Nobel Peace Prize Committee recognizes three women



DOES IT MATTER?
Edited with new material, comment by Carolyn Bennett



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 KARMANH has played a leading part in the struggle for women’s rights and for democracy and peace in Yemen.”



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.”



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.”



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_sirl...



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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Posted by Bennett's Study at 12:30 PM

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