The Black Lives Matter movement has been nominated for the Nobel peace prize

The nomination papers for the 2021 Nobel peace prize have been filed. Among the nominees is the Black Lives Matter movement, co-founded in 2013 by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi in response to the acquittal of the man who shot Trayvon Martin in the United States. Over the past year, despite the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement has been going strong. It was recently reignited after the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by a White police officer. Last year, the World Food Program won the highly coveted prize, with over 300 nominations, The Guardian reports.

Norwegian Member of Parliament Petter Eide stated in his nomination papers that the Black Lives Matter movement had forced countries outside the United States to analyze race relations within their own communities. He noted, "I find that one of the key challenges we have seen in America, but also in Europe and Asia, is the kind of increasing conflict based on inequality. Black Lives Matter has become a very important worldwide movement to fight racial injustice. They have had a tremendous achievement in raising global awareness and consciousness about racial injustice." He particularly praised the movement's ability to bring together people of all backgrounds.

"They have been able to mobilize people from all groups of society, not just African Americans, not just oppressed people," he affirmed. "It has been a broad movement, in a way which has been different from their predecessors." The politician also recognized how organized Black Lives Matter protests have been in the past year. He said, "Studies have shown that most of the demonstrations organized by Black Lives Matter have been peaceful. Of course, there have been incidents, but most of them have been caused by the activities of either the police or counter-protestors."

MP Eide has in the past nominated human rights activists from Russia and China for the prize. Nominations for the Nobel peace prize are accepted from any politician serving at a national level. Each politician must submit, in no more than 2,000 words, a case for their selected individual, organization, or in this instance, movement. This year, the deadline for all submissions is February 1. The Nobel peace prize committee will then prepare a shortlist by the end of March, following which a winner is chosen in October. The award ceremony has been scheduled for December 10.

Last year, more than 300 nominations were submitted for the World Food Program, which eventually went on to win the award. The committee claimed it wished to award the organization as it would "turn the eyes of the world to the millions of people who suffer from or face the threat of hunger." The most controversial nomination of the year 2020 was, nonetheless, for former United States President Donald Trump. This year, too, he was nominated for a second time, by Christian Tybring-Gjedde, another Norwegian MP. He claimed that Trump played a key role in "normalizing relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates under the Abraham Accords."