Nobel Peace Prize Winners from the Middle East

There have so far been 10 Middle Eastern Nobel Peace Prize winners from the Middle East. Here I'm going to give you a brief break down of who they were and why they were awarded. But first I'd like to say that I want to update this list in a few years to include a Bahraini. I know there are plenty of deserving people there so come on Bahrain!

1978 

Mohamed Anwar Al Sadat and Menachem Begin

Image by Assaf Shtilman on Flickr

Mohammed Anwar Al Sadat was the third President of Egypt, serving for 11 years until 1981 when he was assassinated during an annual victory parade in Cairo which celebrates Egypt’s crossing of the Suez Canal.

Menachem Begin was the head of the Likud party and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel, serving for six years until 1983. He died of a heart attack at age 78 in 1992.

Both men were celebrated and hated for many reasons but in 1978 they were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize because they signed the Camp David Agreement which brought about a negotiated peace between Egypt and Israel.

1994

Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres

Image by Deede Kharisma on Flickr

Controversial figure Yasser Arafat was the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), leader of the Fatah political party and president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) for eight years until 2004 when he died at age 75.

Yitzhak Rabin was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office until his assassination by right-wing Israeli radical Yigal Amir in 1995.

Shimon Peres is the ninth President of the State of Israel, having served twice before as Prime Minister and Interim Prime Minister.

These three men were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for peace talks that produced the Oslo Accords which was an attempt to resolve the Palestine-Israel conflict. A statement released by the Norwegian Nobel Committee said the prize was awarded

“to honour a political act which called for great courage on both sides, and which has opened up opportunities for a new development towards fraternity in the Middle East.”

 

2003 

Shirin Ebadi

Image by Olivier Pacteau on Flickr

Shirin Ebadi was the first ever Iranian and Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She is an Iranian lawyer, writer, former judge, lecturer, human rights activist and founder of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre in Iran. She is currently living in exile in the UK.

2003’s Prize was awarded to her

“for her efforts for democracy and human rights. She has focused especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children.” Moreover, the Norwegian Nobel Committee stated:

“She has stood up as a sound professional, a courageous person, and has never heeded the threats to her own safety… She favours enlightenment and dialogue as the best path to changing attitudes and resolving conflict.”

2005 

Mohamed El Baradei and the IAEA

A portrait of Mohamed El Baradei. Image by Abode of Chaos on Flickr

Mohamed El Baradei is an Egyptian law scholar and diplomat who has played a rather pivotal role in the recent 2011 Egyptian revolution which has ousted President Hosni Mubarak. He was the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – an international organisation which promotes the peaceful use of nuclear energy - for 12 years until 2009.

He and the IAEA were jointly awarded the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize

“for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way.”

2011

Tawakkul Karman, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee 

Also known as the “Mother of the Revolution”, Tawakkul Karman is a Yemeni journalist, politician, human rights activist and co-founder of the group Women Journalists Without Chains, who also became a prominent figure in the 2011 Yemeni uprising. She is the first Yemeni, Arab woman and second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize.

Image of a female Yemeni protester by ssoosay on Flickr

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the 24^th President of Liberia and is the first and currently only elected female head of state in Africa.

Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist who was responsible for leading a women’s peace movement which brought an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003 and led to the election of Ellen Sirleaf.

These three astonishing ladies were jointly awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize “For their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work”.

In a press release published last month it was said:

“It is the Norwegian Nobel Committee's hope that the prize... will help to bring an end to the suppression of women that still occurs in many countries, and to realise the great potential for democracy and peace that women can represent."



This post was written by Katy Gillett. You can contact Katy at kgillett@uclan.ac.uk

In Bahrain's Image

Click on the 'hot spots' for more information on Bahrain.

Images are my own. Music by Nazihyat.


This post was written by Katy Gillett. You can contact Katy at kgillett@uclan.ac.uk

Mornings in Jenin: The Film Adaptation

One of my favourite books of all time, Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa, is to be made into a movie by Filmworks Dubai who picked up the rights just yesterday according to literary and film agency Pontas.

Freedom Theatre in Jenin, Palestine. By Guillaume Paumier (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

To give you a very brief summary:

The story starts off in 1948 Palestine when the Abulheja family are forced to leave their ancestral home in Ein Hod and move into a refugee camp in Jenin. We mainly follow Amal Abulheja, who was born in the camp, and experiences more love and loss than we could imagine in her lifetime. Told through six decades of Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the story is set in Palestine, Israel, Lebanon and America. We are told the story of her brothers: one, kidnapped when young and brought up to be an Israeli soldier, and the other, a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation who is willing to die for his peoples' freedom. We also learn of her mother, father, grandparents, friends and finally, her daughter.

Susan Abulhawa is an American-based author and human rights activist of Palestinian descent. She lives with her daughter in Pennsylvania and is the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, a children's organisation which is "dedicated to upholding the Right to Play for Palestinian children living under Israeli military occupation in Palestine and in refugee camps elsewhere" according the her website.

Her debut novel, Mornings in Jenin, was originally published in America in English as The Scar of David by Bloomsbury but has since been translated into many other languages. Now it is set to go into production at the end of 2013!

