Nobel peace prize 2015 to be awarded to the National Dialogue Quartet in Tunisia
Source: guardian
Updated as new information is given
From the Committee
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2015 is to be awarded to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011. The Quartet was formed in the summer of 2013 when the democratization process was in danger of collapsing as a result of political assassinations and widespread social unrest. It established an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war. It was thus instrumental in enabling Tunisia, in the space of a few years, to establish a constitutional system of government guaranteeing fundamental rights for the entire population, irrespective of gender, political conviction or religious belief.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/oct/09/nobel-peace-prize-2015-awarded-angela-merkel-pope-francis-john-kerry-live-updates
For the full citation from the Nobel Committee
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2015/press.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=twitter_tweet
BumRushDaShow
(128,714 posts)Let's hope that Tunisia can hold... The country has been at the center of alot of discord over the decades.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,294 posts)The National Dialogue Quartet has comprised four key organizations in Tunisian civil society: the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT, Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail), the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts (UTICA, Union Tunisienne de lIndustrie, du Commerce et de lArtisanat), the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH, La Ligue Tunisienne pour la Défense des Droits de lHomme), and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers (Ordre National des Avocats de Tunisie). These organizations represent different sectors and values in Tunisian society: working life and welfare, principles of the rule of law and human rights. On this basis, the Quartet exercised its role as a mediator and driving force to advance peaceful democratic development in Tunisia with great moral authority. The Nobel Peace Prize for 2015 is awarded to this Quartet, not to the four individual organizations as such.
The Arab Spring originated in Tunisia in 2010-2011, but quickly spread to a number of countries in North Africa and the Middle East. In many of these countries, the struggle for democracy and fundamental rights has come to a standstill or suffered setbacks. Tunisia, however, has seen a democratic transition based on a vibrant civil society with demands for respect for basic human rights.
An essential factor for the culmination of the revolution in Tunisia in peaceful, democratic elections last autumn was the effort made by the Quartet to support the work of the constituent assembly and to secure approval of the constitutional process among the Tunisian population at large. The Quartet paved the way for a peaceful dialogue between the citizens, the political parties and the authorities and helped to find consensus-based solutions to a wide range of challenges across political and religious divides. The broad-based national dialogue that the Quartet succeeded in establishing countered the spread of violence in Tunisia and its function is therefore comparable to that of the peace congresses to which Alfred Nobel refers in his will.
http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/laureates/laureates-2015/announce-2015/
Seems quite a good choice, to me. Tunisia is the one country where the Arab Spring has succeeded.
pampango
(24,692 posts)of the 2011 Jasmine Revolution."
We are very glad to have this prize, she says. It means a lot of things. First, the Tunisian experience is very important we succeed with dialogue, together... We did what others failed.
... the prize wasthe deserved reward for working on democracy, for sticking to the idea that a people that has shaken off dictatorship deserves something better than a new dictatorship.
For all the good words about Tunisias efforts at peace, its necessary to note that the country has seen two very high profile attacks this year by Islamist gunmen which targeted foreign tourists.
In March, 22 people, mainly European tourists, died when gunmen attacked the Bardo museum in Tunis. In June, 38 people, 30 of them British, were killed in an attack on the beach resort of Sousse.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/oct/09/nobel-peace-prize-2015-awarded-angela-merkel-pope-francis-john-kerry-live-updates
You have to wonder if fundamentalists will see this Peace Prize as a challenge to undermine the successes of a small country like Tunisia. They certainly do not want to see this repeated in other Arab countries that depose dictators in the area.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)deserved.
Why do the good outcomes of peace through diplomacy get only a fraction of the coverage of the bad outcomes of war through hatred?
The quartet of government, business, labor and human rights groups forged the result by force of their "moral authority" as announced by the NPPC committee chair.
I like that term..."moral authority".
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)lovers and lovers of lies.