tawakkol karman
Nobel Lecture [2011]
IN 2011, Yemeni journalist and human rights activist Tawakkol Karman (b. 1979) became the first Arab woman and the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Karman has been a visible figure in the movement known as the "Arab Spring"—a wave of pro-democracy protests throughout the Arab world that have resulted in dictators being forced from office in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and her native Yemen. Karman shared the 2011 prize with two Liberian women—Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee—"for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work," as the Nobel Committee stated.
Tawakkol Karman was born into a prominent Yemeni family. Her father is an attorney who once served as the country's minister of legal affairs. She earned an undergraduate degree in business from the University of Science and Technology in Sana'a, Yemen, and a graduate degree in political science at the University of Sana'a. When she completed her schooling, she went to work as a reporter for the Yemeni newspaper Al-Thawra (The Revolution).
Karman first came to prominence in 2005 as one of the founders of Women Journalists without Chains, an organization that promotes human rights and advocates for the free expression of ideas in the Arab world. Soon after, she became active in protesting the government of Yemeni dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, in whose cabinet her father had once served. Her protests and writings against the government led to death threats and an assassination attempt in 2010.
When she won the Nobel Prize in 2011 at the age of 32, Karman immediately became one of the Saleh regime's most prominent opponents. She used this prestige to lobby world leaders to oppose the regime and support the pro-democracy demonstrations that had taken root across the country. Her efforts were successful— in February of 2012, Saleh's 34-year rule came to an end when he stepped down peacefully and left the country. Karman donated her $500,000 in prize money to help the families of those killed in the Yemeni uprisings. Though violence and unrest have continued in Yemen and other countries touched by the Arab Spring, Tawakkol Karman's lecture and example point to a way forward for lasting reform.
In the name of God the Compassionate the Merciful!
Your Majesties, Highnesses, Excellencies, Distinguished Committee of the Nobel Peace Prize, Arab spring and revolution youth in the arena of freedom and change, and all free people of the world: Peace upon you from the Nobel Peace rostrum!
With joy and pleasure I would like to express my gratitude for the honor I was given together with my peace fighter colleagues, Her Excellency the President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Mrs. Leymah Gbowee, for this international award, which carries great moral and human meaning. Thank you for the award, which I consider as an honor to me personally, to my country Yemen, to Arab women, to all women of the world and to all people aspiring to freedom and dignity. I accept the award on my behalf and on behalf of the Yemeni and Arab revolutionary youth, who are leading today's peaceful struggle against tyranny and corruption with moral courage and political wisdom.
Alfred Nobel's dream of a world, where peace prevails and wars disappear, has not been achieved yet, but the hope of making it come true has grown large, and the effort to achieve it has doubled. The Nobel Peace Prize still offers this hope spiritual and conscientious momentum. For more than a hundred years, this award has stood as proof of the values of peaceful struggle for rights, justice and freedom, and also as proof of how wrong violence and wars are with all their backfiring and devastating results.
I have always believed that resistance against repression and violence is possible without relying on similar repression and violence. I have always believed that human civilization is the fruit of the effort of both women and men. So, when women are treated unjustly and are deprived of their natural right in this process, all social deficiencies and cultural illnesses will be unfolded, and in the end the whole community, men and women, will suffer. The solution to women's issues can only be achieved in a free and democratic society in which human energy is liberated, the energy of both women and men together. Our civilization is called human civilization and is not attributed only to men or women.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Since the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, millions of people have died in wars which could have been avoided with a little wisdom and courage. The Arab countries had their share in these tragic wars, though their land is the land of prophecies and divine messages calling for peace. From this land came the Torah carrying the message: "Thou shalt not kill" and the Bible promising: "Blessed are the peacemakers," and the final message of the Koran urging "O ye who believe, enter ye into the peace, one and all." And the warning that "whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind."
However, in spite of its great scientific achievements, the history of humanity 5 is stained with blood. Millions have fallen victims in the rise and fall of kingdoms. That is what ancient history tells us and what recent history confirms! Today's recent evidence tells us that the essence of messages calling for peace has repeatedly been trampled, and the human conscience has often been overrun by the voice of war- planes, rocket and missile launchers, bombs and all means of killing!
Ladies and gentlemen,
Mankind's feeling of responsibility to create a decent life and make it worth living with dignity has always been stronger than the will to kill life. Despite great battles, the survival of the human race is the clearest expression of mankind's yearning for reconstruction, not for destruction, for progress, not for regression and death. This tendency is strengthened day after day with all available means of communications, thanks to the rapid and astonishing development of information technology and the communications revolution. Walls between human societies have fallen down and the lives and destinies of societies have converged, marking the emergence of a new phase, a phase where peoples and nations of the world are not only residents of a small village, as they say, but members of one family, despite differences in nationality and race or in culture and language. All the members of this one family interact in all corners of our planet and share the same aspirations and fears. Despite all its missteps, humanity will go on in its march towards what is "beneficial to the people" and will make different cultures, identities and specific characteristics of civilizations come closer to each other on the road towards positive convergence and interaction, both in taking and in giving. Thus, understanding will gradually replace dispute, cooperation will replace conflict, peace will replace war, and integration will replace division.
One can say that our contemporary world, which has been refined and developed by expertise and long experience, good and bad, is marching with confident steps towards the creation of a new world and shining globalization. It will be a new and positive world with human prospects and globalization which will guarantee the values of freedom, truth, justice and cooperation to all human beings. It will be a world where all relationships, dealings and laws will be based on the prohibition of all forms and practices of exclusion and enslavement of man by man. This will mean a globalization with no policies of injustice, oppression, discrimination or tyranny, and a world full of partnership and cooperation, dialogue and coexistence, and acceptance of others. This will mean a globalization where resorting to the law of power and its might, against groups, peoples and nations, in order to deprive them of their liberty and human dignity, will disappear, once and forever. Am I dreaming too much . . . ?