Perhaps the sad truth is you cannot invent dynamite and then try to temper its lethal ramifications with a yearly gift of cash and a shiny trinket. To paraphrase Professor Karlan, you might be named Nobel, but that doesn't make your efforts noble. That Kissinger and Arafat won is all you need to know. The shockwaves of dynamite will reverberate down through posterity far more than an award ultimately to be obscured in a blizzard of asterisks.
4
Why so hard on Bob Dylan? After all his brilliant and literate song “Masters of War” is about these political issues.
2
It seems it's not so much a PEACE prize, as a whitewashing tool for government condoned murderers.
2
Unfortunately when the prize is awarded just because it has to be awarded on a yearly basis and then political correctness is given a large consideration, the symbolic value of the prize suffers. The prize should also have a clawback feature as in if the recipient doesn't stand for the ideals, it should be rescinded.
7
The inclusion of Cordell Hull on this list is revisionist nonsense. At the time, his actions re the St. Louis garnered little scrutiny and were irrelevant to his consideration for the Prize.
1
@John D That's as may be, but his actions still led directly to the deaths of hundreds of people, just, as you say, no one cared at the time.
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Awarding the prize posthumously would be the most sensible solution.
5
After Bob Dylan got the Nobel for literature, any respect I had for the prize went out the window.
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@ Anonymous,
The Nobel committee can’t help it if you don’t appreciate poetry. That’s on you.
3
For the science awards, the Nobel Committee often waits for years before giving awards, apparently afraid that the scientific discoveries will prove incorrect. Why aren't they similarly cautious in awarding the Peace Prize?
5
People change over time. 28 years is a long time. Kyi deserved the prize when she won it. I’m sure she would not be awarded any prize for her turnabout. Maybe the Peace Prize should only be awarded posthumously.
1
Sadly, when the prize for literature--literature--was given to a pop musician, the precipitous decline of the Nobel was assured.
2
@Balthazar Stuff and nonsense. Awarding the Peace prize to Kissinger and Le Duc Tho tarnished the award forever. Get over your fetish about lit genre fiction.
3
Being well-run, wealthy welfare states does not preclude poor judgment in in the awarding of international prizes. Sometimes, however, it seems as if the hoi-poloi are saying, "Because they're rich and happy, they just know better".
Actually, however, the list of blunders is quite long: Kissinger, Churchill, etc...and worst of all, an american folk-singer for literature.
This is not to mention their failures in Physics--a clear indication of racist/sexism by ignoring Bose and Meitner? And how about Clauser and Aspect? Or rather, is 'entanglement' for them still a matter of fishing nets?
1
@bill harris Wait. Bose, the namesake of Boson, never won a nobel in physics?!
All awards, Nobel or otherwise, essentially “use” the awardee for the awarders purposes and those who accept the award essentially acquiesce to those purposes.
Brando didn’t accept an Oscar because he wasn’t willing to acquiesce. The more difficult question is what does acquiescence mean, not what does the award mean.
What did Daw Aung San’s acquiescence mean?
3
Giving Nobel Prizes for anything but quantifiable and verifiable advancements in human knowledge or the human condition seems kind of pointless. A Nobel in a science or technology field is respectable and a sign of great achievement, justly earned, and well proven, with very high levels of certainty. A 'Peace Prize' is more like a bit of theater in the hopes of getting naughty children to behave.
1
Prime minister Abiy of Ethiopia has faced attempts on his life in recent months. There are groups in and outside Ethiopia who would like to see him fail in establishing a corruption-free and prosperous Ethiopia. It is easier for corruption to succeed if the country is unstable. I am not ready to include him among some of the tyrants of history mentioned in the article.
I am sure that security is a primary consideration for not having an open press conference.
3
Perhaps the time spent hand wringing over (meaningless) awards would be better spent elsewhere. They’re simply vessels of self promotion for the group doing the awarding.
Case in point: Bob Dylan and his Nobel prize. Of course the nyt celebrated it as ‘redefining the boundaries of literature.’ No, just self promotion and pretentiousness, and a group redefining things to suit their purpose.
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@Andy Deckman As others will point out, the choice of Dylan was far from random and self promoting.
@paul
.... and of no interest to the awardee. Boy did that one blow up in the face of the committee. But hey publicity is publicity
If they just stopped awarding this ridiculous "Prize" one day, would anyone notice?
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Nobel organization should institute a mechanism by which an award can be withdrawn if the recipient proves not to be worthy after all. It’s a disgrace to the name of Nobel that she’s still referred to as a Nobel peace prize winner.
13
Barack Obama had the audacity to give a speech on America’s right to wage “just wars” when he accepted his meaningless Nobel peace prize. This so-called award is actually an insult to all the people who have been irreparably harmed by these lying laureates.
21
The Nobel Peace Prize this year should have been awarded to Greta Thunberg. If Time Magazine can figure this out her importance to the world, why can't a room full of Norwegians? Hopefully it is not because she is Swedish!
16
the peace prize isn't the only nobel award with a steadily devalued currency: the prize for literature has all but banned permanently any american white male, however deserving. at least the awards for various sciences haven't yet tarnished their gold medals with political concerns.
7
If this is your comprehensive list of contentious nominees and recipients, then the Nobel committee isn't doing too badly after 118 years.
As long as leaders of state are eligible and receive rewards there will always be national and defence considerations which go at odds with the more lofty aims of Nobel's testament. This was the subject of Barack Obama's 2009 Nobel lecture.
The case of Aung San Suu Kyi is, however, profoundly disappointing and disturbing. She did better as the opposition's moral conscience in house arrest than the representative of a brutal junta in The Hague.
5
@David Chocron That's why Obama or any Leader of a State should never accept a Nobel Prize. Unfortunately pretention and narcissism were just too strong for Obama and all the others who could not refuse.
9
If I were on the Nobel committee, I would have chosen Greta Thunberg and the student strikers for climate action. I find it strange that the committee didn't but they are fallible humans. I wonder if the Nobel endowment has investments in oil and gas and they did not want to be called to task by young, truthtelling Greta?
There is no issue bigger than this climate crisis. And it does directly impact the chances for a peaceful world. There will be wars over water and increased refugees because of climate change. The United Nations reports that the human species has eleven years to act on the climate with any agency. We must act boldly and swiftly.
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@Innisfree Isn't there a real possibility that the effort to fight climate change and "save the planet" would cause war? A half-rhetorical question: what would happen if we blocked oil and coal shipments to China?
2
@Innisfree
Well, it is supposed to be the Nobel *peace* price, not the Nobel altruistic achievement price. While the efforts of Greta Thunberg are important and deserving of praise, they have little to do with War and Peace.
As for me, I regret that the price always seems to go to people who have considerable international media exposure and/or executive responsibilities as opposed to activists who risk their lives to find peaceful issues to difficult situations.
I'm pretty sure there are countless unsung heroes in war torn regions that are much more deserving of such a price than Obama or Kissinger ever will be.
3
@Baptiste C. It is not just Greta working to draw attention to the need for climate action and climate justice. That is why in my original post, I said "Greta and the student strikers for climate action." It is a movement not of just one girl but of many young people. She is face of it though. And, as in past prizes, she has put the prize money into the work.
1
Um, Henry Kissinger, Obama, Teddy Roosevelt -- yes, many recipients have already besmirched this prize. Obama turned his speech, as he bragged (to near-universal applause among The Adults in the Room) into a paean for war. And bragged about it, mind you.
Solution: don't give prizes to the powerful. Give it to grassroots peace-workers. Who could use the publicity and funding.
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@Doug Tarnopol
There is indeed an award that speaks to this solution you mention, The Right Livelihood Award.