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While we are still digesting the absurdity of giving the Peace Nobel prize to Barack Obama, who has done nearly nothing to deserve it. I find in Rebelión a couple of articles that seem indicated to mention.
On one side, Mario Ramírez-Orozco analyzes the insides of the Peace Nobel committee, that by now are already quite public at least in Norway. This committe is no any council of wisemen or anything of the like but just a politically appointed board that includes veteran members of the Norwegian political scene. These politicians are of course like any other: not particularly wise and rather short-sighted, machiavellian and with their own agendas.
So it seems now that most members of the committee were rather quite against the candidature of Obama, logically, but that the president of the board, Thorbjörn Jagland, of the social-democrat party (Arbeiderparti) seems to have managed almost solo to force the choice of Obama as this year's Peace Nobel. Even if he was apparently able to make his party colleague, Sissel Marie Rönbeck, follow his lead, the article does not explain clearly how he managed to overcome the apparently tough opposition of the other three members.
Guess we will find out in due time.
Alternative Nobels
Meanwhile the "alternative Nobel prizes" or Right Livelihood Awards have gone almost unnoticed once again. Canal Solidario (mirrored at Rebelión) tells us of this year winners, who get 50,000 euros each (except the honorific prize):
René Ngongo of the D.R. Congo got the prize for his dedication to protect one of the largest natural ecosystems on Earth: the Congo rainforest. Ngongo created in 1994 OCEAN, an organization that promotes sustainable practices and reforestation.
Alyn Ware of New Zealand got another award for more than two decades promoting peace education and elimination of nuclear arsenals. He even was advisor to the Wellington government and the UN on these areas.
Catherine Hamlin, a gynecologist from Austria, was awarded as well for her work in Ethiopia creating health infrastructures, specially those oriented to women with obstetric fistula, a disease that breaks the lifes of many women through the world even if it can be easily operated because they just cannot afford it.
The honorary prize was given to someone maybe better known for the average reader: David Suzuki, for his work oriented to broaden the conscience on climate change.
The RLAs have no specific categories and anyone can in principle propose candidates for them.
Sincerely, my personal choice would have been for the campaigns to breach the Gaza blockade, that have shown the courage and determination to challenge one of the most inhuman and criminal abuses against a population of mostly powerless refugees by one of the most mischievous and influential regimes on Earth. Maybe the next year?
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6 comments:
Thanks for that Maju. I wasn't even aware of the name Alyn Ware, but here's a profile from the NZ Labour party (in opposition at the moment):
http://blog.labour.org.nz/index.php/tag/alyn-ware/
He was probably actually advisor to the Wellington Government, as that's the capital. But the words 'has been' are presumably correct. We have a conservative government at the moment.
"my personal choice would have been for the campaigns to breach the Gaza blockade".
Same here. In fact I'm suspicious. Maybe Obama got the award in order to discourage him from further action on the matter?
In case you don't follow the link here's my favourite remark, 'Asked to compare the two awards, Ole von Uexkull, the Right Livelihood Foundation’s executive director and nephew of the prize founder, told AP Ware had actively campaigned against nuclear weapons for 25 years, while Obama had yet to translate words into action'.
He was probably actually advisor to the Wellington Government, as that's the capital. But the words 'has been' are presumably correct. We have a conservative government at the moment.
Thanks for the correction. I could when I was 16 or 18 tell every single state capital but nowadays I've become less careful with such details. I'll fix it anyhow.
The "has been" is probably a Spanish language influence because we don't use the past participle (or present participle or whatever) the same way as in English: we tend to use it for past events, even if not immediate. It depends on dialects anyhow, in Latin America they'd use simple past where we use PP most of the time, just like in English. I'll correct that too.
...here's my favourite remark, 'Asked to compare the two awards, Ole von Uexkull, the Right Livelihood Foundation’s executive director and nephew of the prize founder, told AP Ware had actively campaigned against nuclear weapons for 25 years, while Obama had yet to translate words into action'.
Absolutely. Honestly I think Obama would have gained more credibility rejecting the prize. People then would say: the Nobel committee is a just a bunch of boot-licking lackeys but at least Obama shows some dignity. But he didn't.
"The 'has been' is probably a Spanish language influence".
I was actually getting at our present government although that is no concern of yours. As far as I know there has been no mention of the prize anywhere here, other than on blogs. One would think that with NZers usual attitude to our countrymen who do well it would have led the news for several nights, but the current government is busy cozying up to the US administration and may have found the prize embarrassing.
By the way, your mistake regarding the capital is understandable. Auckland is the biggest city by far, but not the capital.
I fear that it is a tendency that exists more and more in modern day media, surely a product of concentration in few corporative hands and the total vanishing of any sort of investigative journalism, dumped nowadays in the category of "conspiration theories" and the like.
This causes a loss of quality information: we essentially get what governments and large companies want us to know and that is very very dangerous.
In principle the Net should counter such trends but it seems that it's having a quite limited effect in fact, specially as the info gets diluted in the huge fractality of it.
In general it is my opinion that today's media are much more conformist, research-lazy and generally uninteresting. Sadly enough.
"This causes a loss of quality information: we essentially get what governments and large companies want us to know and that is very very dangerous".
Too true.
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