By Adrija Shukla:
Human beings are a bundle of surreal feelings, emotions and aspirations. This anomalous race is so formidable that it can conquer mountains and dig up the depths of oceans. All it needs is the elixir of motivation which gives it the strength to set new standards of perfection. Awards & Prizes seem to be the greatest motivation for human beings. When something done by burning candles at both ends gets recognised internationally, it turns out to be a huge source of inducement. Nobel prizes are known to be world’s most prestigious awards that acknowledge the greatest achievements of people in various fields.
The Nobel awards came into existence as the legacy of the Swedish Scientist Alfred Nobel, who declared peace awards as one of the 6 award categories in his will. Nobel was an extraordinary scientist, who invented Dynamite. It made him really wealthy initially, but towards the end of his life, he probably had a restless conscious searching for an answer. This made him announce Nobel Prizes in his will as a repentance of the repercussions of his inventions.
Peace prizes are considered to be one of the most devout awards in this age of social unrest and disharmony. While Alfred Nobel wrote in his will that peace prize will be given to “the person 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.”, the definition seems to have lost sheen with the passage of time.
This year, India’s Mr. Kailash Satyarthi and Pakistan’s Malala Yusufzai jointly won the year’s greatest honour for their contributions to the cause of humanity. The reason the Norwegian Nobel Committee gave this joint award is the “Fraternity between Nations” criterion of Alfred Nobel’s will. Indeed, there is no question mark on how deserving both the winners were for this prize. But these awards have a really long (114 year) history, which has witnessed some of the best acknowledgements for the contributions in bringing about peace in the world. Although, there is another side of this story too, which has noticed all sorts of bizarre selections for the peace awards that really make one ponder upon the selection criterion of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
One of the most surprising choices ever made for the peace prize was Henry Kissinger in the year 1973. He and Vietnamese leader Le Duc Tho were awarded the peace prize for the ‘Paris Peace Accords and bringing ceasefire in Vietnam war with withdrawal of American force.’ Now, Kissinger has a very famous quote “The illegal we can do right now, the unconstitutional will take a little longer.” He was one of the most influential and most ruthless Secretary of State of America. During his term, he was involved in massive bombings in various countries. Peace award to him raised many questions on this decision. Even two members of the Nobel Committee resigned in protest against this decision. But his ‘peaceful efforts’ were not affected by this and the Award went to him.
Another peculiar selection was made in the year 1994 when Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres & Yitzhak Rabin were awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts for making peace between Israel & Palestine. Arafat’s name left many people flabbergasted because after leading a massive violent struggle which led to the killings of thousands of people, he was awarded the peace prize.
In the year 2009, Peace prize was presented to Barak Obama ‘for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people’. The announcement of his name was surprising even for Obama himself who was given this prize just after a short period of time when he took over the office. This heated up the arguments that this choice was rather politically motivated from Norway’s point of view than based on merits.
In 2012, European Union was chosen for the peace prize for contributing towards peace and reconciliation of democracy in Europe. This was another outlandish choice by the Committee, which really did not mean to “encourage” efforts of European Union. A larger part of the Union was going through a major social & economic unrest when the prize was announced. The political prescience was apparent.
Since its inception in the year 1901, there have been a total of 125 Nobel Peace awardees. Out of these, 103 are individual and 22 are organisations. Country-wise data says that US has won the most number of peace prizes with 29 winners. UK takes the second spot with 14 winners and Switzerland and France take third and fourth positions with 12 & 8 winners respectively.
The concerns raised on the selection criterion are braced by the facts that there are some people who were internationally recognised for their efforts for bringing peace and integration in the world, but were never awarded with the peace prize. Mahatma Gandhi, who was nominated 5 times as per the claims of the Committee, never won the award as he was not a deserving candidate ever. Personalities like Fazle Hasan Abed, Elanor Roosevelt, and Vaclav Havel were a few people who were very much deserving as per the criteria of peace prize but were not deserving as per the decisions of Norwegian Nobel Committee.
According to a report published in Aftenposten, Norway’s largest newspaper in criticism of Norwegian Nobel Committee, the majority of the members are recruited from political and professional backgrounds rather than the people who are in the field of peace or working for peace, or peace researchers. There is too little openness about the selection criterion of the winners of Peace Prize. Indeed, there have been many instances where these awards were used as an instrument to benefit Norway’s foreign policies and economic interests.
Such speculations on the world’s most estimable awards raise serious questions on the fairness of these awards. They have set new definitions of peace that is very different from the conventional interpretation of the word. Now, when awards are given keeping in mind the interests of a country, then how far they can claim to acknowledge the international efforts of bringing about peace in the world? It would have been fair if the awardees were selected in accordance with Alfred Nobel’s intent and will.
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