Sunday, October 11, 2009

The Politicization of the Nobel Peace Prize

The award of the Nobel peace prize strikes one as absurd and baffling. What has Obama done to deserve the prize? His own statement was that the reward "[must be] less a recognition of his accomplishments than a 'call to action.'"

I agree with John Bolton (former ambassador to the UN), who said, "It is indicative of the politicization of the Nobel Peace Prize process. This just carries it to the n-th degree." In fact, the Nobel Peace Prize process has been somewhat ridiculous for some time and continues to be.

To analyze this further, I must first ask, "For what is this prize awarded?" Is it a prize for pacifism? Is that good? Should Neville Chamberlain have won the Nobel prize for his refusal to confront Nazi Germany? Is it a prize for taking steps to reduce violence? This is the only context in which the award, in 1994, to Yassir Arafat makes any sense. If one believed, at that time, that he had renounced terrorism (which seems not to have been true), then it might make sense to reward/award him for having renounced violent tactics. The problem with this definition, though, is that one must support violence in the first place/

The sad truth is that the committee's goals are far more simplistic, naive, and political. The committee says that "His diplomacy is founded on the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population." What? What the hell does that mean? That the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to those who further a democratic world government?

When people were being slaughtered in Rwanda, in the 1990's, the majority of the world preferred not to intervene. If President Clinton HAD intervened, and had saved hundreds of thousands or millions of lives, would he thereby have become ineligible for the Nobel Peace Prize?

The Nobel Committee's goals are so obviously politically motivated, its understanding of international politics, conflict, and war so obviously weak, and its own criteria for designating winners of the prize so poorly thought out, the prize should cease to exist. The money would be better spent increasing the size of the prize for the other Nobel awards.