Liberia’s president, a fellow Liberian and a Yemeni activist received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo Saturday for showing how women facing war and oppression can shed the mantle of victimhood and lead the way to peace and democracy.
“You represent one of the most important motive forces for change in today’s world: the struggle for human rights in general and the struggle of women for equality and peace in particular,” Norwegian Nobel Committee president Thorbjoern Jagland said before handing out the prestigious award.
At the lavish ceremony in a colourfully flower-decked Oslo city hall, and with Norway’s royal family and other dignitaries in attendance, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, her compatriot and “peace warrior” Leymah Gbowee and Yemeni “Arab Spring” activist Tawakkol Karman received their gold medal and diploma.
“You give concrete meaning to the Chinese proverb which says that ‘women hold up half of the sky’,” Jagland told the laureates. As Syrian security forces killed more civilians Saturday, the Nobel Committee chief said the laureates’ work should serve as a warning to autocratic leaders such as those in Syria and Yemen. “The leaders in Yemen and Syria who murder their people to retain their own power should take note of the following: mankind’s quest for freedom and human rights can never stop,” Jagland said.
Gbowee, a 39-year-old social worker who led Liberia’s women to defy feared warlords and bring an end to her country’s bloody 1989-2003 civil war, hailed the Nobel Committee for shining the spotlight on women’s struggle for peace and human rights, insisting “this prize could not have come at a better time than this.”
“It has come at a time when in many societies where women used to be the silent victims and objects of men’s powers, women are throwing down the walls of repressive traditions with the invincible power of non-violence,” Gbowee, wearing a colourful headdress, said in her acceptance speech.
