Nobel Peace Prize Winners: People who worked for noble cause

Karman

Publisher’s Note

Really great people make you feel that you too can become great, said Mark Twain, the great American author and humorist. With the sole aim of inspiring millions to make it big in their lives, V&S Publishers are coming out with a series of books under the head, ‘Greatest’ consisting of great Nobel Peace Prize Winners, eminent Writers, Poets, etc. Nobel Peace Prize Winners is one of these exclusive books containing about 150 Nobel Laureates, their lives, their successes and failures, and above all, their contributions towards the welfare of mankind, all over the world. The language used in the book is simple and lucid and the subject matter is interesting and precise.

The book is an encyclopedia of great and talented people, who have made a mark in their lives by achieving distinction not only in their respective fields, but have also strived hard to bring global peace and harmony. Some of the well-known names included in this book are: Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Jane Addams, Kofi Annan, Aung San Suu Kyi, Fredrik Bajer, Emily Greene Balch, Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, Mikhail Gorbachev, Dalai Lama, Jimmy Carter, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Shimon Peres and many more.

There is one more fact that we learn while reading this book and almost all the books in this series is that all the above mentioned world famous personalities have been some day or the other common people like us, but with high aspirations and dreams and a strong determination to fulfil their dreams.

So readers, go through the lives of these great men and get inspired to fulfil your dreams too!

Foreword

The Nobel Peace Prize or Nobelpriset, in Norwegian: Nobelprisen is a set of annual international awards bestowed in a number of categories by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of a Swedish chemistm Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895. The prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace were first awarded in 1901. It is the most prestigious award in the world awarded to those who have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace in the world. It is also awarded to recognise eminent scientists, authors, scholars, economists, artists, and social workers for their outstanding contributions in their respective fields.

The Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway, while the other prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden.

In 1968, the Sveriges Riksbank instituted an award that is often associated with the Nobel prizes, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. The first such prize was awarded in 1969. Although it is not an official Nobel Prize, its announcements and presentations are made along with the other prizes.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prize in Physics, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The Swedish Academy grants the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Nobel Peace Prize is not awarded by a Swedish organisation but by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Each recipient, or laureate, receives a gold medal, a diploma, and a sum of money which depends on the Nobel Foundation’s income that year. In 2011, each prize was worth SEK 10 million (c. US$1.46 million, Є1.16 million). The prize is not awarded posthumously; however, if a person is awarded a prize and dies before receiving it, the prize may still be presented to him. A prize may not be shared among more than three people. Nonetheless, the average number of laureates per prize has increased substantially over the 20th century.

Jane Addams

BORN: September 6, 1860, Cedarville, Illinois, U.S.

DIED: May 21, 1935, Chicago, Illinois

Jane Addams (1860-1935), an American social reformer and Nobel laureate, was born in Cedarville, Illinois, and educated at Rockford Female Seminary and Women’s Medical College in Europe. In 1889, with Ellen Starr, Addams established the Hull House in Chicago, one of the first settlement houses in the United States. Addams played a prominent part in the formation of the National Progressive Party in 1912 and of the Woman’s Peace Party, of which she became the chairperson in 1915. She was elected the president of the International Congress of Women at The Hague, Netherlands in 1915, and the president of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, which was established by The Hague Congress. She was a delegate to similar congresses held in Zurich, Switzerland (1919); Vienna, Austria (1921); The Hague, Netherlands (1922); Washington, D.C. (1924); Dublin, Ireland (1926); and Prague, Czech Republic (1929).

Jane Addams won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931, sharing the award with the American educator, Nicholas Murray Butler. Her works include Democracy and Social Ethics (1902), Newer Ideals of Peace (1907), Twenty Years at Hull House (1910), and The Second Twenty Years at Hull House (1930).

Did You Know?

Jane Addams loved to help others, particularly the children. She built a playground for them, especially for those living in poverty.

Sir Norman Angell

BORN: December 26, 1872, Holbeach, Lincolnshire, England

DIED: October 7, 1967, Croydon, Surrey

Sir Ralph Norman Angell (1872-1967), an English author and economist, originally named Ralph Norman Angell Lane, was educated at the Lycée de Saint-Omer, France and the University of Geneva.

