Category: Nobel Peace Prize

TFF PressInfo 283: Nobel’s Peace Prize is not a human rights prize

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By Jan Oberg

Jan Oberg

The Nobel Committee again ignores Nobel’s will

This prize is not a human rights or do-good prize.

The two – excellent – people who are awarded the prize for 2014 have done great work for children’s rights but, unfortunately, human rights is not what Alfred Nobel sought to reward.

Therefore the Nobel Committee has, once again, violated the letter as well as the spirit of Nobel’s will.

The prize shall award reduction in military violence and end wars

Nobel wanted to reward “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” He also used the words “champions of peace”.

The Nobel Committe seems to have converted the prize into a “do-good prize”. Read More »

Aage Bertelsen (1901 – 1980) – Danish educator for peace

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By Jan Oberg & Johan Galtung*

Lund and Kuala Lumpur, July 2014

Introduction

He was a tall man and a great man, a visionary, pacifist, civil resister, educator and philosopher. He took life more seriously than most and he could be playful and fun like a child. His life’s guiding principle was ”Engage in your time!” and while he wrote and talked a lot he also did it. His name was Aage Bertelsen, he was born in Denmark in 1901 and died on August 15, 1980.

Bertelsen’s imprint on history is two-fold. First, with his wife Gerda he was a prime mover of one of the groups, the Lyngby Group, which organised the rescue of altogether 7.220 Danish Jews into safety in Sweden in October 1943 during the German occupation of Denmark – more here. The Lyngby Group – Lyngby is north of Copenhagen – got about 1.000 of these in safety by organising their nightly transport onboard small fisher boats over the Sound between Denmark and Sweden.

In this he deserves a place in international contemporary history for its humanity, civil courage and as an example of non-violent struggle against occupation.

Secondly, Bertelsen was an educator of and for peace. His life work educational efforts included his family and friends, his pupils over 22 years at the Aarhus Cathedral School in Aarhus, Denmark, the general public as well as national and international leaders.

He lived in pre-Internet times and very little is publicly available today about this renaissance man. From two rather different, but compatible, perspectives we’ve taken it upon us to remind the world about him – friends and colleagues of his as we happen to be.

Headmaster Aage Bertelsen in 1961 Photo: Elfeldt, Copenhagen

 

Why now, over 30 years after his death? Read More »

TFF PressInfo – Why Obama’s speech should make us think

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By Jan Oberg

Lund, Sweden – May 29, 2014

In a speech by the President of the United States of America – read by millions in all corners of our world in minutes – rest assured that every single word has been weighed with utmost care.

With this in mind, Obama’s speech can be analysed as both offending to the rest of us and – exceptionally – weak.

It caused no enthusiasm among the future army officers he spoke to and no enthusiasm among leading Western media.

I will argue that

• Intellectually and morally the speech doesn’t have the basics – full of contradictions and imbued with unbearable self-praise.

• While there is a recognition of ”mistakes” such as ”our” war in Iraq and a potential step-back from interventionism, there is neither an adequate analysis of the past nor of what the future may need in terms of leadership.

• Little had I anticipated that my analysis in the TFF PressInfo on ”Psycho politics in the age of imperial decline” just a few days ago would be confirmed so quickly and so strongly. Read More »

A Swedish peace organization about Nobel’s Peace Prize

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By Ola Friholt, Chairman of the Peace Movement of Orust and TFF Associate

To The Nobel Foundation, Stockholm
Att. Lars Heikensten
Executive Manager

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your letter dated 15th of January. It is always encouraging to be recognized and honoured by an answer welcoming continued exchange of views. We feel invited to write to you again.

