Last week was the Nobel Prize Week, culminating on 10 December, the International Human Rights Day, with the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony and Banquet in the magnificent Stockholm Concert Hall and the Blue Hall of the Stockholm City Hall. Swedish King Carl Gustav XVI and Queen Silvia were there and other royals. They honoured the winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Physics, Physiology and Medicine, Chemistry, and Economic Sciences. In Norway, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in the elegant Oslo City Hall, in the presence of Norwegian King Harald V, Queen Sonja, the crown prince and crown princess.
It was the last time for Berit Reiss-Andersen (69), the outgoing chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, to perform her duty in the chair as she retires after over seven years in the role. This year’s prize was certainly a prize she personally could support wholeheartedly as it is for women and human rights everywhere. The winner from Iran, Narges Mohmmadi (51), is still in prison and could not attend. Her countrywoman Shirin Ebadi won the prize in 2003 and she attended; the two laureates are members of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre, which was founded by Ebadi.
For this year’s award ceremony in Oslo, Narges’ closest family members attend the celebrations, which also included an event organised by the Norwegian Save the Children at the Nobel Peace Centre, with chief guests, primary school children and the public, and a large photo exhibition related to the women’s struggle for improved human rights in Iran. There was also a concert and a torchlight procession on the snow covered streets of Oslo, reflecting the light and bringing hope and warmth in people’s hearts.
Let us also honour the Nobel Laureate’s husband, Taghi Rahmani (64), and the teenage children, 17-year old twins Ali Rahmani and Kiana Rahmani, They have paid a very high price for Narges Mohammaddi’s indefatigable commitment. The children’s mother’s has been away from home due as many as thirteen arrests and imprisonments, and the children have suffered deeply and worried daily about their mother’s welfare and missed her in simple everyday situation when growing up. The mother and children have not met for over eight years and they have not even spoken on telephone for close to two years.
Since 2012, the children live in exile in Paris, France, with their father, Taghi Rahmani. The father is a journalist and human rights activist like his wife. He said in a recent ‘Hard Talk’ interview on BBC that their marriage and human rights work are intertwined units of their union and love. The media has reported that at least one of the children, I think it was the daughter in her puberty, has expressed some critical opinions about the mother’s priorities, feeling that in certain ways she has placed her work and activism ahead of her children and family – or at least that is how it must many times have felt for the children when missing their mother – and also the father missing his wife. Narges’ brother, Hamidreza Mohammadi, lives in exile in Norway.
We cannot even begin to understand what a loss it has been for the children, husband, and indeed for the mother herself to be separated for so long. The children have now become young adults, impressing everyone during their stay in Oslo, and later visit to Stockholm, Sweden. The children have expressed great admiration for their mother, her kindness and deep commitment. Earlier, before he went into exile, the father was also imprisoned for as many as fourteen years. The children have said that they almost got used to one of the parents always being absent. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Narges Mohammadi, but without her husband taking care of the children, her work would probably not have been possible. In the BBC interview, Taghi Rahmani, himself winner of top awards, was asked if he thought the family would ever be able to live together again. He mentioned his wife’s health issues and the hardship of imprisonment. He also stressed hope for a better future, drawing attention to history, and he quoted a few lines from a Persian poem. He said that the people of Iran are bound to win their struggle, eventually, for ‘Women, Life, Freedom’, as is the movement’s slogan, yet, needing time, luck, and more.
In Oslo, the children read the acceptance speech, called the Nobel Lecture, on behalf of their mother. It was indeed deeply moving. The manuscript for the speech had been smuggled out of the prison where Narges Mohammadi has been sentenced to a very long prison term, with lashes. It has been reported that the women give deep support to each other in prison, without which the situation would have been more unbearable.
The children took part in a number of events during the Nobel Week, including with school children from three Oslo east-end schools. Kiana and Ali received admiration from all for their own way of handling it all, communicating in fluent French, a language Norwegians are not good at, but with smiles, gestures and some words of English and Farsi, communication was possible. It must have been a relief every time a Norwegian had fluency in French, such as Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, who studied in France in his youth.
Let us reflect a bit further on the cost and sacrifice it is when people excel and do great work, in peace, human rights, science, sports, culture, and other fields. The honour and laurels, and the prize money (about a hundred thousand dollars), go to one individual or up to three for each Nobel Prize. Yet, we should remember that there are always many people behind the winner or winners, who have supported and made the success possible. Always, the supporting people, and the winners themselves, have paid high prices to excel and climb the ladder to the top for the good causes to benefits the humankind.
It remains true that although it is unique individuals and groups that receive the awards, we must always remember all those behind those behind them and at the barricades. I believe that Iran as a country and the Iranian people have reason to be proud of the great Nobel Prize Laureate they have fostered in their ancient cultures, the religion of Islam and other faiths, and varies groups in society, indeed including her immediate family. I am sure that even many in the regime, and those who may disagree with the goals and methods of Narges Mohammadi’s human rights movement in Iran, also find space for admiration in their hearts. Let us pray for a tolerant and prosperous future in equality for all women and men in Iran and the wider world. May God Allah show us the right path, and even when we disagree, we can live together in respect and peace.
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Nobel Prize at a high price
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14.12.2023
Last week was the Nobel Prize Week, culminating on 10 December, the International Human Rights Day, with the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony and Banquet in the magnificent Stockholm Concert Hall and the Blue Hall of the Stockholm City Hall. Swedish King Carl Gustav XVI and Queen Silvia were there and other royals. They honoured the winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Physics, Physiology and Medicine, Chemistry, and Economic Sciences. In Norway, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in the elegant Oslo City Hall, in the presence of Norwegian King Harald V, Queen Sonja, the crown prince and crown princess.
It was the last time for Berit Reiss-Andersen (69), the outgoing chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, to perform her duty in the chair as she retires after over seven years in the role. This year’s prize was certainly a prize she personally could support wholeheartedly as it is for women and human rights everywhere. The winner from Iran, Narges Mohmmadi (51), is still in prison and could not attend. Her countrywoman Shirin Ebadi won the prize in 2003 and she attended; the two laureates are members of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre, which was founded by Ebadi.
For this year’s award ceremony in Oslo, Narges’ closest family members attend the celebrations, which also included an event organised by the Norwegian Save the Children at the Nobel Peace Centre, with chief guests, primary school children and the public, and a large photo exhibition related to the women’s struggle for improved human rights in Iran. There was also a concert and a torchlight procession on the snow covered streets of Oslo, reflecting the light and bringing hope and warmth in people’s hearts.
Let........
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