Nobel prizes and Archbishop Desmond Tutu

On 2 July 2015, eighty-three-year-old Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa renewed his wedding vows with his wife Leah at the St Georges Cathedral, Cape Town on the sixtieth (60th) anniversary of their marriage in 1955.

The ceremony interestingly was presided over by their daughter Rev Canon Mpho Tutu, also an Anglican priest. As the couple repeated their vows after Mpho, citing “for better or for worse,” her mother the bride Leah improvised saying “For better and better...” Asked what the secret has been in their long years of marriage in an era where divorce no longer raises eyebrows, they attributed it to LAUGHTER!

They said, right from the beginning of their marriage, they learnt very early “to laugh at each other, and laugh with each other.” They added that a good sense of humour is a necessary spice for a happy marriage. An avid anti-apartheid campaigner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, for his fight against apartheid in South Africa. 

One may ask a few questions. Who is Nobel? What is a Nobel Prize, and maybe what is the Nobel Peace Prize about? For the younger generation, one could also ask, what is apartheid?

Alfred Nobel

Who is Nobel? Alfred Bernhard Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, armament manufacturer and inventor who lived between 1833 and 1896. He created the Bofors Steel Company which he later converted into an armaments manufacturing company. He was also a writer and an author.

His most enduring invention has been the DYNAMITE. In 1888, Alfred’s younger brother Ludwig died. Mistaking the dead Nobel to be Alfred, several newspapers published obituaries about the living Alfred Nobel. None was positive.  A French obituary stated “Le marchand de la mort est mort” (The merchant of death is dead).

It condemned him for the invention of weapons of destruction like the cannon and dynamite and went on to say “Dr Alfred Nobel who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before died yesterday.”

The effect of these publications about him was profound.  Alfred Nobel was disappointed with what he read. His conscience pricked him about what legacy he was leaving behind and how humanity would remember him, in spite of all his inventions.

He felt the need for some damage control about his image and reputation. It was at this stage of his life that he decided to bequeath his fortune to humanity for the promotion of peace and development through a Nobel Foundation.

Nobel Prizes

What are the Nobel Prizes? In his will, Alfred Nobel established five prizes in 1895 for Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medecine, Literature and Peace. These awards were to be made to individuals not exceeding three persons, or an organization, in each category for making a positive contribution to humanity in the previous year.

The first awards were made in 1901. In 1968, a new Prize for Economics was instituted by the Swedish Central Bank, thus bringing the Nobel Prizes to six disciplines. The Nobel Prizes are awarded annually. The Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway while the other five are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden.

Desmond Tutu and Malala Yousafzai

On 10 December 2014, the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded to Pakistan’s seventeen ((17) year old Malala Yousafzai and India’s 60 year old Kailash Satyarthi in Oslo, Norway. Incidentally, earlier on in 2009, Archbishop Desmond Tutu had nominated Malala for the International Children’s Peace Prize. Born in July 1997, Malala became a Child Rights activist who campaigned for the education of girls in her native Swat Valley in Pakistan.

On account of her activism for girls’ education in a society which did not accept girl education, Archbishop Desmond Tutu nominated her for the International Children’s Peace Prize in early 2009. On 9 October 2012, she was shot in the head while returning home from school in a school bus.

Two school mates of Malala were also wounded in the attack.  After she had been stabilized in a Military Hospital in Pakistan, she was flown to the Queen Elizabeth Specialist Hospital in Birmingham, United Kingdom for further treatment. After her recovery, she addressed the United Nations on the need for girl-child education all over the world.

Her numerous travels have taken her to Nigeria where in 2014, she met and made a special appeal to Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan on the release of the two hundred and seventy-six Chibok schoolgirls. The girls who were kidnapped from their school on 15 April 2014 were students of the Government Girls Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Borno State of Nigeria.

Some Nobel Prize laureates

In 1960, Albert Lithuli, the President of the African National Congress (ANC) in apartheid South Africa, became the first African to win the Nobel Peace Prize. This was in his recognition of his efforts to bring peace to South Africa through non-violent means.

So what is, or what was apartheid? Apartheid in the Afrikaans language of the minority whites in South Africa called the Boers meant “apart-ness” or separation. Apartheid was thus a political and social system in South Africa between 1948 and 1994 which segregated South Africans on the basis of race or

Apartheid was thus a political and social system in South Africa between 1948 and 1994 which segregated South Africans on the basis of race or colour. Under Apartheid, South Africans were divided by race, and the races were segregated and forced to live apart.

Blacks lived in designated black townships and were not allowed in Whites only areas. In 1994, apartheid was banned in South Africa. For their contributions in bringing apartheid to an end in 1994, the last white President under apartheid FW de Klerk, and the first black President in non-apartheid South Africa Nelson Mandela, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1994.

Earlier on in 1961, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the second Secretary General of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjold, who died in a controversial plane crash over Ndola Airport in then Northern Rhodesia which on independence in 1962 became Zambia.

In 2014, the UN reopened investigations into the circumstances surrounding the controversial plane crash that killed Dag Hammarskjold. The Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1964 was the black American civil rights campaigner Rev Martin Luther King. 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu won the Peace Prize in 1984. For the first time in the history of Nobel awards, the Nigerian poet Wole Soyinka won the prize for Literature, thus becoming the first African to do so. In 2001, the Nobel Peace Prize was jointly won by Ghana’s UN Secretary General His Excellency Mr Kofi Annan and the United Nations.

Former American President Jimmy Carter was named recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2002 by the Nobel Committee, and was presented with the Nobel Peace Prize on 10 December 2002 in Oslo, Norway. In 2004, the Kenyan lady environmental campaigner Dr Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize for her contributions in greening the environment in Kenya through tree planting. She thus became the first African woman to win a Nobel prize.

