October 5, 2018

The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize awarded for "efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict."

The NYT reports on the 2 winners:
Dr. Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecological surgeon... works in one of the most traumatized places in the world: the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. In a bare hospital in the hills above Bukavu, where for years there was little electricity or enough anesthetic, Dr. Mukwege has performed surgery on countless women who have trudged into his hospital a few steps away from death.....

“I have seen what has been done to them. I have heard them tell me that armed attackers raped them and killed their husband, raped them and killed their children. I now understand this in a different way and my thoughts are with the women of my country who have suffered so much.”

[Nadia] Murad was abducted alongside thousands of other women and girls from the Yazidi minority when Islamic State overran her homeland in northern Iraq in 2014, and she was singled out for rape by the group, also known as ISIS.

Whereas the majority of women who escaped ISIS refused to be named, Ms. Murad insisted to reporters that she wanted to be identified and photographed. She embarked on a worldwide campaign, telling and retelling her story of suffering to the United Nations Security Council, the United States House of Representatives, Britain’s House of Commons and numerous other global bodies.

Ms. Murad has said that she was exhausted by having to repeatedly speak out, but she knew that other Yazidi women were being raped back home: “I will go back to my life when women in captivity go back to their lives, when my community has a place, when I see people accountable for their crimes.”

37 comments:

PB said...

Invading armies have been doing this for thousands of years.

rhhardin said...

The invading army rape idea is to piss off their husbands.

jaydub said...

I understand that the senate dems are interviewing Ms Murad now to see if she can pick Judge Kavanaugh out of a line up.

Limited blogger said...

According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who in the preceding year "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".

Tom Grey said...

US Dem women are notably non-supportive of Ayaan Hirsi Ali,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali

who has been highly critical of Obama's acceptance of Yazidi oppression.

Few have been speaking in favor of US or other war-violence to stop the War in the Congo, the longest running active war with most casualties since WW II. Because only some group with MORE war violence can go in and stop the murderers. And no side seems innocent.

Dems & feminists are notably quiet about how to really stop such violence. In reality.
Historically, such violence has primarily been stopped either by a) one side dominating in violence and "winning", or b) some outside force (like the USA) coming in (with overwhelming force) and stopping the killers.


I used to pray for "a world without dictators". But such a world requires anti-dictators to be willing to fight against the dictators. I don't see enough of it in the West these days.

Real rape & real murder, in other countries, doesn't make enough Dems angry enough to support fighting to stop it. (Enough Reps are already willing to fight - if Dems agree. Not worth fighting if the Dems will run away afterward, anyway. Like Obama Dems did in Iraq, to stop opposing the sex slavers.)

jaydub said...

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/10/05/report-fords-fbi-friend-monica-mclean-pressured-witness-to-modify-testimony-and-statement/

This just gets curiouser and criouser.

traditionalguy said...

The Swedes will need someone to stop the rapes in Sweden now that they have asked for and recieved an invasion of the same men who did the Yisidis.

rhhardin said...

This seems to be a women's affirmative action year.

David Begley said...

Trump did a really good job on ISIS at the beginning on his first term. Obama, on the other hand, let them regroup and come back stronger. If ISIS would have been crushed at the outset, then maybe they don’t spread and attack the Yazdi. Another foreign policy failure by Obama.

PB said...

Invading armies kill men and children, then rape the women to make sure the next children born are of their blood. This is how to completely conquer a people. It's also part of natural selection.

rehajm said...

You can't Neville Chamberlain ISIS. Did Nobel leave instructions on dealing with that?

readering said...

Sounds like a pair of secular saints.

tim in vermont said...

Here is how you do it, you raise standards of living around the world to the point where men don't join gangs/warlord armies for the plunder. This is complete nonsense. DJT deserves it more for his work with the NorKs.

According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who in the preceding year "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".

tim in vermont said...

Is this a makeup call for giving the prize to Obama who created the vacuum in Iraq where ISIS started? That was the effect of his "reduction of a standing army." Of course Trump has let the army fight and now ISIS as an actual geographical entity, a de facto country is in the past.

tim in vermont said...

The first tip that the standards were lowered in order to give the Nobel Prize in physics to a woman:

This kind of enabling of other science is exactly the kind of thing that the Nobel Prize ought to recognize and support, so I think this is a great choice for a prize.

So now they are giving Nobel Prizes in engineering! Who knew?

The technique Mourou and [Donna] Strickland invented, as part of Strickland's thesis research, is called "chirped pulse amplification," and relies heavily on one of the central facts of wave physics, namely that making a pulse with a short duration in time requires a wide spread in frequency (and vice versa). They exploit this frequency spread in a clever way to circumvent the limits imposed by the fact that too-high intensity can damage the crystals used to amplify laser pulses.

Bay Area Guy said...

Historically, war was essentially; (1) kill the men, (2) rape the women, (3) enslave the children. To some extent, Western Civilization evolved a bit from those base features, most notably with technological advances. However, the 20th Century wars in Europe -WW1 and WW2 - were spectacularly brutal in other ways - chemical gassing, firebombing and, the 2 nukes.

Arguably, the Cold War, despite all it follies and setbacks and fuck-ups was the most humane. At the very least, it achieved its objective - avoid a nuclear WW3 with the Soviets.

There's a lesson to be learned there somewhere.

gilbar said...

rhhardin said... The invading army rape idea is to piss off their husbands.

respectfully, sir; you're picking up some static (caused by a short near your headphones?)
The article says that ISIS (like Most invading armies in the past)
KILLED the Husband
KILLED the existing children
*THEN* raped the woman

This isn't about pissing off the husbands, this is about KILLING the tribe

rhhardin said...

