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The
Nobel Peace Prize for 2002
The Nobel Lecture given by The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2002,
Jimmy Carter (Oslo, December 10, 2002)
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Copyright © The Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, 2002.
Your Majesties, Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is with a deep sense of gratitude that I accept this prize. I
am grateful to my wife Rosalynn, to my colleagues at The Carter
Center, and to many others who continue to seek an end to violence
and suffering throughout the world. The scope and character of our
Center's activities are perhaps unique, but in many other ways they
are typical of the work being done by many hundreds of nongovernmental
organizations that strive for human rights and peace.
Most Nobel laureates have carried out our work in safety, but there
are others who have acted with great personal courage. None has
provided more vivid reminders of the dangers of peacemaking than
two of my friends, Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin, who gave their
lives for the cause of peace in the Middle East.
Like these two heroes, my first chosen career was in the military,
as a submarine officer. My shipmates and I realized that we had
to be ready to fight if combat was forced upon us, and we were prepared
to give our lives to defend our nation and its principles. At the
same time, we always prayed fervently that our readiness would ensure
that there would be no war.
Later, as President and as Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces,
I was one of those who bore the sobering responsibility of maintaining
global stability during the height of the Cold War, as the world's
two superpowers confronted each other. Both sides understood that
an unresolved political altercation or a serious misjudgment could
lead to a nuclear holocaust. In Washington and in Moscow, we knew
that we would have less than a half hour to respond after we learned
that intercontinental missiles had been launched against us. There
had to be a constant and delicate balancing of our great military
strength with aggressive diplomacy, always seeking to build friendships
with other nations, large and small, that shared a common cause.
In those days, the nuclear and conventional armaments of the United
States and the Soviet Union were almost equal, but democracy ultimately
prevailed because of commitments to freedom and human rights, not
only by people in my country and those of our allies, but in the
former Soviet empire as well. As president, I extended my public
support and encouragement to Andrei Sakharov, who, although denied
the right to attend the ceremony, was honored here for his personal
commitments to these same ideals.
The world has changed greatly since I left the White House. Now
there is only one superpower, with unprecedented military and economic
strength. The coming budget for American armaments will be greater
than those of the next fifteen nations combined, and there are troops
from the United States in many countries throughout the world. Our
gross national economy exceeds that of the three countries that
follow us, and our nation's voice most often prevails as decisions
are made concerning trade, humanitarian assistance, and the allocation
of global wealth. This dominant status is unlikely to change in
our lifetimes.
Great American power and responsibility are not unprecedented, and
have been used with restraint and great benefit in the past. We
have not assumed that super strength guarantees super wisdom, and
we have consistently reached out to the international community
to ensure that our own power and influence are tempered by the best
common judgment.
Within our country, ultimate decisions are made through democratic
means,which tend to moderate radical or ill-advised proposals. Constrained
and inspired by historic constitutional principles, our nation has
endeavored for more than two hundred years to follow the now almost
universal ideals of freedom, human rights, and justice for all.
Our president, Woodrow Wilson, was honored here for promoting the
League of Nations, whose two basic concepts were profoundly important:
“collective security” and “self-determination.”
Now they are embedded in international law. Violations of these
premises during the last half-century have been tragic failures,
as was vividly demonstrated when the Soviet Union attempted to conquer
Afghanistan and when Iraq invaded Kuwait.
After the second world war, American Secretary of State Cordell
Hull received this prize for his role in founding the United Nations.
His successor, General George C. Marshall, was recognized because
of his efforts to help rebuild Europe, without excluding the vanquished
nations of Italy and Germany. This was a historic example of respecting
human rights at the international level.
Ladies and gentlemen: Twelve years ago, President Mikhail Gorbachev
received your recognition for his preeminent role in ending the
Cold War that had lasted fifty years.
But instead of entering a millennium of peace, the world is now,
in many ways, a more dangerous place. The greater ease of travel
and communication has not been matched by equal understanding and
mutual respect. There is a plethora of civil wars, unrestrained
by rules of the Geneva Convention, within which an overwhelming
portion of the casualties are unarmed civilians who have no ability
to defend themselves. And recent appalling acts of terrorism have
reminded us that no nations, even superpowers, are invulnerable.
It is clear that global challenges must be met with an emphasis
on peace, in harmony with others, with strong alliances and international
consensus. Imperfect as it may be, there is no doubt that this can
best be done through the United Nations, which Ralph Bunche described
here in this same forum as exhibiting a “fortunate flexibility”
- not merely to preserve peace but also to make change, even radical
change, without violence.
He went on to say: “To suggest that war can prevent war is
a base play on words and a despicable form of warmongering. The
objective of any who sincerely believe in peace clearly must be
to exhaust every honorable recourse in the effort to save the peace.
The world has had ample evidence that war begets only conditions
that beget further war.”
We must remember that today there are at least eight nuclear powers
on earth, and three of them are threatening to their neighbors in
areas of great international tension. For powerful countries to
adopt a principle of preventive war may well set an example that
can have catastrophic consequences.
If we accept the premise that the United Nations is the best avenue
for the maintenance of peace, then the carefully considered decisions
of the United Nations Security Council must be enforced. All too
often, the alternative has proven to be uncontrollable violence
and expanding spheres of hostility.
For more than half a century, following the founding of the State
of Israel in 1948, the Middle East conflict has been a source of
worldwide tension. At Camp David in 1978 and in Oslo in 1993, Israelis,
Egyptians, and Palestinians have endorsed the only reasonable prescription
for peace: United Nations Resolution 242. It condemns the acquisition
of territory by force, calls for withdrawal of Israel from the occupied
territories, and provides for Israelis to live securely and in harmony
with their neighbors. There is no other mandate whose implementation
could more profoundly improve international relationships.
