Keeping the Peace The director of Godspell, Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj, has approached the play by exploring the theme of peacekeepers. Here’s a quick look at that concept in our world. THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE Each year, an international committee honors gifted individuals with the Nobel Prize. Medals are given in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, and Economics, but perhaps the most revered prize is for Peace. Listed below are just a few of the 95 individuals and 20 organizations that have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. For a full listing, visit www.nobelprize.org.
The face of the medal (left) shows Alfred Nobel with the inscription, “And they who bettered life on earth by their newly found mastery.” The rear (right) shows three men embracing and reads, “For the peace and brotherhood of men.”
1901
1950
1964
2007
Henry Dunant Frederic Passy (1828 - 1910) (1822 - 1912)
Ralph Bunche (1904 - 1971)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 - 1968)
Al Gore Jr. (1948 - present)
The first African-American to be awarded the Prize was Ralph Bunce, a Harvard University professor who served as advisor to the US Dept. of State and the United Nations.
At thirty-five, Dr. King was the youngest man ever awarded the Prize, and donated the cash portion of his prize to furthering the civil rights movement.
The most recent Peace Prize was split between Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Dunant and Passy shared the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901. Dunant, after witnessing the atrocities of war, helped to create both the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Geneva Convention, an international treaty that agreed to the protection of medics, humane treatment of prisoners, and other basic rules of war. Passy was a French lawyer who served as the Founder and President of the first French peace society.
In the late 1940’s, Bunche served as chief mediator in the conflict between Palestine and Israel. He worked with the UN for the remainder of his career.
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Between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over 6 million miles, spoke over 2,500 times, was awarded 5 honorary degrees, and was named Time’s Man of the Year in 1963.
The Committee recognized that man-made climate change is a real threat to our planet which could lead to mass migration andviolent competition for scarce resources, as some believe it already has in Sudan (see next page.) Photos and bios courtesy of www.nobelprize.org