Julian Assange for The Nobel Peace Prize
It is evident that in recent years no person has done so much, so publicly, for the peace of the world as Julian Assange, spokesperson and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, international activist for human rights, and recipient of the International Media Award from Amnesty International in 2009.
In precipitating what one commentator has called “ a global glasnost”, he has exposed corruption, dishonesty, brutality, and abuse of power on the part of the major governments and political and military leaders of the world – and he has done so in a spectacular manner, which no one can ignore. He has made the shortcomings of our democracies absolutely plain, and given incontrovertible evidence of the risk we, the people of the world, run when we allow this to continue in our name.
As such, his work has provoked discussion in virtually every country on the planet, about how we are governed, the nature of our responsibility for these governments, and how we can make felt our collective will to improve our political worlds.
Where politicians have tried to keep us in ignorance, Julian Assange has flung back the curtain on the lies that are told and the crimes committed in our name. Where the world’s media have too much served the needs of power and public relations, Julian Assange has trusted in the goodwill and maturity of the world’ s people, and our ability to intelligently evaluate the uninterpreted truth. Where governments have sought to divide us, Julian Assange has brought us together on the vital questions of freedom, peace and democracy.
Julian Assange has done the world – meaning us – a great service. He has exposed a vast amount of information about the way we are governed, and particularly about the brutality and stupidity of the wars and other crimes being committed in our name. He has embarrassed governments and politicians simply by exposing them for what they are, and doing what they do. He has struck a telling blow for honest, open politics and democracy.
For this he has suffered. He has been attacked, demonized, accused of crimes, chased from country to country, and had his access to the internet endangered by political pressure and cyber-attacks. In their hysterical overreaction, his enemies have charged that his revelations amount to “ an act of war” , while simultaneously dismissing them as “ nothing new” . Politicians and public figures in more than one country have called openly for him to be arrested, to be declared a terrorist, even to be murdered.
Julian Assange has done us a great service. He has told us the truth – not all of it certainly, but a larger portion than we had in our possession before. In so doing, he has made peace, justice, democracy, freedom, and open government urgent and unavoidable issues in our public conversation.
Awarding Julian Assange the Peace Prize will honour the belief that we – the overwhelming majority of the people of the world – maintain in the values of justice, personal integrity, human decency, and honest, open, democratic government. It will honour our faith that, working together and supporting one another, sooner or later we will make those values a reality for us all. It will, in other words, honour ourselves – what we are, and what we can become.
Some Background on the Nobel Prize for Peace, How It’s Awarded
According to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, a nomination is considered valid if it is submitted by a person who falls within one of the following categories:
Members of national assemblies and governments of states.
Members of international courts.
University rectors; professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology; directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes.
Persons who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Board members of organizations who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Active and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; (proposals by members of the Committee to be submitted no later than at the first meeting of the Committee after February 1).
Former permanent advisers to the Norwegian Nobel Institute.
The Nobel Committee makes its selection on the basis of nominations received or postmarked no later than February 1 of the year in question. Nominations which do not meet the deadline are normally included in the following year’s assessment.
Official Nomination letters with name, address,and qualifications as a nominator can be forwarded to the Nobel institute via postmaster@nobel.no or through snail mail at:
The Norwegian Nobel Institute
Henrik Ibsens gate 51
0255 OSLO NORWAY
Many Canadian Dimension readers and subscribers fall into one or more of these categories, so we would encourage you to make your voice heard before the deadline of February 1st 2011. If you are not elegible yourself, we would encourage anyone who knows a valid nominator to communicate this campaign to them and to nominate Assange.
And there’s a third way to help too: you can tell everybody you know who isn’t eligible to nominate about the campaign or you can join the Facebook group dedicated to the project.
