Peter Fabricius
Did the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet – not a jazz band by the way – wonder if they were being pranked when the Nobel Peace Committee called them up on Friday to tell them they had won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2015?
Few had put money on them to win the coveted prize. The smart money was on much bigger names such as Pope Francis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US Secretary of State John Kerry.
So the quartet probably weren’t expecting that call. Like quite a few other winners of the Nobel Prizes. The problem is that the Nobel committees are so secretive. There are no official nominations, no public shortlist of candidates and the Nobel officials only call the winners on the day the winner is announced.
The Wall Street Journal recounts how University of Massachusetts Medical School biologist Craig Mello got the call at 4.30am (because of the time difference with Sweden) one day in 2006.
His wife told him not to answer because she thought it was a prank. Then the phone rang again and this time Dr Mello picked up. “I’m glad they didn’t just move down the list,” he said.
Jokes aside, the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet – which comprises the Tunisian Employers Union, the Tunisian General Labour Union, the Tunisian Human Rights League and the National Bar Association – are worthy winners because they made a major contribution towards ensuring that Tunisia made a successful transition – the only one so far – in the Arab Spring.
It was because of that wider context in North Africa and Middle East – so much at the heart of global turmoil today – that the Nobel Peace Prize committee chose the quartet, not only as “an encouragement to the Tunisian people”, but as “an example to be followed by other countries”.
It had helped steer the country towards democracy after the 2011 Jasmine Revolution when it was “on the brink of civil war”. The quartet helped to broker a deal in 2013 between the secularists and the Islamist-led government. It intervened at an incendiary moment when the assassinations of two secular politicians by Islamist extremists threatened to scupper negotiations towards a new democratic transition.
It played a decisive role in effecting a compromise between the secularists and Islamists which put the constitutional negotiations back on track and led to elections. The secularists and Islamists now serve together in a coalition government.
By sharp contrast with all the other Arab Spring countries, where they have been killing each other in ever-larger numbers in continuing civil wars. Or where, as in Egypt, the revolution has been reversed and the authoritarian, militaristic government reinstated.
The quarter is not the only rather surprising winner resulting from the Nobel Peace Prize committee’s interest in being an agent of history – in using the prize not only as a reward for past achievements, but as an incentive for future ones. The award of the 2009 prize to US President Barack Obama arguably contained more of the latter than the former motivation. Obama himself – like his countryman Mello – also seemed rather surprised to get the call.
After all he had just taken office, though on the promise of pulling the US out of his predecessor’s wars.
Back in 1993 the committee similarly gave the prize jointly to Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk, who had already walked a long road together – but not all the way – towards a historic reconciliation of the crisis. Who could say for sure that the prize didn’t help to push them the extra yard across the finishing line?