Nobel Peace Prize Winners
Nobel Peace Prizes are awarded during this general time each year, though not on a set date. Consequently, several Peace Prizes were awarded on this date, December 10, in various years.
Earlier in the season (November 27), we focused on the man, Alfred Nobel, who established the endowment for the various Nobel Prizes. Today, we look briefly at several who received awards on this date and how winners are chosen.
Nobel, the Swedish-born chemist and inventor of dynamite, decreed that the national parliament in his neighboring Norway should select the Peace Prize winners and make the annual awards. The assignment for making the other Nobel awards (for chemistry, physics, literature, physiology or medicine, and economics) was given to Swedish panels.
Potential winners do not apply directly. Other people make nominations along with explanations as to why these nominees should be considered.
Some objected to Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1964 award because violence often followed his efforts to advance civil rights for African-Americans. But, King’s defenders point out, he was committed to non-violence and his opponents wrought the violence. Similarly, some questioned the awards in 1994 to Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres and to Palestinian Yasser Arafat as conflict continued to rage between those nations. But the award is for those who search for peace, not necessarily for those who have established peace.
In 1931, Jane Addams was a co-recipient, the first woman in the United States to receive the prize. After giving up medical studies because of poor health, Ms. Addams established a “settlement house” or community center in a Chicago area that was plagued by poverty and crime. She also worked for child-labor laws, eight-hour work day laws for women, juvenile courts, and housing reform.
Ralph J. Bunche in 1950 was the first black winner. He worked in the US Department of State and was on a United Nations group who brought about an Arab-Israeli armistice in 1949.
Lech Walesa, Polish labor leader who later would be elected president of Poland, was the 1983 winner. But his wife, Danuta, accepted his Peace Prize because he was in prison for his defiance of the Communist leaders of Poland.
The 1986 winner was Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, prolific writer and speaker on behalf of human understanding.
All these remind us, peace is elusive, sometimes accomplished, sometimes left unfulfilled. Advent can be a time when each of us, in his or her own way, wages peace in our various relationships, in the name of the Prince of Peace, whose coming we celebrate.
Verses for Today
“If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18).
“Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding” (Romans 14:19).
Each day through New Year’s Day, January 1, 2013, inspirational thoughts will appear, in keeping with Advent, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. These are from my book, Reflections for the Festive Seasons. © 2002. All rights reserved.
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