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2011 was awarded jointly to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and Yemeni politician Tawakel Karman “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace building work.”

Lessons

Some lessons can be learnt from each of the Nobel Prize winners discussed above. Archbishop Tutu teaches us not only about marriage, but a successful marriage like his. The family is the basic unit of the human race where everything starts.

If the marriage has peace for its foundation, the chances are that the offspring of the union will solve problems peacefully. On the other hand, if wife-beating or in some cases husband beating is the norm between husband and wife, the chances are that violence will present itself as a credible option for conflict resolution for the children. Both Archbishop Tutu and the 1961 Peace Prize winner Albert.

On the other hand, if wife-beating or in some cases husband beating is the norm between husband and wife, the chances are that violence will present itself as a credible option for conflict resolution for the children. Both Archbishop Tutu and the 1961 Peace Prize winner Albert Lithuli teach us that, every problem can be solved in one of two ways; peacefully or violently.

The problem with solving problems violently is that, the flames of violence only get temporarily doused with force into an almost invisible angry smoldering flame. It is only a matter of time when, the smolder will erupt violently into a fully fledged fire again, this time with greater violence than before! Peaceful resolution of problems is therefore the best in the long term.

Malala Yousafzai’s story is interesting. She is the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner in history. At the age of twelve in 2009, she started writing for the BBC as a blogger. She wrote on life for girls under Taliban rule and expressed her opinion on the education of girls in her native Swat Valley of Pakistan.

To protect her, her identity as a blogger was not revealed. She wrote under a pseudonym. However, with time she lost her anonymity thus exposing herself to danger. In spite of her near fatal shooting in 2012, Malala bounced back with even greater courage and

To protect her, her identity as a blogger was not revealed. She wrote under a pseudonym. However, with time she lost her anonymity thus exposing herself to danger. In spite of her near fatal shooting in 2012, Malala bounced back with even greater courage and determination, and is now an international Child Rights activist. She has demonstrated the virtues of courage and determination backed by a clear vision. Lessons can be learnt from Malala not only by children but adults as well!

The Kenyan environmentalist and political activist Dr Wangari Maathai became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize for “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy, and peace.” In 1977, she founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental NGO which focused on the planting of trees in Kenya. Among others, the Movement organized women in rural Kenya to plant trees as a way of fighting deforestation.

Starting in 1977, her movement has planted over fifty-one million trees all over Kenya. In Ghana, there are daily media reports on the indiscriminate felling of trees for timber and firewood, resulting in the deforestation of large areas. Some of these deforested areas are further degraded by illegal miners who dig them for minerals like gold and diamond.

In recent times, sand winning has become a major environmental threat. Additionally, the indiscriminate dumping of plastic waste has become a major environmental problem in Ghana. Lessons can be learnt from Professor Wangari Maathai’s initiative on environmental protection and conservation in Kenya.

Finally, some lessons can be learnt from the person who bequeathed humanity with the prizes, Alfred Bernhard Nobel himself.  The death of his younger brother brought to the fore what society thought about him. He was seen as a villain whose contribution to humanity had been death and destruction.

The French called him “the Merchant of death.” He subjected himself to introspection and in humility admitted the unintended negative consequences of his inventions. To atone for his actions, he bequeathed his great fortune to humanity, to the chagrin of his family! Again in Ghana, there are daily reports of leaders arrogantly flaunting power into the faces of others. Humility to accept the fact that they are ordinary mortals who can go

To atone for his actions, he bequeathed his great fortune to humanity, to the chagrin of his family! Again in Ghana, there are daily reports of leaders arrogantly flaunting power into the faces of others. Humility to accept the fact that they are ordinary mortals who can go wrong, does not exist in their dictionaries.  Such persons can learn not only from the humility of AB Nobel in acknowledging their mistakes, but also from his selflessness in giving everything back to society.

Conclusion

The Swedish engineer, inventor, author and poet Alfred Nobel bequeathed his great fortune to humanity in 1895 for the advancement of peace and development of the human race. This he did as an atonement for the negative effects of some of his inventions like the cannon and dynamite on humanity. The five disciplines of his choice were Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine,

The five disciplines of his choice were Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. In 1968, the foundation added Economics as the sixth discipline. Some African recipients of the Peace Prize are Archbishop Desmond Tutu, FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela all of South Africa. Wole Soyinka is so far the only Nigerian Nobel laureate. Incidentally, he is the only African to win a prize other than that for Peace. He won it for Literature.

So far Mr Kofi Annan is the only Ghanaian who has won a Nobel prize. I challenge the youth of Ghana to work hard and follow the example of Mr Kofi Annan, Professor Konotey Ahulu for his work in Medicine in the area of Sickle Search research, and Professor Allotey in the field of Nuclear Science. Others are Lt General EA Erskine for his contribution to humanity through United Nations Peacekeeping and

Others are Lt General EA Erskine for his contribution to humanity through United Nations Peacekeeping and Mrs Mary Chinery-Hesse also in the United Nations. In the process, some of the youth could join Mr Kofi Annan as Nobel Prize winners for Ghana. This

This will, however, require an attitudinal change, and the realization that, the seeming triumph of mediocrity over meritocracy is only ephemeral. The death of apartheid in 1994 in South African and the reactivation of investigation into the death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold in a suspicious plane crash in 1961 show that, virtue eventually triumphs over evil. To the youth of Ghana, the sky is the limit for doing something positive to advance the course of humanity. Aim high in all fields, excel and win for yourselves and mother Ghana Nobel Prizes! 

Writer’s email: dkfrimpong@ yahoo.com