“Gentlemen of the Nobel committee, history can’t wait for another year”
Dr. Ashraf Ezzat
Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Yemeni women’s rights activist Tawakul Karmanhave been named winners of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the names at a ceremony in the capital, Oslo, on Friday, saying the three were honoured for their “non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work”.
Geir Lundestad, director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, told the media that it was a conscious decision to award this year’s prize to women.
Well, in response to Mr. Lundestad and judging from his own statement and barely recovering from the totally unwise decision of the Norwegian committee in 2009 when the Nobel peace prize went unexpectedly and undeservingly to Mr. Barack Obama, whom the days of his first term in office proved beyond doubt that world peace is nowhere in the man’s agenda, not even on his junk list, …now with this year’s decision to grant the prestigious prize to those three fine ladies, no doubt about that, the Nobel committee has clearly proven that they are not only unconscious, but Completely uncontaminated from any contact with reality.
The Nobel committee decision was not only surprising; we have been bewildered so many times before on hearing some of the names amongst the prize’s long list of laureates, but this year we are shocked, absolutely astounded at the myopia that prevented the committee to discern that the Arabs are making history now.
But then again, the members of the Nobel committee can’t be myopic, for they managed to view what has been going in places farther away on the map like Liberia.
It is not that those three great ladies don’t deserve the prize, no; this is definitely not the issue here.
Not this year
Ahmed Maher, activist & coordinator of 6 April Movement, one of the major organisers of January 25 protests.
The issue is the historical sense of the committee, or the lack of it for that matter. There could be more than, may be, 30 nominees who might as well fit the prerequisites and the qualifications for the prestigious prize … but not for this year.
Gentlemen of the Nobel peace prize committee, if this year is to be given a title, it will surely be the year of the “Arab spring”, if this year is to be remembered in history, it will be remembered as the year that witnessed the Arab “peaceful revolutions” against dictatorship.
Gentlemen of the committee of the prestigious prize, the three ladies who were awarded the 2011 prize could have been the winners of the following year and that would not have offended anybody … but the young activists from Egypt and Tunisia who launched and steered one of the most inspiring scenes of nonviolent resistance the world has come to witness ever since the days of mahatma Gandhi cannot afford to wait for next year to be included amongst yet another list of wonderful nominees who worked for world peace.
Wael Ghonim, Egyptian internet activist & a prominent figure in the pro-democracy protests in the iconic Tahrir square.
