Interview With Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairead Maguire: Is the Nobel Peace Prize Nominating Committee Failing to Perform its mission?

Broadcast 10/8/2015 at 1:35 AM EDT (24 Listens, 13 Downloads, 1378 Itunes)
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This evening's radio show was done with the separate interviews, so they are posted separately. This part is the recording of my interview with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairead Maguire.

very rough notes

Nobel wanted law to replace power and military.

international politics based on respect for international law and not militarism.

First few years

We have seen the Nobel prize was given to people whose priority was not to get rid of weapons, but priority FOR military.

WE are challenging the Nobel foundation to restore the right purpose of the peace prize.

Rob: Who are we:

several international lawyers, people who have set up nobelpeaceprizewatch.

Frederick Heffernell, who has brought out several very good books on what Nobel wished.

Nobel committee says they have extended the idea of peace and the concept of peace.

Rob: Who are some of the other peace prizes winners advocating for this.

When the EU was given the prize in 2012, some of us believed that it was the opposite of what Nobel wanted the prize to go to. The EU next to America is the most militarized place in the

tutu, Esquivel, Maguire-- wrote that the prize shouldn't have been given.

Rob: have you nominated for the peace prize

There are 300 nominated every year.

Adolpho Perez Esquivel from Argentina--

I try to identify people who support disarment

article 9 people in Japan and people there working against Nuclear weapons

Mordechai Vanunu who 31 years ago told that Israel had Nuclear weapons. He did 15 years in prison and continues to be held in Israel to this day, not allowed to leave.

Rob: In the past few years you supported Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange

Rob: You started to say: we see increasing efforts to silence people who oppose governments"

we need to raise our voices against the path we are on"

many of our civil liberties and rights have been removed by governments.

Rob: YOu won the Nobel Peace prize for your work in Northern Ireland. Do you have ideas on what we need to do today to make more peace in this world.

I believe passionately in the power of every individual to non-violently".

The people movement around the world" afghanistan, the congo,

we can do this with non-violence and we don't need wars and weapons

Rob: Do you see steps that people could be taking next.

Peace starts in your own homes and communities. It's hard to watch in America, the mass shooting.

Women" demand of their government that there be gun control

Rob: bottom-up question-- you say that people have to do it first themselves.

Have you seen this happening.

I was very inspired by the people's movement in Syria.

The only way to solve the Syrian problem is to let all the people talk"

When we went to Syria three years ago, we learned that there were thousands of foreign fighters, proxy fighters funded by outside governments. This is wrong"

The whole policy of regime change-- where they take out leaders destroys the lives of millions of people and their countries. We have got to work together.

We cannot afford to demonize each other.

Real leadership is people who can make peace with their enemies"

The west has to stop this idea that militarism works. It does not.

"Gandhi taught that nonviolence does not mean passivity. No. It is the most daring, creative, and courageous way of living, and it is the only hope for our world. Nonviolence is an active way of life which always rejects violence and killing, and instead applies the force of love and truth as a means to transform conflict and the root causes of conflict. Nonviolence demands creativity. It pursues dialogue, seeks reconciliation, listens to the truth in our opponents, rejects militarism, and allows God's spirit to transform us socially and politically."

Every human life is sacred and the universe is our home, the only home we've got.

I believe peace is a human right.

discusses her visit earlier this year to N. Korea.

Rob: do you think John Kerry would be a justified winner of the Nobel Peace prize

If you go back to the Nobel criteria-- someone who worked for a demilitarized peace order, creating a brotherhood of nations".

No" he was asking for peace and disarmament

Rob: Let's talk about ISIS the Islamic state

I believe that the Islamic state and their terrible human rights abuses are a great danger to the world and we need to challenge their ideology and action, but as a Christian I believe love your enemy and I don't believe in killing.

We need to talk with each other.

Rob: That's a challenge with a group like that

When we started in Northern Island people said you couldn't talk to the IRA and the loyalist groups. The peace process was hard in Northern Ireland but we needed to talk.

This idea that you can go in and have surgical strikes from ships offshore.

Rob; As there are transnational corporations that transcend governments. Are there international groups that transcend government aiming at making peace?

Yes there are but not enough.

We need to increase these, multiply them, perfect them.

I've campaigned for the abolition of NATO in Europe because it is a military body. NATO should have been abolished when the cold war ended.

We need to look at alternative structures that help us as a human family.

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