Tunisia’s Quartet picks up Nobel Prize
National Dialogue Quartet helped save transition to democracy at critical time
Tunisia’s National Dialogue Quartet, which yesterday picked up its Nobel Peace Prize at a formal ceremony in Oslo, said the fight against terrorism was an “absolute priority”.
“Today we are in a great need of dialogue between civilisations and peaceful coexistence ... Today we need to make the fight against terrorism an absolute priority,” said Hussain Abbasi, the secretary general of the Tunisian General Labour Union, one of the four members of the Quartet. The award was presented to the group which consists of four organisations that saved Tunisia’s transition to democracy through dialogue, a method the laureates are keen to see applied in Syria and Libya.
“This year’s prize is truly a prize for peace, awarded against a backdrop of unrest and war,” the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Kaci Kullmann Five said at the formal award ceremony in Oslo, held in the presence of Norway’s King Harald and under tight security amid the threat of terrorist attacks.
Fleeing war and oppression
“We live in turbulent times. In North Africa, the Middle East and Europe, millions of people are fleeing from war, oppression, suffering and terror,” she said.
“If every country had done as Tunisia has done, and paved the way for dialogue, tolerance, democracy and equal rights, far fewer people would have been forced to flee,” she said.
The National Dialogue Quartet, made up of four civil society groups, helped save Tunisia’s transition to democracy at a sensitive moment in 2013 when the process was in danger of collapsing because of widespread social unrest.
The group orchestrated a lengthy and thorny “national dialogue” between the Islamists of the Al Nahda party and their opponents.
“Its work has led to a better platform for peace and nonviolent resolution of conflicts. This is a story about building strong institutions to ensure justice and stability, and demonstrating the will to engage in dialogue and cooperation,” Kullmann Five said.
The Quartet is made up of the Human Rights League, General Labour Union (UGTT), the Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts (UTICA), and the Order of Lawyers.
“Arms, in the end, only lead to destruction,” Abdul Sattar Bin Mousa, head of Tunisia’s Human Rights League, told AFP in an interview just hours before the award ceremony.
“In Libya for example, there is now a certain dialogue... (The situations) in the neighbouring countries need to be resolved through dialogue with civil society, with political society, and of course putting aside the terrorist factions,” he said.