Government and Policy

Nobel prize has nothing to do with peace

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-10-24 18:08

The cause of world peace is inviolable, for a great many people with ideals and integrity have devoted themselves into it in order to resolve confrontations, promote harmony as well as avoid wars. And it is just for the encouragement of those great ones that Alfred Bernhard Nobel wrote in his will that the prize would be awarded to people who "shall have 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". However, this is a will that is extremely hard to put into force. One of the main reasons is the establishment and implementation of the standard of the peace work.

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The world is complex and it is with multiple contradictions, which leads to various comprehensions, from people of different backgrounds, on how to promote national harmony, to enhance international friendship as well as how to make a reduction in standing armies. These discrepancies in interests and standpoints decide the following three facts: first, the road to peace is tortuous; second, the mechanism for the maintenance of peace requires the balance and coordination of different interests, which lead to further understanding, compromise, consensus and even a peace agreement; third, the standard of contribution to peace and integrity should integrate the various views of different sides. Any coercive reached views based on more powerful capital and interests will became the promotion of power instead of peace.

Based on the analysis above, the standard of Nobel Prize, especially the constitution and working ways of the judging committee is in reference to anything but the legitimate judgment of "peace".

First, the juries of the Noble prize remain Norwegian, rather appointed through the long advocated democratic elections in the West. The fact that Norway has long kept neutral in wars and showed its support for resolution through mediation and arbitration does not mean the Norwegians possess a deeper understanding of the complexity of achieving world peace as well as the essence of maintaining the peace. Second, all the five juries have government backgrounds: four were government ministers and one was parliament president. None of them is representative enough even in their country, which makes people wonder who appointed the Norwegians politicians as the juries of a self claimed NGO and authorized them the right of judgment of matters related to world peace and integrity. Third, the five jurors, in a stunning way, know not too much about world affairs, nor are they experts in this field. In the judging process they did not come with a method of requiring opinions of conflicting sides. Is such a jury, with a political background, from a highly-developed country with four million people knowledgeably capable of making the "peace standard" on behalf of six billion people in the world? Just for this concern, Fredrik S. Heffermehl, the Swedish jurist defines the prize as "Norwegian Parliament Prize" instead of the "Noble Peace Prize". The award does not reflect Mr. Noble's original intent, and does not possess a worldwide significance.

The unthinkable and ridiculous decision by the Nobel committee depends on the formation of the group and the award procedure. In 1939, the committee included Adolf Hitler on the nominee list under pressure from Germany. In 1989, the committee awarded the peace prize to Dalai Lama, a Tibetan slave master involved in armed rebellion and national abruption. In 2009, it listed the armed secessionist force leader Rebiya Kadeer as a nominee in response to the pressure from the US. In the same year, it awarded the peace prize to US President Barack Obama, who was at that time sending more troops to Afghanistan, as "good will" to the world's super military power. This year, it awarded the "peace prize" to Liu Xiaobo, a law offender who tries to subvert China. Another favorite son of the committee, former Soviet leader Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, with "peaceful means", destroyed and disrupted his country and was followed by instability, depression and regional conflict that plagued his people. However, the nominees had never included Mahatma Gandhi, the nonviolent and noncooperation movement leader who led the resistance to the British colonial rule in India and Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader of China who lifted Chinese people from poverty and recovered the colonized Hong Kong and Macao by peaceful means. Apparently, the committee not only imposes its biased views on others, moreover, it strikes the real peace loving and contributing people with arms of ideology and values. The committee is selling its political positions in the name of the Nobel prize to achieve an even ulterior aim.

However, to such a trick by some rare extremists for their own enjoyment, there are some western politicians coming out to applaud. They are President Obama, who even felt embarrassed at his prize, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and president of the European Committee Jose Manuel Barroso. These people's support gives a complete disclosure of the political function of the peace prize. Fortunately, more and more people are coming to recognize the essence of the prize and as a result pay no attention to it or stand out to expose the conspiracy.