Peace Prize Forum 2000: Overview

Wars within borders. Ethnic and partisan hostility.
Reconciling with enemies close to home.

St. Olaf Campus

Peace Prize Forum 2000
"Striving for Peace: Risk and Reconciliation," the theme of the Peace Prize Forum 2000, honors the work of John Hume and David Trimble. They were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998 for undertaking the exhausting and politically risky process that culminated in the Belfast Agreement enacted on Good Friday in 1998. This agreement established a process for resolving long-standing differences over the national sovereignty of Northern Ireland and its relationship with the island of Ireland and the union with Great Britain—a process that is still playing out.

David Trimble

This year’s Peace Prize Forum focuses our attention on the motivations for peace and the painstaking process of reconciliation. It considers the issue of wars within borders by looking at the roots of ethnic and partisan hostility and by asking how people can reconcile with enemies close to home. It explores issues of religion and peace, especially the risks that religious belief calls us to assume. And it examines strategies for peace, both personal and political, that provide all of us an arena for action.

Held in cooperation with the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo, this series of forums was created to offer the opportunity for Nobel Peace Prize laureates, diplomats, scholars, and the general public to share in a dialogue on the underlying causes of conflict and war in modern society and on the dynamics of peacemaking.

Participants at the Seminar

Summer Seminar - Setting the Stage
In June 1999 faculty from the Peace Prize Forum colleges and the University of St. Thomas traveled to Londonderry, Northern Ireland, to deepen their understanding of the issues at the heart of this year's Forum. During a ten-day seminar at Ulster University, Magee College, they were introduced to the history of the conflict in Northern Ireland, the significant people, perspectives and issues relating to the Belfast Agreement, and the relationships among cultural, civic, religious and other factions that came together to support the Belfast Agreement. In turn, the Peace Prize Forum Planning Committee is working to bring faculty and students from Magee College to participate in the Peace Prize Forum when it is held at St. Olaf College on February 18-19, 2000.

Exchanges of this sort will add a human dimension to the Peace Prize Forum 2000 program, as well as continue to deepen the exploration of the complex social and cultural factors that influence or inhibit peacemaking efforts. An article written by Mary Frost Steen further describes this experiences in Northern Ireland (click here).

History of the Peace Prize Forum
The Peace Prize Forum was established in 1989, in partnership with the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway, as a way to foster dialogue on the causes and manifestations of conflict and war in modern society and on the dynamics of peacemaking. This annual program brings together Nobel Peace Prize laureates, diplomats, scholars, journalists, students, and the general public in an effort to make an educational contribution to broad public interest in the study and practice of peacemaking. Each Forum represents an opportunity to focus attention on the affirmative acts of risk-taking in the service of peace and justice that the Nobel Peace Prize recognizes and honors. This collaboration to advance world peace is a natural outgrowth of the sponsoring colleges’ common Norwegian heritage and affiliation with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The Nobel Prize

Included among the Nobel laureates who have served as keynote speakers and thereby determined the themes for Peace Prize Forums in recent years are: Jody Williams and Steve Goose, co-laureates in 1997 for their coordination of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines; Jose Ramos-Horata, co-laureate in 1996 for his work in East Timor; representatives of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, recipient of the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize; Rigoberta Menchu of Guatemala, laureate in 1994 for her campaign for human rights of indigenous people; and Naomi Tutu, representing her father, Desmond Tutu, laureate in 1993 for his life-long work to battle the injustices of apartheid in South Africa.

The two-day Peace Prize Forum involves a broad cross-section of students, college faculty, public policy experts, and interested members of the general public in active dialogue about issues raised by the work of each year’s laureates. In addition to plenary sessions during which laureates and other acknowledged authorities speak, the Forum offers a series of two to three dozen individual seminars related to the theme. These seminars are led by faculty and students from the participating colleges and representatives of other organizations.



Peace Prize Forum: Archives

For historical information on the previous Peace Prize Forums, please visit the Archives, which contain information from all of the past forums, including speaker lists and other historical records.

Now Online: David Trimble's Plenary Address   | Denis Haughey's Plenary Address

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