Committee Chairman, Kaci Kullmann Five said that the Nobel committee hoped the prize would “contribute towards safeguarding democracy in Tunisia and be an inspiration to all those who seek to promote peace and democracy in the Middle East, North Africa and the rest of the world”.
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This year’s Nobel Peace Prize was a surprise even to the recipients, a little-known group of activists who brokered a political transition in Tunisia.
The prize was awarded almost five years after a desperate Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire, touching off a wave of unrest which left more than 300 people dead and eventually toppled the dictatorial president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, inspiring uprisings across the region. It also sparked the political upheaval that swept the Middle Eastern region and became known as the Arab Spring.
The organization has worked with and spoken out to defend the rights of three of the four Quartet’s members, which have for decades been at the forefront of the fight to defend the human rights of Tunisians. William Lawrence of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy joins Here &Now’s Robin Young.
He told the Associated Press he hoped it would encourage the winners to take a “larger responsibility” in solving Tunisia’s problems.
Steffen Seibert said Friday that the Nobel Peace Prize is “the 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”. In November 2013, after another walkout by the parties, he said “we do not believe in failure because the dialogue has to succeed – it is our destiny”.
“It is a very good prize that tries to get into the heart of the conflict in the Muslim world”, said Oeyvind Stenersen, a Nobel historian.
She also said the quartet has no leader: “It’s a collaboration”.
– Ahmed Samih, general director of Cairo-based Andalus Institute for Tolerance and anti-Violence Studies, said the award is “a recognition from the world that NGOs and labour syndicates in Tunisia rescued the country from a political fighting between the civil and Islamic forces”. There were clashes and a few extremist violence. In June, 38 tourists were massacred in a terrorist attack on a beach in Sousse. Another in March killed 22 people, again mostly tourists, at the country’s leading museum, the Bardo in Tunis.
– Lech Walesa, Poland’s 1983 victor for his Solidarity union’s peaceful struggle against communism, called the choice “a wise choice” which would help the region “to move forward”.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee cited the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet “for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy” following Tunisia’s 2011 revolution that overthrew its long-time dictator.
The Quartet, the Nobel Committee said, “established an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war”.
Other favorites included Pope Francis, Eritrean priest Mussie Zerai and Dr. Denis Mukwege of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif could be candidates for their July deal on Iran’s nuclear program, as could Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and rebel leader Rodrigo Londono.
