Sistani: Nobel Peace Laureate?

A group of Iraqi exiles in the US has nominated Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
It’s a brilliant nomination. I’ve written on this blog a number of times (1, 2, 3) about Sistani’s intentional use of the techniques of organized mass nonviolence.
Most crucially, last August, he succeeded in completely defusing the lethal confrontations between the US occupation forces and the Sadrists in Najaf and Kerbala– purely by organizing a massive, peaceful march of supporters to those cities… The Americans (more or less) held their fire… The Sadrist fighters melted into the large Shiite crowds… and the battle was ended with almost no further loss of life.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee announces its awards annually, in around September (before formally awarding them on Dec. 10.) When I was writing this 2000 book on the Nobel peace prize winners, and the prize as an institution, I got to discuss the general criteria the Committee uses when it makes its awards, briefly, with Geir Lundestad, the Secretary to the Committee. From what he said and from the record of the prizes they’ve awarded, I would describe their recent and current criteria as these:

    (1) Past record and performance of the individual or institution concerned,
    (2) A desire to encourage and strengthen existing political/diplomatic processes that tend in a strongly pro-peace direction by making awards even where the “past record”– as in number 1– has not yet been the solid achievement of peace. (Q.v., the awards to Arafat, Rabin, and Peres in 1994).
    (3) A commitment to do serious outside-the-box reframing and rethinking about the nature of peace and the identity and characteristics of “prize-worthy” people– e.g. by making sure that more non-whitefolks, more women, more grassroots leaders, and more people working on issues like human rights, the environment etc, rather than just the same-old same-old “diplomatists and statesmen” get the prize.

I would say on all three of these criteria, Sistani is a very serious candidate indeed.
I understand, of course, that the Committee is not open at all to lobbying. (Heaven forbid!)
It is really interesting to note, in addition, that the AP story linked to above made clear that the mainly-exiled Iraqis who presented the 7,000-signature petition to the Nobel Committee were Chaldean Christians. That’s right– Christians.
Excellent!

3 thoughts on “Sistani: Nobel Peace Laureate?”

  1. Mmm it’s a better choice for sure than last year, when some Rep were lobbying for the nomination of Bush. I must say that I’ve been impressed by Sistani, by his recent calls for moderation, in avoiding any escalation with the Sunnis and by not answering to the bombing of the Shiites mosquees. that said, I don’t think that Sistani will give much attention to that, not that he will go and pick it up.
    I’ve read in a wire the call of the Iraqis Christians; I’was put of because one of their justification is that Sistani didn’t oppose to the occupation. If I remember, he didn’t condemn the razing of Falludja either.

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