The Hindu : Front Page : Sydney Peace Prize for Arundhati Roy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 30, 2004

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Sydney Peace Prize for Arundhati Roy

SYDNEY, MAY 29. The novelist and human rights activist, Arundhati Roy, has been awarded the 2004 Sydney Peace Prize for her work in social campaigns and her advocacy of non-violence. ``Arundhati Roy is a distinguished world citizen. She is an outstanding communicator who writes with great clarity and grace. At a time of terrible disregard for human life, we need to hear from citizens like Arundhati Roy,'' the Director of the Sydney Peace Foundation, Professor Stuart Rees, said.

The Foundation's Chairman, Alan Cameron, announced this, the only international peace prize awarded in Australia.

``Arundhati Roy has been recognised for her courage in campaigns for human rights and for her advocacy of non-violence, as expressed in her demands for justice for the poor, for the victims of communal violence, for the millions displaced by the Narmada dam projects and for her opposition to nuclear weapons,'' the jury's citation read.

The prize is awarded each year to an organisation that has or an individual who has made significant contributions to global peace, including improvements in personal security and steps towards eradicating poverty and other forms of structural violence.

Ms. Roy, who wrote the 1997 Booker Prize winning The God of Small Things, will deliver the City of Sydney Peace Prize Lecture in Sydney on November 3 and thereafter receive the prize at a separate ceremony.

The citation for the prize refers to `peace with justice' that requires initiatives to abolish the injustices of hunger and poverty, unemployment, homelessness and illiteracy, domestic violence and infant mortality.

Previous recipients of the prize include the Palestinian academic and human rights campaigner, Hanan Ashrawi, who is the founder and secretary-general of the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, Mary Robinson, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and Professor Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh and a pioneer of the rural micro credit movement.

In her comments, Ms. Roy said she was honoured to accept the prize. She said: ``Today, in a world convulsed by violence and unbelievable brutality the lines between `us' and `the terrorists' have been completely blurred... We don't have to choose between imperialism and terrorism; we have to choose what form of resistance will rid us of both. What shall we choose? Violence or non-violence?... We have to choose knowing that when we are violent to our enemies, we do violence to ourselves. When we brutalise others, we brutalise ourselves. And, eventually we run the risk of becoming our oppressors.''

PTI, UNI

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