Nobel Prize - to endanger World Peace?

Palitha Senanayake

Alfred Bernhard Nobel invented dynamite and owned a company called Bofos, a major weapons manufacturer to the world

Nobel was a pacifist who valued world peace and hence, as if to liberate himself from the negative effects of his contribution in manufacturing arms, he set up a fund in his will on the November 27, 1895 to award prizes for outstanding contributions in the fields Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine and World Peace. All prizes are presented on December 10, the anniversary of Nobles death and each prize consists of a medal, personal diploma and one million Euros.

Although the gesture in rewarding for contribution human advancement is commendable, the recipients selected for this award ever since the prize was first awarded in 1905 have been associated with some controversy. Of all the awardees, the recipients of the Nobel prize for World Peace became the most controversial since the selectors have been unable to live up to the guidelines set by the donor thus bringing their prejudices and value judgments to influence the selection.

Although Alfred Noble was a Swedish citizen, his will indicated, among the guidelines for selection, that the recipient should be selected by the Norwegian Storting (Parliament).

Freedom fighter

Alfred Nobel

Born - October 21, 1833 Died - December 10, 1896 He invented dynamite He owned Bofos Company Nobel Fund set up in 1895 He was a Swedish citizen First Nobel prize awarded in 1905

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi the Indian freedom fighter who spent a lifetime advocating the power of non-violence and truth was never awarded the noble prize. But on the other hand the Prize had been awarded to convicted criminals like Menacham Begin.

Henry Alfred Kissinger who is alleged to have committed war crimes in Argentina, Algeria, France, Brazil and Chile and invaded Cambodia and Cyprus was a Nobel laureate. Yaseer Arafat, Shimon Perez and Yitzhak Rabin who all created more problems than they solved are also among the beneficiaries. It is indeed paradoxical that this prize for peace should have been awarded majority of the times to leaders in the Middle East, a region bereft of peace and mired in war, setting bad precedent in cohabitation to the world.

US Government has done more damage than any other Government or institution in the world, to world ecology, but Albert Arnold Gore, the US Vice President was awarded the prize because he authored a book on the subject. Last year US President Barack Obama was awarded the prize for World Peace because he ‘promised’ to withdraw from Iraq and closed down Guantanamo and Abu Garib, a promise that he has not kept up to now.

Human rights

Thus, in an atmosphere where it is increasing becoming clear that this Nobel Prize for World Peace have not been able to set the correct precedent that it was intended by the founder Alfred Nobel, the committee this year has taken another unprecedented decision in awarding the prize to a Chinese dissident Liu Xiambo.

This was for his ‘contribution to human rights’. The act enraged China and its likely diplomatic fall out between Norway and China would only exacerbate the difference in thinking between the two world political blocks, the capitalists block and the socialists block. Thus the Nobel prize, instead of facilitating bonhomie between different groups of people and different schools of thinking prevalent in the world, is sure to add a new dimension of hatred and misunderstanding between the two blocks.

Liu Xiambo, though an intellectual has been convicted of subversion by Chinese Court as a person who can pose a threat to the collective psyche in Chinese socialism. The real danger in unchecked liberalism of persons such as Liu Xiambo is that they are incendiary material for the West to undermine China, the emerging world power and the second most powerful economy in the world. That exactly was what happened when demonstrations broke out in Hong Kong, soon after the announcement of the prize.

The West for all their pontifications of pluralism, religious and political freedom does not seemed to recognize the simple fact that there are two schools of political thinking in this world. One is liberal capitalism where market forces determine the direction of civilization and the wellbeing of people while the other is the socialist block where centralized panning and control is exercised to regulate human activity towards national ends. Both these methods apparently have the same ends in emancipating humans and the use of their capacity for national advancement and they only differ in the means to achieve those ends.

There are positives and limitations in both the systems and world political history would testify to the practical reality of the effectiveness socialist system at the primary stages of a nation’s development while also proving the appropriateness of the capitalist systems towards the secondary stages in national development. In the capitalist system, the determining factor is corporate business and the motivator is profit while in the socialist system the determining factor remains bureaucracy and the motivator, general social advancement. Both these systems have delivered results in human development and hence there are an equal number of adherents, states and people, loyal to both these political philosophies.

This then is the world political reality and any institution that has a genuine intention of promoting world peace should recognize this basic position and chose its benefactors carefully so as not to impinge on the political beliefs on the two political thoughts.

Difficult circumstances

One could always argue that Lui is an intellectual entitled to basic freedom of expression and therefore incarcerating him from 2007 is a politically vindictive act that violates human rights. Yet the issue is in a society or a nation, individual rights often have to be compromised for social advancement.

There are so many intellectuals in China and they have no compunctions on how state of China is conducting its affairs with regard to human rights and individual freedom.

They are aware that to believe in unbridled freedom is to encourage anarchy that will eventually undermine the State and then peace. Therefore every State has a prerogative to exercise power in the greater interest of the nation even though that may mean earning the wreath of a few.

The United States of America has imprisoned a 29 year old Iraqi journalist, Ibrahim Jassam in Guantanamo since 2006 and no charges have been filed against him up to date. He is no fake journalist as he was engaged by Reuter to cover the situation in Iraq after US invaded the country in 2004. The crime he committed apparently was to report the situation so comprehensively under difficult circumstances. The US suspected his enthusiasm and professionalism to be the result of his anti-Americanism and the US soldiers dragged him out of his home in his under ware and have now incarcerated him for four years without charges.

The point here is how would the United States react if a socialist political block offers a prestigious ‘freedom of expression’ award for Ibrahim Jassam in the name of world peace? In such an event given the belligerent record of US and its paranoia over its own security the United State will not hesitate to invade the country in which the award originated.

China on the other hand is a country that has not invaded any other country for the sake of its security and has shown much more maturity in its international relations. But to continue to treat China’s maturity and magnanimity to be a sign of its incapacity may drive China to fortify itself against its detractors.

This precisely was the case of the ‘Cold war’ that subjected the world to a confrontational course of attrition between America and the Soviet Union for 40 long years bringing the world peace to the brink. Therefore an award that pander to only one school of political thought, blatantly ignoring the world political diversity may lack balance and thus instead of promoting, may endanger World Peace.