This excites me for two reasons:

Firstly, this is a deeply moving book which highlights atrocities in Palestine while still managing to remain sympathetic to Israelis. It is heartbreaking, enlightening, beautifully written and real. I would honestly bet that if anybody read this book their eyes and heart would open to a pain and strength that many, many of us have never even had to imagine.

Secondly, Filmworks Dubai have been pretty awesome at film production so far. They produced an excellent movie called City of Life which was directed, written and produced by the pioneering Emirati film maker (and rather good looking Dunhill ambassador) Ali F Mostafa who I've had the very good fortune to actually meet (I had to put that out there!). They also produced Tobe Hooper's thriller Djinn which I have not seen, but after reading about it (it's a slasher flick set in Abu Dhabi) I'm certainly going to!

And if that's not enough to convince you - which I'm pretty sure it's not as I'm not sure how many people will have heard of these movies - Filmworks Dubai were also production partners on top Hollywood projects such as Syriana, The Kingdom and Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol.

In a nutshell, they know what they're doing and I, for one, cannot wait to see the film adaptation of a story that is going to change a lot of lives.


This post was written by Katy Gillett. You can contact Katy at kgillett@uclan.ac.uk

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Bahrain vs England: 10 differences

Today I was in the ladies toilets at the university and a man was also in there cleaning.

It got me thinking, as I often do, about the differences between living in Bahrain and England. A man would never be cleaning the ladies’ in Bahrain. Haram!

I’ve lived in the Middle East since I was three months old. As you would expect I’ve gotten quite used to their way of doing things.

I am fully British and hail from the northwest of England but when I used to come for the summer holidays and the couple of years in between that I’ve actually lived here, it’s been quite strange to realise I’m not very British at all. I’m certainly not very northern (and people often like to point this out).

So, when I do come back, I notice things that people take for granted, just as they would notice what I wouldn’t in Bahrain. There are plenty of differences so I’m going to share a few of the less obvious ones with you.

1. Hair salons
One time I hadn’t been back to the UK in 3 years and one of the first things I noticed when I came back was the fact that you can see inside the hair salons from the outside. In Bahrain beauty salons are strictly for men or women. You can see into the little barber shops but women’s salon windows are always blacked out. I actually quite like that. Let’s be honest a head covered in tin-foil is never a good look.

Image by Wrote on Flickr

2. Friendly people
British people are so reserved and generally quite unfriendly to strangers at least. For instance just check out peoples’ reactions when you sit next to them on a train! Or actually try talking to someone random and see how they react. Whereas in Bahrain you smile or say hi to most people you walk past and it’s completely natural.

3. Greetings
Kind of goes back to people really. In Bahrain you hug or kiss people on both cheeks whether you’ve just met them or have known them for years. It’s the most awkward thing ever trying to do that with anyone in England!

4. Zebra crossings
I love how every driver immediately stops when you’re even nearing a zebra crossing in England. There are some in Bahrain but I doubt anyone knows what they actually mean. Cross at your peril in other words.

Image by FaceMePLS on Flickr

5. Toilet etiquette
OK this one’s a bit strange. How can I put it? Bottom washers. Arabs tend to wash their bottoms after going to the toilet with a hose which is in every house bathroom or public loo. It sounds gross to the British but actually if you think about it it’s so much more hygienic if you combine both hose and toilet paper.

6. Architecture
I love British buildings because most of them are so old and you really get a sense of English history. Around where I live in St Annes there are some fabulous houses that make me imagine secret rooms hidden behind bookshelves and attics full of memories. In Bahrain there are still some amazing houses but everything looks much more modern. Every house in insanely different as well; one will have a Japanese influence and sit beside one that looks like it should be in the Mediterranean.

Image by Karen Roe on Flickr

7. I can walk!
Walking is such an odd thing to do in Bahrain probably because of the lack of safe pavements and often sweltering heat. I love being able to walk everywhere in England; you feel so much healthier. In fact, I love how I can take public transport as well. For instance there’s no such thing as a train in Bahrain (yet). I just love not having to drive (and if I was I’d love not having to drive on the crazy Bahraini roads). There’s a lot of love in that paragraph.

8. Water on tap
It’s pretty great I can tell you. There’s nothing worse than realising you’re out of water after a heavy night out. NOTHING! It’s also very annoying when you’re about to boil some pasta or make a cup of tea and find out you just can’t.

Image by wwarby on Flickr

9. The postal service and internet shopping
Complain all you like about Royal Mail but all I ask is go and try and send a letter within Bahrain. To be honest I never bothered trying to work it out. You can’t just get it delivered to your house in Bahrain; that would be too much effort for the postmen. So you have a post box but they’re hardly convenient.
Anyway back to my second point – internet shopping! It’s slowly taking off in Bahrain but there’s hardly anything available. You can get anything with the click of a button here! I do a lot of clicking.

10. Widespread alcohol availability
Alcohol is allowed in Bahrain but only in restricted areas – namely hotels, social clubs, licensed restaurants, bars, nightclubs and booze shops. But you cannot have any place that sells alcohol in a residential area, near a school or in a shopping centre. In England however, you can find it most places. Costa Coffee at Manchester Airport even sells beer! Not that I want a drink everywhere but it’s just nice to know I can.


This post was written by Katy Gillett. You can contact Katy at kgillett@uclan.ac.uk