Posted on 09/28/2011 9:21:35 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
OSLO - The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize may recognize activists who helped unleash the revolutionary wave that swept through North Africa and the Middle East during the Arab Spring.
Wael Ghonim, an Egyptian Internet activist and Google executive, Egypt's April 6 Youth Movement, one of its founders Israa Abdel Fattah, and Tunisian blogger Lina Ben Mhenni could therefore be among those in line for the award when it is announced on Oct. 7.
"My strong sense is that this (Nobel) committee and its leader want to reflect the biggest international issues as defined by a wide definition of peace," said Jan Egeland, a former Norwegian deputy foreign minister.
"Following that logic, it will be the Arab Spring this year. Nothing comes close to that one as a defining moment of our time," he told Reuters.
A record 241 candidates, of which 53 are organizations, have been nominated for this year's award, worth 10 million crowns ($1.5 million). The five-strong prize committee will meet for the last time on Sept. 30.
Demonstrations and protests in 2011 involving hundreds of thousands of people have challenged the grip on power of autocratic rulers across the Arab world.
Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya have been removed from power while opposition movements in Syria and Yemen, among several other countries, are attempting to bring about political change.
Egeland's view was shared by Kristian Berg Harpviken, head of the Peace Research Institute Oslo. "The Arab Spring will be very high on the agenda of the committee's internal deliberations," he told Reuters.
(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...
Among the known nominees this year are:
* WikiLeaks and its leader Julian Assange,
* Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim,
* Afghan human rights advocate Sima Samar,
* the European Union,
* Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
GO FIGURE....
MORE NOMINEES UNDER CONSIDERATION:
* Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya Sardinas,
* Russian rights group Memorial and its founder Svetlana Gannushkina,
* Bradley Manning, who allegedly leaked secret U.S. cables to WikiLeaks,
* Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege.
I HAVE TO SAY WTF to Bradley Manning, but given that we have had — Yaser Arafat, Kofi Anand, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore and Barack Obama, I’m not surprised anymore
My gawd, man, the prize is a joke.
Jimmy Carter??
Al Gore??
The Obamaloon??
Add all three IQs and you’d still fail to get to triple digits.
That thing is as worthless as a White House press release and therefore will be a perfect fit for a Muslim “democracy” movement.
So much for any hint of credability.
Winning a Nobel Prize is almost as honorary as being a finalist in the Publisher’s Clearing house Sweepstakes. Obama won just for being elected, on the hopes of what he would do.
Many fools do not know when they have humilated themselves; the Nobel Prize committee is apparently compromised of fools on a global scale.
They should give it to Obama again.
Better hurry up and give it to them before World War III starts.
It matters not. The Nobel ANYTHING prize is based on politics period. After the Omoron rec’d his the award is worth exactly NOTHING.
They give the "Dunce prize" to those who are the most destructive. It's the opposite of what it used to mean.
Today, if you're given this "prize", you're one of the worlds biggest failures.
This just in: The Nobel prize will be awarded to a steaming pile of dung!
Ohhhh!!! That would be classic. The drive by’s would be peeing themselves in ecstacy celebrating their first ever twofer, and no one else will care.
Seriously. His great triumph in Libya should win it for him, easy.
“BAAAAA!”
(“Arab Spring...manly, yes, but I like it too.”)
The Nobel Peace Prize is comic relief, a toast to fools.
RE: Will those who sexually assaulted Lara Logan, or rebels who murdered women raped by Libyan troops get awards too? How about those freedom fighters who crossed from Sinai into Israel to murder IDF troops?
_________________________________
Let’s not forget those who attacked Israel’s embassy in Cairo. Given how most of the world hates Israel, that would surely count for a prize..
As with Obummer’s Peace Prize, it’s way to early to make the call that the Arab Spring is a good turn for humankind. The overthrow of some dictators alone is not enough to call it a good development — how it ends is still unknown and may well be so nasty that we will miss those dictators as their replacements could be worse devils.
As to the prize lists, the prize committee must be dominated by Marxist socialists of the Stalin variety as the choices are not those that a humanist would applaud. It isn’t worth a trip to sunny and happy Oslo to pick up the prize.
If the Arab Spring wins, I think the blonde reporter who was so peacefully roughed up by the Egyptian mob should cover the story, with personal reflections on the merits of the award included.
Brings to mind the joke from an earlier time:
Two guys talking when one says “Did you hear that George hass been nominated for a Nobel Prize?”
To which the other replies “I didn’t even know he WAS a communist.”
Sounds like the Nobel folks have opened things up to include tyrants of all stripes.
Now war really is peace.
Orwell would be proud of the Nobel folks.
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