"People are suffering, people are dying, our ecosystems are collapsing, we are at the beginning of a mass extinction," said climate activist Greta Thunberg on Monday at the climate summit in New York. "And all you can talk about is money."
It is that uncompromising way of "telling the mighty the truth" that has now earned the 16-year-old Swede the Alternative Nobel Prize. Together with Greta Thunberg , three other people are being honored: Chinese lawyer Guo Jianmei , African human rights activist Aminatu Haidar and Davi Kopenawa , spokesman for the indigenous Yanomami in the Brazilian rainforest, who works to preserve the Amazon. The prize money is one million Swedish kroner, the equivalent of 94,000 euros.
The Right Livelihood Award, as the Alternative Nobel Prize is officially known, has been awarded in Stockholm every year since 1980 and 40 times in 2019. Price Founder Ole von Uexküll said the four honorees motivated millions of people to "defend their own rights and work for a livable future for all on Earth." In recent years, among others, the US whistleblower Edward Snowden and the Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege were awarded.
The award winners at a glance:
Greta Thunberg
Kevin Lamarque / REUTERS
Greta Thunberg: "And everything you can talk about is money"
It was a brief, unscheduled encounter - and immediately made for worldwide headlines: US President Donald Trump met Greta Thunberg on the sidelines of the climate summit in New York. Trump and Thunberg in one room, the short video recording spread rapidly in the network - and shows the scope and relevance of the climate activist meanwhile. The Swedish student protests for more than a year for more climate protection. From their weekly school strike, the international climate protest movement "Fridays For Future" developed. Their constant influence has now moved the foundation to honor Thunberg. "It stands for the idea that everyone has the power to change something," it says in the statement. It makes the political demand for urgent climate protection measures heard worldwide. Her example inspired people from all walks of life to demand political action.
Aminatu Haidar
Kristy Sparow / WireImage / Getty Images
Aminatou Haidar 2014 in Paris: best-known voice of the Saharawi
It has been ten years since human rights activist Aminatu Haidar went on a hunger strike at the airport of the Spanish island of Lanzarote, drinking only water. At times, doctors feared for the life of the now 53-year-old North African. Since then, Haidar has repeatedly made hunger strikes and protests aware of their struggle: the fight for the Sahrawis, the desert inhabitants of Western Sahara. First, the people were oppressed by the Spanish colonial rulers, later by the Moroccan government. Haidar has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her peaceful protest and is often referred to as the "Ghandi of Western Sahara". She is the most well-known voice of her people and was held for years in Moroccan prisons for her protests. The Foundation in Stockholm honors them "for their unwavering non-violent resistance, despite imprisonment and torture, in the pursuit of justice and self-determination for the people of Western Sahara."
Guo Jianmei
Keith B. Richburg / The Washington Post / Getty Images
Guo Jianmei: Provides legal advice to women
Lawyer Guo Jianmei has been campaigning for women's rights in China for over 20 years. In 1995, she founded the Women's Legal Research and Services Center, an NGO that provides legal advice and representation to women in emergencies. "It gave thousands of disadvantaged women access to justice," said the foundation in Stockholm in its award statement. Guo repeatedly denounces gender inequality in China, it is about domestic violence, sexual harassment in the workplace and abuse. "In my family, men have always been considered superior," she once said in an interview: "My grandmother died at the age of 40. She starved to death while selling bread with some bread left, but out of fear, beaten to death she did not eat it. " In 2005, Guo created a network of lawyers who provide legal advice to women in remote rural areas. The foundation said the 58-year-old earned the prize "for her groundbreaking and persistent work to strengthen women's rights in China."
Davi Kopenawa
Leon Neal / AFP
Davi Kopenawa: Yanomami spokesman in the Brazilian jungle
Davi Kopenawa belongs to the Yanomami, an indigenous people in the Brazilian rainforest. As spokesman for the tribe, he and his organization, Hutukara Associação Yanomami, receive the award "for their courageous determination to protect the forests and biodiversity of the Amazon, as well as the land and indigenous culture," as stated in the statement. Because the resource-rich area of the Yanomami has long been threatened by economic and political interests: In the eighties and nineties gold miners had destroyed villages of the Yanomami, introduced diseases, one-fifth of the population died. Even today, Yanomani still face the economic interests of farmers, investors and politicians in Brazil. In his function as a speaker, the 63-year-old Kopenawa campaign for the rights of the people's tribe and give them a common voice.