Sir Norman’s studies and his experience as a prospector, rancher, journalist and editor made him an economist of vision and reputation. According to his principal doctrine, as expressed in The Great Illusion (1910) and The Great Illusion, Addition-Nobel Prize (1933), modern nations are so closely related economically and socially that they are logically committed to cooperation with one another, rather than to economic competition, which inevitably leads to war.

From 1929 to 1931, Angell served as a member of Parliament. He was knighted in 1931 and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933 for his writings and lectures advocating peace. His later works include The Money Game (1936), America’s Dilemma (1940), and the autobiography, After All (1951).

Did You Know?

Sir Norman Angell was a small built man, about five feet tall, patient, courteous and God-fearing. He was a lifelong bachelor and died at 94 years in an old-age home.

Kofi Annan

BORN: April 8, 1938, Kumasi, Gold Coast [now Ghana]

Kofi Atta Annan, (1938) served as the seventh Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), born in Ghana and educated in the United States. He happens to be the first UN Secretary General from the sub-Saharan Africa. Annan began serving his first five-year term in 1997. In 2001, the UN General Assembly unanimously elected him to a second term, beginning in 2002.

Annan was born in Kumasi, Ghana. In 1961, he received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota. After ten years of service with the UN, he attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received a master’s degree in Management in 1972.

Annan joined the UN in 1962 as a budget officer with the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO). He later managed budgetary and personnel operations for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Office of Financial Services.

Between 1987 and 1992, Annan served as an Assistant Secretary General in a variety of posts, including the Office of Human Resources Management and Security Coordination and the Office of Program Planning, Budget, and Finance. From 1992 until his election as UN Secretary General, Annan served as the Assistant Secretary General and Under Secretary General for UN peacekeeping operations. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize.

Annan assumed responsibility for the UN peacekeeping operations in a period when localised conflicts, fuelled by nationalism and tension between ethnic groups, had flared up in many parts of the world. During the early and mid-1990s, the UN organised an increasing number of peacekeeping operations in nations, such as Cambodia, Haiti, and Bosnia. The major challenge Annan faced was to secure funding for these operations in a period of diminished international financial and political support for the activities of the UN, particularly from the United States.

Between 1990 and 1996, the United States held back more than a billion dollars in dues owed to the UN to emphasise the need for bureaucratic and financial reform within the organisation. In 1996, the United States blocked the re-election of former secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, whom many U.S. government officials believed was hostile to reform of the UN. With more than three decades of service to the UN, Annan became the first career UN official to be elected the Secretary General.

As secretary general, Annan reorganised the management of the UN in order to increase efficiency and reduce costs, and he improved the organisation’s relationship with the United States. He has rededicated the UN to its traditional goals of economic development, social justice and international peace. Annan has placed particular importance on combating the epidemic of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and improving human rights worldwide.

Did You Know?

Kofi Annan was a self-confident leader even as a teenager, and undertook his first successful human rights mission when he went for a hunger strike at the boarding school to protest against the poor quality of food there.

Yasser Arafat

BORN: August 24, 1929, Cairo, Egypt

DIED: November 11, 2004, Paris, France

Yasser Arafat (1929-2004) was the President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) from 1996 to November 11, 2004, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and was a Nobel laureate who led the Palestinian people in their efforts for statehood. Arafat was born in either Egypt or Jerusalem—historical accounts vary—and raised in Jerusalem, Egypt and the Gaza area. When Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-1949, Arafat fled to Egypt. In 1956, he earned an engineering degree from the Cairo University, where he became involved in politics, chairing the Palestinian Students Union. In the early 1960s, he helped to locate Fatah, a Palestinian guerrilla group committed to opposing Israel militarily.

In 1968, Arafat took Fatah into the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), which coordinated several groups opposed to Israel. During the late 1960s, Fatah made guerrilla raids into Israel, mostly from Jordan. The success of some attacks earned Fatah power, and the group soon became the largest and most powerful of the PLO’s factions. In 1969, Arafat was made the Chairman of the PLO’s Executive Committee as well as Commander-in-chief, thereby becoming the recognised leader of the Palestinian Nationalist Movement.

For several years, the Arab world could not reach a consensus about whether