On Wednesday, 30th October 2013, the awarding ceremony of the Hessian Peace Prize 2013 to Imam Dr Muhammad Ashafa and Pastor Dr James Quye was held in the Hessian State Parliament. Professor Dirk Messner, Director of the German Development Institute, held the laudatory speech for the award recipients.
President of the Hessian State Parliament Norbert Kartman welcomed guests at the ceremony in the music hall of the Hessian State Parliament. He called attention to the fact that for the first time the prize was presented to two persons. “A Muslim and a Christian who at one time were opposing each other in a hostile manner have decided to jointly commit themselves to the promotion of peace.”
The minister of justice, integration, European affairs and deputy prime minister Jörg-Uwe Hahn declared: “We honor two men who in a unique way show that difference cannot only be a threat, but also a chance: Once enemies, today they are bridge builders between Christians and Muslims. Their biographies reflect the tragedy of a country and at the same time the hope for peace between different religious and ethnic groups.”
In his laudatory speech, Dirk Messner emphasized that he was deeply touched by how two religious combatants could become joint strugglers for peace. “The story starts with violence and bottomless hatred, but then a turning point is reached and two militia commanders turn into conciliators and bridge builders. Based on confidence-building through personal meetings, with actions such as the foundation of the Interfaith Mediation Centre or the establishment of peace camps, a pathway out of violence was developed.”
The chairman of the Committee of the Hessian Peace Prize, Minister of State (retired) Karl Starzacher read out the text of the certificate and together with President of the Hessian State Parliament Kartman presented it to the laureates. It states:
“Together Imam Dr Muhammad Ashafa and Pastor Dr James Wuye are awarded the Hessian Peace Prize of the Albert Osswald Foundation for their convincing and successful commitment to the overcoming of violent conflicts between Christians and Muslims in their home country Nigeria and the associated establishment of the ‘Interfaith Mediation Centre’.
Themselves once enemies and leaders of militant, fundamentalist organizations, they have converted in their personal process of reconciliation into men of peace. Actively they started to mediate between the rival groups and thus broke the cycle of destruction, growing hatred, death and suffering.
In 2001, following renewed armed conflict, the ‘Interfaith Mediation Centre’ was founded by Dr Ashafa and Dr Wuye. In 2002 the two of them succeeded after months of mediation between the two religious groups and prevailed on both sides to sign a declaration of peace, which since then serves as a model for religious peace in Nigeria.
In the following years they initiated peace camps with the goal of reducing mutual religious enemy stereotypes, seminars for religious leaders as well as a school curriculum which is already being applied in 30 schools in the north of Nigeria and meanwhile is also distributed by trained mediators in Ghana, Burundi and Kenya.
Commitment to peace in one of the most violent regions of the world requires hard work, great devotion and a lot of personal courage to expose oneself to the threat of violence-prone actors. Dr Ashafa and Dr Wuye show this courage day after day.”
Imam Dr Muhammad Ashafa emphasized in his acceptance speech that the drums of war sometimes beat louder than the ones of peace. “We need a transformation here. If we want peace, we must not prepare for war, but establish sustainable peace. We need to find a way from violence and conflict towards dialogue and good-neighborly relations.”
Pastor Dr James Wuye gave thanks for the prize and dedicated it to all the people who had accompanied him on his often dangerous journey. “I hope that the wind of peace will reach the entire world. In the course of this we can act as multipliers and invite everybody to contribute to this project of peace. Peace is possible.”
The Hessian Peace Prize was established in 1993 by Albert Osswald and the foundation established by him and is endowed with 25,000 Euros.