Nobels awarded, writer stays away from ceremony

Reuters via The Indian Express ^ | December 11, 2004

[Piefloater]

STOCKHOLM/OSLO, DECEMBER 10: Scientists and economists from the United States, Israel and Norway received their Nobel prizes on Friday at a ceremony marked by the conspicuous absence of literature laureate Elfriede Jelinek of Austria.

Kenyan Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel peace laureate, received her prize in Oslo, becoming the seventh African and the first African woman to win that award.

Jelinek, a feminist author who suffers from a social phobia, declined to receive her prize from Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf saying the public spotlight was ‘‘like a physical violation’’ for her. She will receive the prize at the Swedish embassy instead.

The peace prize was awarded separately in a ceremony in the Oslo City Hall, where the winner, Wangari Maathai, urged democratic reforms and an end to corporate greed. She said sweeping changes were needed to restore a ‘‘world of beauty and wonder’’ by overcoming challenges ranging from AIDS to climate instability.

‘‘Activities that devastate the environment and societies continue unabated,’’ Maathai, founder of a campaign to plant 30 million trees across Africa to slow deforestation, said in her acceptance speech to an audience of about 1,000 people, including Norway’s King Harald and Queen Sonja.

In an interview with Reuters, she brushed aside questions about her past suggestions that the deadly AIDS virus might have been the result of a laboratory experiment gone awry.

On Saturday, Tom Cruise and Oprah Winfrey will host the annual Nobel Peace Prize concert to honour Maathai.

[Piefloater]

Jelinek, a feminist author who suffers from a social phobia, declined to receive her prize from Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf saying the public spotlight was ‘‘like a physical violation’’ for her.

I have a family member who suffers from Social Phobia. Equating the attention resulting from winning the award to something like rape sounds to me more like a symptom of being a feminist author than of Social Phobia.

Here is a quote from her acceptance speech -

“Why insult someone, because he cannot find his way back to the path of journeying, of life, of life’s journey, if he has borne it — and this bearing is no bearing someone, but nor is it any kind of bearing on — has simply fortuitously borne it, like the dust on a pair of shoes, which is pitilessly hunted down by the housewife, if a little less pitilessly than the stranger is hunted down by the locals. What kind of dust is it?”

Any idea what this might actually mean?

[muawiyah]

Just gimme' the money.

(At last, a recipient who has figured out what it's really about.)

[Hildy]

I love it. Tom Cruise and Oprah Winfrey host the "tribute" to the woman who calls for the end of Corporate Greed. Can you name me two people who represent corporate entertainment megalamania more than these two? It's a hoot.

[ScottFromSpokane]

Ever read A Clockwork Orange?

I think she put too much Synthemesc in her moloko.

[Piefloater]

Ever read A Clockwork Orange?

Yes I did & I think you may be right.

[goodnesswins]

The "winning" "WRITER" wrote THAT?

[1FreeAmerican]

Say's alot about the judges in this contest/critique.

[Kirkwood]

"Any idea what this might actually mean?"

It obviously means nothing.
Nobel prizes have become a sham.

[Atchafalaya]

I believe she is quoting from a Kerry campaign speech to the Teamsters!

[Chode]

i guess the khat was kicking in about then...