Arundhati's 'Peace' stirs Australia

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script></div> <div align="center" style="position:relative; left: -2"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="center" border="0" width="72.2%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" ffffff=""> <div class="Normal"><img src="/photo/909270.cms" alt="/photo/909270.cms" border="0" /></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal"><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-style:="" italic="">Arundhati Roy, the award-winning Indian novelist and human rights campaigner, contemplates the controversy surrounding her winning of the Australian Peace Prize in Sydney.Roy, who had previously branded US President George W Bush as a "terrorist", has sparked outrage here by calling on people to join the Iraqi "resistance". (AFP photo)</span><br /><br />Arundhati Roy received the Sydney Peace Prize - an addition to her overflowing cupboard of international awards.<br /><br />Winner of the Booker prize for her 1997 novel The God of Small Things, the Magsaysay award winner is now as well-known for her Narmada Dam crusade as she is for her critique of the Enron scam and the coalition of the willing.<br /><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script></div> <div align="center" style="position:relative; left: -2"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="center" border="0" width="72.2%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" ffffff=""> <div class="Normal"><img src="/photo/909271.cms" alt="/photo/909271.cms" border="0" /></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal"><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-style:="" italic="">Arundhati Roy at a press conference in Sydney. (AFP photo)</span><br /><br />But not everybody in Sydney is happy with Roy being selected for the peace prize. <br /><br />Comparing Arundhati Roy''s nomination to that of Hanan Ashrafi of the Palestinian Authority, who won the prize last year, columnist Piers Ackerman, of <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">The Telegraph </span>newspaper, is incensed. <br /><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section3"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script></div> <div align="center" style="position:relative; left: -2"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="center" border="0" width="72.2%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" ffffff=""> <div class="Normal"><img src="/photo/909272.cms" alt="/photo/909272.cms" border="0" /></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal"><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-style:="" italic="">Arundhati Roy responds at a press conference to the controversy surrounding her winning of the Australian Peace Prize in Sydney on Wednesday. (AFP photo)</span><br /><br />The award-winning novelist defended on Wednesday her views that people should join what she calls the Iraqi "resistance".<br /><br />The award of the $50,000 Sydney Peace Prize to the winner of the 1997 Booker Prize for her novel <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">The God of Small Things</span>, sparked outrage in Australia, which has troops serving in Iraq. <br /><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section4"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script></div> <div align="center" style="position:relative; left: -2"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="center" border="0" width="72.2%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" ffffff=""> <div class="Normal"><img src="/photo/909277.cms" alt="/photo/909277.cms" border="0" /></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal"><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-style:="" italic="">Arundhati Roy smiles after winning the Australian Peace Prize in Sydney on Wednesday. (AFP photo)</span><br /><br />Roy will be awarded this year''s prize for what its judges said was her advocacy in demanding justice for the poor and people displaced by dam projects, as well as her opposition to nuclear weapons.<br /><br />In a television program screened by the Australian Broadcasting Corp last month, she called on people to "become the Iraqi resistance". <br /><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section5"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script></div> <div align="center" style="position:relative; left: -2"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="center" border="0" width="72.2%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" ffffff=""> <div class="Normal"><img src="/photo/909278.cms" alt="/photo/909278.cms" border="0" /></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal"><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-style:="" italic="">Human rights campaigner Arundhati Roy poses for a photograph in Sydney on Wednesday after it was announced that she has won the Sydney Peace Prize. Roy, a Booker prize winning author, follows other distinguished recipients such as Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, President of East Timor Xanana Gusmao and former UN commissioner for human rights Mary Robinson. (AP photo)</span><br /><br />She said activists and resistance movements "need to understand that Iraq is engaging in the front lines of empire and we have to ... throw our weight behind the Iraqi resistance." <br /><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section6"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script></div> <div align="center" style="position:relative; left: -2"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="center" border="0" width="72.2%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" ffffff=""> <div class="Normal"><img src="/photo/909282.cms" alt="/photo/909282.cms" border="0" /></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal"><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-style:="" italic="">Arundhati Roy poses for a photograph in Sydney. (AP photo)</span><br /><br />But she told <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">ABC </span>radio Wednesday that she did not mean people should engage in violence against coalition forces. "One wasn''t urging them to join the army, but to become the resistance, to become part of what ought to be non-violent resistance against a very violent occupation," she said, adding that the term "resistance" needed to be redefined.<br /></div> </div>