A proud day for all Finns, Martti Ahtisaari wins Nobel Peace Prize

This posting has really nothing to do with our main themes of Communities Dominate. But as Alan is as close as it is possible to being a Finn, I'm sure he joins me in feeling the pride that all Finns feel this day, as our previous President, Martti Ahtisaari, has just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Please allow me a few words on this.

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the most prestigious and perhaps, one of the most noble of prizes that society can award any of its members. The past winners reflect truly some of the greatness in recent mankind, both in personal character - consider Mother Teresa, or Desmund Tutu or Lech Walesa or Dr Martin Luther King Jr or the Dalai Lama - as well as heroic works towards achieving peace in what has often seemed unending conflict, such as Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin in starting the peace process between long-warring Egypt and Israel; or Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho (who refused the award) for bringing the Vietnam war to an end; or Nelson Mandela and Willem de KIerk with South Africa; or John Hume and David Trimble with Northern Ireland.

There have been some who have won the Nobel Peace prize for achievemens of considerable humanitarian needs, where the Nobel Peace prize has seemed the most fair way to acknowledge exceptional contributions to mankind, while necessarily not actually "achieving peace" in any given conflict at that time, such as Al Gore for his work with the environment. And sometimes the Award has been given for organizations working to peaceful goals, such as Amnesty Interational or the UN peacekeeping forces etc. And there have been years when the Award has not been handed out at all.

While many of the winners have actually achieved a peaceful resolution in a given conflict, the winners in most cases were the political leaders on both sides of that conflict (such as Vietnam, South Africa, Israel-Egypt and Northern Ireland). These are worthy recepients, but there is rarely also an even more altruistic role and contribution to peace. That is the achievement of a peace envoy to a long-running military conflict, where the peace envoy comes from the outside. Not as a political ruler from either side.

That is what Martti Ahtisaari has done all throughout his long career in international diplomacy. Recalling that our country of Finland is in Northern Europe, bordering Russia, Sweden and Norway (and the Baltic Sea), ours is a peaceful country and has not had conflict on our borders since the second world war. Finnish troops serve on United Nations peace missions all over the globe, my cousin Jukka Lundgren served with the UN troops in Lebanon for example. We - like our Scandinavian cousins in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland - have been promoting peace quite actively all over the world.

But nobody from Finland has been anywhere near as dynamic as a peace activist, as Martti Ahtisaari. He has been personally delivering peace in Africa, in Namibia. In Asia, with the long running civil war between the Aceh and the government of Indonesia. And he's done it in Europe bringing peace to Kosovo.

Here is a man who already had been the President of Finland, who as President brought Finland into the European Union. He had his place secured in our history books and he could have retired to write memoirs and attend some conferences etc. But rather than that, Martti Ahtisaari set on a personal crusade to help bring peace all around the world. The United Nations considered him one of their best - if not "the" best peace negotiator sending him to the toughest trouble-spots.

If there ever was a stereotype of what was the ultimate "peace hero" for winning the Nobel Peace Prize, that could be imagined at the birth of the prize, Martti Ahtisaari embodies that persona. A true hero of peace. And a remarkably successful one at that as well.

Congratulations Martti Ahtisaari. All of Finland celebrates your leadership and example. Thank you.

Comments

[johan rhodin]

I agree, he's a great winner of the prize and it's great that he get's it now. It's sad that Väinö Linna never got the litterature prize