As an active group within the peace movement we are mainly interested and familiar with the particular conditions connected with awarding a person the Nobel Prize for Peace. As we wrote to you recently, we are not at all satisfied with the level of respect shown by the Norwegian prize committee regarding the testament of Alfred Nobel and its explicit conditions for selecting a winner of the peace prize. The Norwegian committee is hardly having any respect at all for the instructions of Nobel, in spite of their explicit clarity.Read More »

Öppet brev: En fredsrörelses syn på Nobels fredspris

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Av Ola Friholt, ordförande i Fredsrörelsen på Orust & TFF Associate

Till Nobelstiftelsen, Stockholm

Att. Lars Heikensten, VD

Tack för ert brev den 15 januari. Det är alltid glädjande att bli tagen på allvar och få ett svar från en aktad institution. Och vi noterar med tillfredsställelse att ”Nobelstiftelsen välkomnar denna levande debatt och ser positivt på att den fortsätter.” Det är bl a därför vi återigen skriver till er.

Vi är som aktiv fredsrörelse huvudsakligen intresserade av och insatta i just villkoren för Nobels fredspris. Och som vi nyligen skrev till er är vi inte alls tillfreds med den norska priskommitténs grad av respekt för Nobels testamente och dess konkreta villkor för valet av pristagare. Den norska kommittén hyser knappast någon respekt alls för Nobels anvisningar, trots deras tydlighet.

Allmänt gäller ju att belöna aktiviteter ”under det förlupna året”. För att ta exemplet Obama, hade han under det året genomfört en presidentvalskampanj med de därtill hörande rundhänta löften och överord som kännetecknar en sådan kampanj. Och han vann den. Vad stämmer i detta fall överens med Nobels villkor för priset? Ironiska, men i grunden djupt besvikna, kommentatorer fällde den galghumoristiska kommentaren att ”Obama fick priset för att han inte var Bush”. Galghumorn består i att man inser att makten struntar i folkets åsikter.

Kommentarens imperfekttempus är här passande, eftersom Obama just i fredsfrågan numera i mycket liknar Bush genom de många godtyckliga utomrättsliga avrättningar han annars brukar beskylla olika islamiska ledare för. Drönarkriget är ett verk av denne mottagare av Nobels fredspris.

Detta är ett exempel i en lång rad av utmanande respektlösa prisutdelningar som norska priskommittén ansvarar för. I skrivelsen från vårt seminarium 7 december nämns flera andra, Mest anmärkningsvärt under senare år är priset till EU, som på ett flagrant sätt genom själva sin grundlag direkt diskvalificerar sig för priset.Read More »

TFF PressInfo: Criminal investigation of the Nobel Peace Prize

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Media release
Lund and Oslo, April 25, 2014

The management of the Nobel Peace Prize has become a case for the Norwegian police, following a request for criminal investigation from 16 prominent Scandinavians, parliamentarians, lawyers, authors and peace activists, 10 Swedes and 6 Norwegians, to the authority on economic crime, the ØKOKRIM.

The move is based on the research of Norwegian lawyer Fredrik S. Heffermehl who in his books has called for respect for Alfred Nobel and the peace plan he wished to support.

– “In his last years Nobel joined the peace movement and wished to support financially its idea of co-operation on disarmament to replace military force and forces. The Norwegian Parliament appoints the five-member selection committee that must step down and be replaced by people who favor the idea of the prize,” says Heffermehl.

He claims that his demands through 6 years, and even an order in March 2012 from the Swedish Foundations Authority have not led the awarders to show any interest in Nobel and what he really wanted.

– “This is unlawful and criminal, and the requested police investigation comes as a last resort to secure justice for “the champions of peace” Nobel specified in his will.Read More »

TFF awarded the People’s Nobel Peace Prize

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By Jan Oberg

TFF and its founders were awarded the People’s Peace Prize on December 7, 2013 by The Peace Movement at Orust, Sweden – the best in Scandinavia and one that has existed for over 30 years in an amazing public role and staunch adherence to the Gandhian/UN principle of creating peace by peaceful means.

Jan Oberg received the prize on behalf of the foundation at a seminar held at Orust about the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s ignorance – seen through its awards the last years – about the real meaning of Alfred Nobel’s will which you may read here.

