back down. As a result, the Taliban attacked Malala’s bus one day as she was going to school, singling her out, the terrorists shot her three times and injured some of her friends. Although she

was in the hospital for four months, Malala’s story was spread across the globe, meeting condemnation wherever it was told and eventually led to 2 million signatures on an education petition in Pakistan (“Malala’s Story”).
Due to the actions she took, Malala was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize by Desmond Tutu, and received Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Prize. After winning a Nobel Peace Prize, Malala Yousafzai used her $1.1 million funds to open secondary schools for girls in Pakistan, and continues to build schools through The Malala Fund her father set up for donations. With 21 million children out of school worldwide, Malala has impacted many young girl’s lives who would not get the proper education without her, and Malala has also shown girls how to stand up and speak for themselves, giving them strength and courage (“Poverty Facts and Stats”). Essentially, Malala has changed the views of many people who believed girls should not go to school and she empowered other young adults to make a difference as well.
Secondly, although just as important as Malala, Elie Wiesel is an activist with different motives. Elie Wiesel was born in the wrong time period, 1928 as a Jew, and was consequently thrown into a genocidal war. During the war, Elie was separated from his mother, and three sisters, of which only his two older sisters survived and were eventually reunited with Elie. Him and his father were not separated originally, but his father died at a work camp before the war ended. After the war, Elie was convinced to write a book about what he had been through, and the internationally acclaimed Night is now translated into more than 30 different languages for all to read.
Eventually, Elie Wiesel was appointed the Chairman of the President's Commission on the Holocaust by President Carter and became the Founding Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.

However, Elie’s work went further than the struggle he went through, Elie became a spoken advocate for, “ Israel, ...Soviet Jews, Nicaragua's Miskito Indians, Argentina's Desaparecidos, Cambodian refugees, the Kurds, victims of famine and genocide in Africa, of apartheid in South Africa, and victims of war in the former Yugoslavia” (“Elie Wiesel”). Elie Wiesel took what he went through and let it define him, but not in a way that would subject him to a life of fear and self-hatred, but to a life that allows him to help others despite no personal

gain.
In conclusion, civil rights activist are an important part of society, taking what they’ve been through and turning it to help others in need. From Malala Yousafzai helping young girls in her country get an education, to Elie Wiesel helping the discriminated in all situations, activists such as these are a necessity to creating a better world. Without people who selflessly give themselves to others, sacrificing what they have so others can have more, the world would be in an unempathetic standstill, allowing anything to happen as long it does not happen to them.