The Rohingya may be at the brink of facing genocide. Despite widespread international outcry, the pro-democracy Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has remained deafeningly silent while the military continues its onslaught of the Rohingya. Worse yet, her title of Nobel Laureate serves to legitimize her continued (in)actions, while Rakhine State goes up in flames.

Pope Francis, Secretary of State John Kerry, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were among those said to be likely to win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Few prognosticators could have heard of the civil-society groups that make up the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, let alone have imagined that they would be awarded the prize.

This week, as the Nobel Peace Prize was formally handed to a teenage Pakistani activist and an Indian child-rights campaigner, a Chinese group issued an alternate award to the retired Cuban leader, long regarded by Western counterparts as a tyrant and Cold War nemesis.

Now Malala Yousafzai’s voice has been amplified by the peace prize. Maybe Pakistan’s leaders will hear it at last.