Perhaps of more immediate concern is the necessity for Iraq to comply
fully with the unanimous decision of the Security Council that it
eliminate all weapons of mass destruction and permit unimpeded access
by inspectors to confirm that this commitment has been honored.
The world insists that this be done.
I thought often during my years in the White House of an admonition
that we received in our small school in Plains, Georgia, from a
beloved teacher,Miss Julia Coleman. She often said: “We must
adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.”
When I was a young boy, this same teacher also introduced me to
Leo Tolstoy's novel, “War and Peace.” She interpreted
that powerful narrative as a reminder that the simple human attributes
of goodness and truth can overcome great power. She also taught
us that an individual is not swept along on a tide of inevitability
but can influence even the greatest human events.
These premises have been proven by the lives of many heroes, some
of whose names were little known outside their own regions until
they became Nobel laureates: Albert John Lutuli, Norman Borlaug,
Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel, Aung San Suu Kyi, Jody Williams, and
even Albert Schweitzer and Mother Teresa. All of these and others
have proven that even without government power - and often in opposition
to it - individuals can enhance human rights and wage peace, actively
and effectively.
The Nobel prize also profoundly magnified the inspiring global influence
of Martin Luther King, Jr., the greatest leader that my native state
has ever produced. On a personal note, it is unlikely that my political
career beyond Georgia would have been possible without the changes
brought about by the civil rights movement in the American south
and throughout our nation.
On the steps of our memorial to Abraham Lincoln, Dr. King said:
“I have a dream that on the red hills of Georgia the sons of
former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to
sit down together at a table of brotherhood.”
The scourge of racism has not been vanquished, either in the red
hills of our state or around the world. And yet we see ever more
frequent manifestations of his dream of racial healing. In a symbolic
but very genuine way, at least involving two Georgians, it is coming
true in Oslo today.
I am not here as a public official, but as a citizen of a troubled
world who finds hope in a growing consensus that the generally accepted
goals of society are peace, freedom, human rights, environmental
quality, the alleviation of suffering, and the rule of law.
During the past decades, the international community, usually under
the auspices of the United Nations, has struggled to negotiate global
standards that can help us achieve these essential goals. They include:
the abolition of land mines and chemical weapons; an end to the
testing, proliferation, and further deployment of nuclear warheads;
constraints on global warming; prohibition of the death penalty,
at least for children; and an international criminal court to deter
and to punish war crimes and genocide. Those agreements already
adopted must be fully implemented, and others should be pursued
aggressively.
We must also strive to correct the injustice of economic sanctions
that seek to penalize abusive leaders but all too often inflict
punishment on those who are already suffering from the abuse.
The unchanging principles of life predate modern times. I worship
Jesus Christ, whom we Christians consider to be the Prince of Peace.
As a Jew, he taught us to cross religious boundaries, in service
and in love. He repeatedly reached out and embraced Roman conquerors,
other Gentiles, and even the more despised Samaritans.
Despite theological differences, all great religions share common
commitments that define our ideal secular relationships. I am convinced
that Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, and others can
embrace each other in a common effort to alleviate human suffering
and to espouse peace.
But the present era is a challenging and disturbing time for those
whose lives are shaped by religious faith based on kindness toward
each other. We have been reminded that cruel and inhuman acts can
be derived from distorted theological beliefs, as suicide bombers
take the lives of innocent human beings, draped falsely in the cloak
of God's will. With horrible brutality, neighbors have massacred
neighbors in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
In order for us human beings to commit ourselves personally to the
inhumanity of war, we find it necessary first to dehumanize our
opponents, which is in itself a violation of the beliefs of all
religions. Once we characterize our adversaries as beyond the scope
of God's mercy and grace, their lives lose all value. We deny personal
responsibility when we plant landmines and, days or years later,
a stranger to us - often a child - is crippled or killed. From a
great distance, we launch bombs or missiles with almost total impunity,
and never want to know the number or identity of the victims.
At the beginning of this new millennium I was asked to discuss,
here in Oslo, the greatest challenge that the world faces. Among
all the possible choices, I decided that the most serious and universal
problem is the growing chasm between the richest and poorest people
on earth. Citizens of the ten wealthiest countries are now seventy-five
times richer than those who live in the ten poorest ones, and the
separation is increasing every year, not only between nations but
also within them. The results of this disparity are root causes
of most of the world's unresolved problems, including starvation,
illiteracy, environmental degradation, violent conflict, and unnecessary
illnesses that range from Guinea worm to HIV/AIDS.
Most work of The Carter Center is in remote villages in the poorest
nations of Africa, and there I have witnessed the capacity of destitute
people to persevere under heartbreaking conditions. I have come
to admire their judgment and wisdom, their courage and faith, and
their awesome accomplishments when given a chance to use their innate
abilities.
But tragically, in the industrialized world there is a terrible
absence of understanding or concern about those who are enduring
lives of despair and hopelessness. We have not yet made the commitment
to share with others an appreciable part of our excessive wealth.
This is a potentially rewarding burden that we should all be willing
to assume.
Ladies and gentlemen:
War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary,
it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live
together in peace by killing each other's children.
The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness
of our fears and prejudices. God gives us the capacity for choice.
We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together
for peace. We can make these changes - and we must.
Thank you.
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