Is the Nobel Peace Prize really about ‘peace’?
Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Sathyarthi are set to share the Nobel Peace Prize today and it will indeed be a great honour for both of them, or maybe not. The sanctity of the Nobel Peace Prize has been eroded over the years. Nobel intended it to be awarded those who had ‘done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses’. The Nobel committee probably thinks it’s a tool to bolster Norway’s foreign policy and global image and help Uncle Sam and the EU nations look cool! Either that or they decide the winners by randomly drawing chits. There’s no other logical explanation.
Over the years, the award has been given to war criminals, newly-elected presidents and people who have done absolutely nothing to achieve peace. We look back at some of the most controversial winners, and in particular, one major non-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Mahatma Gandhi – the man who never got the Nobel Peace Prize
First up is the biggest omission from the list of winners – Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi. The only explanation for his absence from the list of laureates is the fact that Norway probably didn’t want to anger the mighty British Empire. Despite being nominated five times between 1938 and 1942, the father of our nation never made the final cut. The committee however expressed its regret later saying: ‘The greatest omission in our 106 year history is undoubtedly that Mahatma Gandhi never received the Nobel Peace prize. Gandhi could do without the Nobel Peace prize, whether Nobel committee can do without Gandhi is the question.’ Too little, too late!
Le Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger – 1973 Peace Prize
The prize was awarded to North Vietnamese leader Lu Duc Tho and US Secretary of State Kissinger ‘for the 1973 Paris Peace Accords intended to bring about a cease-fire in the Vietnam War and a withdrawal of the American forces’. Thọ refused to accept the prize, on the grounds that peace had not actually been achieved in Vietnam. The prize was particularly controversial because on a spectrum with peacekeeper at one end and war-monger on the other, Kissinger would undoubtedly lean towards the latter.
His history showed his complicity in secret bombing campaigns against troops in Cambodia, US support of Operation Condor (against Soviet influence in South America which resulted in the death of thousands) and his role in the massacre of Bengalis in Bangladesh.
He infamously called Indira Gandhi ‘a witch and a bitch’ and sneered at people who cared for those ‘dying Bengalis’. The US openly supported Pakistan in the Bangladesh Liberation War of 197. America and Kissinger actually helped the Pakistani government carry out the massacre in Bangladesh.
Author out Gary J Bass wrote in his book The Blood Telegram: ‘The slaughter in what is now Bangladesh stands as one of the cardinal moral challenges of recent history. In the dark annals of modern cruelty, it ranks as bloodier than Bosnia and by some accounts in the same rough league as Rwanda. But Pakistan’s slaughter of its Bengalis in 1971 is starkly different. Here the United States was allied with the killers. The White House was actively and knowingly supporting a murderous regime at many of the most crucial moments.’
‘There was no question about whether the United States should intervene; it was already intervening on behalf of a military dictatorship decimating its own people.’ Instead of standing in front of a war tribunal, Kissinger actually won the Nobel Peace Prize!
Barrack Obama – winner in 2009
While the committee kept on awarding the prize to Americans to boost their ties with Uncle Sam, the Peace Prize in 2009 to newly-elected President Obama was bizarre, even by their own standards! Obama was ostensibly awarded the prize ‘for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people’. That was a bit rich considering he had only been the President of the US for nine months and hadn’t done anything to deserve the award, unless you count giving a few fancy speeches. These speeches promised great things but none of them materialised and Uncle Sam remained the same oil-loving, war-mongering, capitalist bully the world always knew!
European Union – Winner in 2012
By 2012, it became pretty clear that Nobel Peace Prize was nothing more than a bargaining chip for better trade. What other explanation is there for giving the prize to the European Union? Apparently, the committee felt that the EU for ‘over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe’. Director of the Norwegian Noble Institute, Geir Lundestad stated that the award was not about Norwegian membership in the EU, but a wider perspective’. Yeah right!
Now, consider the EU nations – UK, France, Spain, Netherlands, Germany and Italy – have spent the better part of the last two centuries colonising innocents or annexing nations. And they have fought not one, but two World Wars. The award led three former winners – Desmond Tutu, Mairead Maguire and Adolfo Perez Esquivel – to write an open letter condemning the award. The letter added that the EU condones ‘security based on military force and waging wars rather than insisting on the need for an alternative approach’, they add that it has failed to ‘realise Nobel’s demilitarised global peace order’.