Nobel Peace Prize Committee recognizes three women

Tawakkul Karman 
Residence at time of award: Yemen

DOES IT MATTER?

Edited with new material, comment by Carolyn Bennett

Yemen - San’a location
Africa’s Horn
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Before and during the ‘Arab spring’ and in the most trying circumstances, the Nobel Committee said in announcing this year’s recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, “TAWAKKUL KARMAN has played a leading part in the struggle for women’s rights and for democracy and peace in Yemen.”

Leymah Gbowee
Residence at time of award: Liberia

In Africa, LEYMAH GBOWEE mobilized and organized women across dividing lines of ethnicity and religion “to bring an end to the long war in Liberia and to ensure women’s participation in elections. She has since worked to enhance the influence of women in West Africa during and after war.”

Liberia (West Africa)
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Also in Africa, the Committee said, Liberia’s President ELLEN JOHNSON SIRLEAF has, “since her inauguration in 2006, contributed to securing peace in Liberia, promoting economic and social development, and strengthening the position of women.”

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf - Time of award:
Resident and President of Liberia

Referencing the October 2000 UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325, the Committee recalled that the United Nations — for the first time — made violence against women in armed conflict an international security issue and emphasized the necessity that women become full and equal participants in peace processes and in peace work generally.

Democracy and lasting peace in the world are unachievable without women’s equality of opportunity, their equal input in influencing developments at all levels of society.

HOWEVER  —

Two of the past ten years of locking step with his violent predecessors, warmonger Barack Obama, another Nobel Peace Prize recipient, has been piling up deaths and enemies. As commander in chief of United States armed forces and private mercenaries, he has ordered the killing, maiming and destroying of millions of lives and futures — in at least six countries.

So it is fair to ask, does this hundred and ten year old male-made prize mean a tinker’s darn — or is it just one more political ploy to befuddle the peoples of the world?

Is it not the prize but the incorruptible character and courageous activism of the person that matters?  All those workers for peace, justice, equality and nonviolence who will never win a prize — the Fannie Lou Hamers of the United States, for example — who, in the long run, really truly matter to a substantive progressiveness in the world.

Sources and notes

Nobel Peace Prize 2011, Announcement — The Norwegian Nobel Committee this year divides the Nobel Peace Prize in three equal parts between Leymah Gbowee, Tawakkul Karman, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf citing them for “their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for the rights of women to full participation in peace-building work,” Oslo, October 2011 7, http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/announce-2011/

2011 Nobel Peace Prize Captions

“For their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work”

Leymah Gbowee - Residence at time of award: Liberia

Tawakkul Karman - Residence at time of award: Yemen

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf - Time of award: Resident and President of Liberia

“Leymah Gbowee – Biographical.”. Nobelprize.org. 7 Oct 2011 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2011/gbowee.html

“Tawakkul Karman – Biographical.” Nobelprize.org. 7 Oct 2011 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2011/karman.html

“Johnson Sirleaf – Biographical.” Nobelprize.org. 7 Oct 2011 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2011/johnson_sirleaf.html

Britannica caption

Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, AP

“Ten Years after U.S. Invasion, Afghan War Rages on with No End in Sight,” Democracy Now October 7, 2011, http://www.democracynow.org/2011/10/7/ten_years_after_us_invasion_afghan

HISTORICAL CONTEXT — WOMEN NOBEL LAUREATES

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1963 Maria Goeppert Mayer 1903 Marie Curie The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2009 Ada E. Yonath 1964 Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin 1935 Irène Joliot-Curie 1911 Marie Curie The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009 Elizabeth H. Blackburn 2009 Carol W. Greider 2008 Françoise Barré-Sinoussi 2004 Linda B. Buck 1995 Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard 1988 Gertrude B. Elion 1986 Rita Levi-Montalcini 1983 Barbara McClintock 1977 Rosalyn Yalow 1947 Gerty Cori

The Prize in Economic Sciences 2009 Elinor Ostrom The Nobel Prize in Literature 2009 Herta Müller 2007 Doris Lessing 2004 Elfriede Jelinek 1996 Wislawa Szymborska 1993 Toni Morrison 1991 Nadine Gordimer 1966 Nelly Sachs 1945 Gabriela Mistral 1938 Pearl Buck 1928 Sigrid Undset 1926 Grazia Deledda 1909 Selma Lagerlöf

THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE 2011 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf 2011 Leymah Gbowee 2011 Tawakkul Karman 2004 Wangari Maathai 2003 Shirin Ebadi 1997 Jody Williams 1992 Rigoberta Menchú Tum 1991 Aung San Suu Kyi 1982 Alva Myrdal 1979 Mother Teresa 1976 Betty Williams 1976 Mairead Corrigan 1946 Emily Greene Balch 1931 Jane Addams 1905 Bertha von Suttner

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/women.html

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