Nobel Peace Prize – Page 3

War kills workers (Labor Day 2012)

Posted on September 3, 2012September 2, 2012 by kathiemm

You are probably familiar with the names of some Nobel Peace Prize winners—for example, Desmond Tutu, Linus Pauling, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Nobel Prize portrait of Leon Jouhaux, in public domain.

But can you name the 1969 winner of the Peace Prize?

It was the International Labour Organization (ILO). Yes, a labor organization won a Nobel Peace Prize. This should not be surprising given the historical connection between labor movements and peace movements.

The ILO, like the League of Nations (forerunner to the United Nations), grew out of the deadliness and devastation of World War I. It was the first specialized agency within the U.N.

Included in the Treaty of Versailles that ended WWI, the preamble of the ILO constitution says, “Universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice.” Can anyone fault this belief?

The Treaty of Versailles also included three proposals from American delegates to the peace commission:

“that labor should not be treated as a commodity;
that all workers had the right to a wage sufficient to live on;
and that women should receive equal pay for equal work.”

Have these commitments been achieved? Won and lost? Why?

In their 1969 acceptance speech, the ILO quoted 1951 Nobel Peace Prize winner Leon Jouhaux, who warned that:

“War not only kills workers by thousands and millions, and destroys their homes…but also, by increasing men’s feelings of impotence before the forces of violence, it holds up considerably the progress of humanity toward the age of justice, welfare, and peace.”

On this Labor Day, let’s honor the work of labor on behalf of peace and social justice.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Women activists and International Women’s Day

Posted on March 8, 2012March 7, 2012 by kathiemm

Today, Thursday March 8, is International Women’s Day. It is a good day for us to be grateful to the women peace activists who contribute to this blog—for example, San’aa Sultan, Dr. Dahlia Wasfi, and Jean Gerard.

It is also a good day to celebrate the fact that late in 2011 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to three women peace activists: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen.

These are impressive women indeed. In 2005, Mrs. Sirleaf was the first African woman in modern times to be elected to lead an African state; she has used that office to bring peace to Liberia after 14 years of an extremely violent civil war.

Leymah Gbowee founded the Ghana-based Women, Peace, and Security Network Africa. In 2002, she organized a sex strike in Liberia, during which women withheld sex from their husbands until hostilities ended.

Ms. Karman, the youngest candidate ever awarded the Peace Prize and the first Arab woman to receive it, has been called the “Mother of the Revolution.” She is the founder of Women Journalists Without Chains.

Here are some links that will allow you to see and hear these proponents of peace and justice:

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C1mqLRKsJQ&feature=related

Leymah Gbowee: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts6WptOD384

Tawakkul Karman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LFMWDFVx7E

Women of all ages, ethnicities, and religions have a long history of fighting for peace and increasingly their efforts and achievements are being recognized. Please share your own stories of efforts on behalf of peace.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Recovery through forgiveness

Posted on December 26, 2011December 27, 2011 by kathiemm

[Note from KMM: Guest author Elina Tochilnikova graduated from Boston University where she was a member of the Group on International Perspectives on Governmental Aggression and Peace (GIPGAP) and a contributing author to a chapter on Russia in State Violence and the Right to Peace. She has recently worked on 3 short documentary films on the forgiveness processes of Holocaust survivors.]

Eva Mozes Kor, a “Mengele Twin” who survived the genetic experiments at Auschwitz, chose the non-standard route to recovery: forgiveness.

Eva Kor photo by OberRanks. Used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

For this she failed to win acceptance from the survivor community. As have her predecessors and contemporaries in social change, she has had to define her own path, and in that, defined herself.

In 2010, with the assistance of Boston College Professor Dr. John Michalczyk, I interviewed Eva. She explained that in 1993 she was offered an opportunity to meet with former Auschwitz Nazi doctor Hans Munch, a former colleague of the infamous Josef Mengele. Although emotionally wrought by the prospect, she flew to Germany to interview him and gather information on the deadly human medical experiments.

Unexpectedly, Dr. Munch welcomed Eva; she states “he treated me like a human being and shared useful information.” Furthermore, he expressed deep and sincere remorse, disclosing his psychological torment ever since his work in the camps.

As an expression of gratitude, Eva wrote a letter of forgiveness to Dr. Munch. Through this process, Eva discovered that she, “the guinea pig of the angel of death,” had the power to forgive even Dr. Mengele himself, and everyone else who had ever hurt her, including her parents toward whom she had harbored resentment about their not being able to protect her.

Eva states: “As soon as I forgave, I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders … I felt that I had the power to forgive and that no one could take that power away from me.”

On 13 occasions since meeting Dr. Munch, Eva has visited Auschwitz, where she has met with former Nazis as part of a forgiveness ceremony.

Eva Kor remains the spearhead of the concept of forgiveness as an act of self-healing. She opened the Candles Holocaust Museum, produced films, and led programs teaching forgiveness in schools worldwide. In addition, her films and interviews are used to help patients heal following emotional trauma. Thus, she has combined her motto of “heal the world” with tangible steps that can prove useful in recovery from trauma.

Nobel Peace Laureates and International Women’s Day

Posted on March 7, 2011July 6, 2011 by kathiemm

In honor of International Women’s Day, celebrated March 8 of this year, we dedicate this post to the five most recent female winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.

2004: Wangari Maathai from Kenya, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, received the award for her achievements in sustainable development, the rights of women, democracy, environmental protections, and peace. (For more on Wangari Maathai, see this video.)

2003: Shirin Ebadi from Iran was awarded the Peace Prize for her work on behalf of democracy and human rights, particularly the rights of women and children. She was the first woman in Iran to become a federal judge, a position taken from her following the Islamic Revolution of 1975. Not until 1992 was she again allowed to practice law in her home country. Much of her work is risky, focusing on human rights cases. (For more on Shirin Ebadi, see this video.)

1997: The 1997 Peace Prize was shared by Jody Williams of Putney, Vermont, USA, and the organization she co-founded, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. She has devoted her life to anti-war, anti-violence activities, and has helped to found the Nobel Women’s Initiative which works for peace with equality and justice. (For more on Jody Williams, see this article and video.)

1992: Rigoberta Menchú Tum from Guatemala grew up in an impoverished Mayan Indian family that founded the Committee for the Peasant Union, which fought for social reform and justice for native families. Following the torture and murder of her father and brother, she fled the country and dedicated her life to promoting human rights and reconciliation. (For more on Rigoberts Menchu Tum, see this video.)

1991: Aung San Suu Kyi, born in Burma (now Myanmar), has earned international recognition for her work on human rights. Despite being held under house arrest in Burma for most of the past few decades, she has been continuously outspoken on behalf of the Burmese people. (For more on Aung San Suu Kyi, see this video.)

These five women are all human beings who have devoted their lives to promoting human rights and peace. Read or listen to their stories. What characteristics do you share with them? What can you do to promote peace and human rights? Everyone can do something–you don’t have to be a Nobel Laureate to make a difference for peace.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology