Nobel Peace Prize - a year of women

This year's Noble Peace Prize has gone to three women: two from Africa and one from the Arab world. They are President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who also has the distinction of being the first elected woman president of an African country; her fellow Liberian and peace activist Leymah Gbowee; and a Yemeni pro-democracy campaigner Tawakkul Karman. The Nobel Committee citation noted that "we cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence development at all levels of society." The two Liberian women are credited with extraordinary efforts to restore peace and development in their country after 14 years of war and destruction: President Sirleaf as a peacemaker and reformer, and Gbowee for uniting Christian and Muslim women against the country's warlords and helping end civil war in 2003. The peace prize usually is reflective of Western biases. Hence, given their outstanding service to the cause of peace and development, the Liberians were a safe bet. Mrs Sirleaf is a Harvard trained economist who has also served with the World Bank before joining her people's struggle for peace and development. Gbowee too is well known in western circles. She in fact was on her way to a book launch tour of the US when she received the good news. Much as they deserved the prize, the news was hardly surprising. The surprising part pertained to the Yemeni pro-democracy activist. Dissidents have won the Peace Prize before. Back in 2003 Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi became the first Muslim women to win the honour. Last year, the prize went to a famous Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo. Both Ebadi and Xiaobo have struggled against heavy odds, at great personal risk, to fight for freedom and human rights. The Nobel committee, apparently, had an easy job selecting them for the award. The case of Tawakkul Karman is different. She has two important dissimilarities. One, as head of human rights advocacy group, Women Journalists Without Chains, she has been a staunch opponent of the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a trusted American ally. Second, far from being a social liberal Tawakkul is a hijab wearing conservative Muslim. Hence her naming for the prize amounts to an indirect recognition that just like practicing Christians, practicing Muslims can aspire to universal values of peace and democracy; and that Islam and retrogression are not synonymous. In fact, Nobel Committee Chairman Thorbjoem Jagland told reporters the award to the Yemeni rights activist is a signal to Arab autocrats that it is time to go, as well as a warning to new leaders, including Islamists, to protect women's rights. Copyright Business Recorder, 2011