While the text here is in Swedish enjoy the photos and get a sense of the lovely people, the atmosphere and the fabulous Nobel dinner.

While this prize is not accompanied by any money, we will that it has something the official Norwegian Nobel Prize does not have: decision-makers who know what peace is and what Alfed Nobel really intended.

Thank so very much for this great encouragement. We promise to continue on the road that is peace…

Stop giving the West a bad name!

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By Johan Galtung

Milano

There it is, that fantastic duomo, the fourth in size in the Christian world, honoring their God, exuding self-confidence, and the beauty of the marble stones of the huge façade. Founded six hundred years ago, took five centuries to build, a marvel of engineering and architecture. A major concert with a choir does not manage to fill the inner space of the dome, but of the listeners, yes, with awe.

Conceived in the “dark ages” as those masters of cultural violence, our historians, call them, the “middle ages”, presumably between two “shiny ages”, the Roman Empire and Western colonialism, “modern times”. Will anything built today be visited by people in five hundred years, filling them with awe? Some banks, corporations? Some corrupted national assemblies? Some stadiums, shopping centers sloppily made, collapsing, built with no love, except for money? Some huge missile ramps to sow death and harvest hatred and revenge?

Do they ever think of that, the “leaders” in the most aggressive parts of the West, Anglo-America, UKUSAF–adding F for that center of “enlightenment” and “modernity”, France – do they think of the harm they do to all of us, in the West? To our past, to our legacy?

But soon it is over; they are losing Afghanistan and Iraq, Libya and Mali–no democracy, no economic growth, no human rights arising from the ashes of the most basic human right, to life, insulted. All over even mainstream media are filled with negativism; crying failure.Read More »

Statement on Nobel’s Peace Prize and TFF receives the People’s Nobel Peace Prize

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By Jan Oberg

Here first the important statement by seminar participants (in Swedish below):

The Nobel Peace Prize must not be misused

A Nordic seminar at Orust (Sweden) about the Nobel Peace Prize has analysed the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s selection of awardees over time. Lead by former Prime Minister Torbjørn Jagland, it has awarded the prize to e.g. Wangari Maathai, Al Gore, Shirin Ebadi, Liu Xiabo, Barack Obama and institutions such as the European Union (EU).

The mentioned personalities have undoubtedly contributed in various ways to a better future of the world but they have not met the criteria which Alfred Nobel formulated in his will, namely:

• Active struggle for the abolition or reduction of standing armies
• Contributing to the fraternity among nations
• Creation of negotiations/dialogues aiming at peace and congresses for peace
• Resilience as ”fredsförfäktare” – champions of peace.

This unambiguous anti-militarist mandate is strongly contradicted by the selection of the European Union Read More »

Nelson Mandela’s inspiration

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By Richard Falk

Fifteen years ago I had the extraordinary pleasure of meeting Nelson Mandela in Cape Town while he was serving as President of South Africa. It was an odd occasion. I was a member of the International Commission on the Future of the Oceans, which was holding a meeting in South Africa. It happened that one of the vice chairs of the Commission was Kader Asmal, a cherished friend and a member of the first Mandela cabinet who himself played a major role in the writing of the South African Constition. Kader had arranged for Mandela to welcome the Commission to his country, and asked me if I would prepare some remarks on his behalf, which was for me an awesome assignment, but one that I undertook with trepidation, not at all confident that I could find the words to be of some slight help to this great man.

Compounding my personal challenge, the Brazilian Vice Chair of our oceans commission who was supposed to give a response on behalf of the Commission became ill, and I was asked by our chair to respond to Mandela on behalf of the commission. I did have the thrill of hearing 90% of my text delivered by Mandela, which years later I remember much better than my eminently forgettable words of response to the President.

What moved me most, and has led me to make this rather narcissistic introduction, is the conversation after the event. Read More »