The technique Mourou and [Donna] Strickland invented, as part of Strickland's thesis research, is called "chirped pulse amplification," and relies heavily on one of the central facts of wave physics, namely that making a pulse with a short duration in time requires a wide spread in frequency (and vice versa). They exploit this frequency spread in a clever way to circumvent the limits imposed by the fact that too-high intensity can damage the crystals used to amplify laser pulses.

Chirp radar has been around over 50 years, precisely to avoid damaging components. Transmit a frequency-varying long low power pulse, and receive it through a delay line whose delay depends on frequency, so that all of the returned pulse piles up as a bit tit in one place. (Delay line is a corner that higher frequencies go deeper into and so take longer to come out.) The downside is that the speed of the target doppler shifts the whole thing and so gives a range error dependent on speed, so you have to track it a while to figure out where it is.

rhhardin said...

big tit

rhhardin said...

It's possible, of course, that the woman invented it independently, not knowing anything about radar.

gspencer said...

But only in Islam are non-Muslim women considered war booty ("what your right hand possesses") with which the warring Muslim can "dispose" as he sees fit. Islamic texts are clear on this to the point that rape is seen as divinely sanctioned.

Hagar said...

These two women may be doing great work, but it does not meet the specified aims of the Peace Prize.

This is just more trying to be hip and with it by the committee. I think the Norwegian parliament must award seats on the Nobel committee as consolation prizes to elderly politicians they have been obliged to push aside in current political life.

Fernandinande said...

The first tip that the standards were lowered in order to give the Nobel Prize in physics to a woman:

...might be this article in Nature:

What the Nobels are — and aren’t — doing to encourage diversity

Encouraging diversity = dishonestly lowering standards = sleazy if not actually kinda evil.

Fernandinande said...

US Dem women are notably non-supportive of Ayaan Hirsi Ali,

She was an "anti-Mulsim extremist", but the SPLC changed their minds after they were threatened with lawsuits.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

In 2017, Trump told Erdogan he would stop arming the Kurds.

MadisonMan said...

Pushing the snark above aside, even though some is well-deserved, I think this is an excellent choice.

John henry said...

I saw the header and thought it was diversity bullshit.

Then I read Ann's description of what it's about and think maybe not. These doctors are actually DOING something worthwhile. So yeah, maybe they are worthy recipients.

Albert Schweitzer won the Nobel Peace Prize for doctoring in the Congo. Why not these Doctors?

Look at some of the other winners over the past 100+ years and then tell me these don't fit in.

"If Henry Kissinger can win the Peace Prize, I would not b e surprised to wake up one morning and find I've won the Preakness" Conrad Break

John Henry

John henry said...

Conrad Brean

Curious George said...

More accurate headline:

"The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize awarded for "efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict by a group created by 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Awardee Barack Obama."

John henry said...

The National Socialists murdered about 12mm.

The Belgians murdered about 20mm in the Congo. (1890-1960) 6-10mm have been killed jn this century. (2000 to date)

But theyre black so who gives two shits.

Perhaps these docs don`t deserve the Peace Prize under Nobel's will as strictly interpreted. But perhaps it will c ause a few people to think about the plight of the Congolese. So that's a good thing.

John Henry

Kevin said...

The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize awarded for "efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict."

In the US we’re trying to stop unconfirmed reports of sexual violence from starting an armed conflict.

We’re still a long way from a Peace Prize.

Birkel said...

The alleged rate of rape on college campuses is worse than the rate in war torn areas.
Why didn't a "Victim Services" administrator win the Nobel Peace Prize?
/sarc

Jupiter said...

“We want to send out a message of awareness that women, who constitute half of the population in most communities, actually are used as a weapon of war, and that they need protection and that the perpetrators have to be prosecuted and held responsible for their actions,” Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chairwoman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said."

I begin to see the logic of importing Muslims into Norway. There is at least a slight possibility they will be "held responsible" for the rapes they commit there. When the Muzzies are in charge, the rapists are the judicial authorities;

"Ms. Murad was taken to a slave market, where she was sold to one of ISIS’ judges. He repeatedly raped her, beating her if she tried to close her eyes during the assault. When she tried to jump out a window, she recounted, he ordered her to undress and left her with his bodyguards, who raped her one by one."

Kirk Parker said...

John Henry,

I used to live next door to the Congo, it's a rare week that I don't think about the situation there or in South Sudan.

"Thinking about it" is rather pointless, though, in contrast to "knowing something to do that might be helpful".

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Good for them. Contrasting this awarding with Obama’s makes Obama’s all the more comical.

Caligula said...

In pre-state societies, “kill the men and force the women to ‘marry’ the conquerors” would have been universal, as such societies lacked the means to keep prisoners of war (no prisons, because no permanent government). Fertile women are perhaps a society’s most essential resource and, in any case, there would have been few roles available to these conquered women other than “marriage” and childbearing.


With nation-states and empires come the ability to keep prisoners of war and/or slaves. And thus the option of prison or slavery as alternatives to extermination. Although, since we evolved in a pre-state world, reversion to the older pattern will always be possible.



And from the feminist PoV, we learn that survival is worse than death:

“Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat. Women often have to flee from the only homes they have ever known. Women are often the refugees from conflict and sometimes, more frequently in today’s warfare, victims. Women are often left with the responsibility, alone, of raising the children.” -Hillary Clinton

William said...

Yeah, yeah. Who cares about these people in BFE? Women in this country have it so much worse! I mean, a woman can't bring up totally unsubstantiated, never-before-aired allegations of sexual assault from 36 years years ago, without some people being doubtful. It's beyond horrible. I don't care about her two Masters' degrees and PhD or the $500,000+ goFundMe account or the book and movie deals and speaking engagements that will inevitably flow from this, this woman's life is destroyed, destroyed I tell you. Damn the patriarchy!!!