WHAT IS THE CRITERIA FOR A WINNER OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE? The name would suggest that the winner would be someone who has worked for peace in the world and the betterment of conditions for humanity. However, that has not always been the case. THERE IS NO WAY that I can see that Obama should have receive it. Making him the winner in 2009, had everything to do with politics and nothing to do with peace. Simply because he became the first black man to be president of the United States should not have given him the prize. Nominations for people like Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin shows the level to which the prospective of the committee has fallen. Winners, like Obama, Henry Kissinger, Al Gore, the entire European Union, further shows the sorry levels that a Prize that once had value and prestige has sunk. Though they are meant to stay secret for 50 years, nominations for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize have leaked. It happens every year, granting a sheen of virtue even to those whose nominations fail — an odd list that includes Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Gandhi, Bono and Canada’s own child rights campaigner, Craig Kielburger. “Not everything worthy of admiration should win the Nobel Peace Prize,” said Jay Nordlinger, senior editor of National Review and author of the 2012 book Peace, They Say: A History Of The Nobel Peace Prize, The Most Famous And Controversial Prize In The World. “I wouldn’t have given a peace prize to a Kenyan environmentalist [Wangari Maathai, 2004], dear as she was, who planted trees. I wouldn’t give a peace prize to global warming campaigners [Al Gore and the IPCC, 2007]. I think that was just a fashion of the time,” Mr. Nordlinger said. “It’s sort of like a pretzel, you can’t twist it endlessly. A little twisting is OK, but at the end, you have to have some legitimate pretzel.” Nominees have included some strange figures, including Stanley “Tookie” Williams, a founder of the Crips gang, who was executed in California despite five nominations; and George Ryan, who granted clemency to all 167 of Illinois’ death row inmates in 2003 as he was leaving the governorship, and was convicted on 18 corruption charges three years later. I am absolutely convinced that it’s being misused for Norwegian political purposes, and the convenience and vanity of Norwegian parliamentarians,” said Fredrik Heffermehl, a Norwegian lawyer who once brought a court case under inheritance laws, arguing Alfred Nobel’s will was being ignored. It failed, but sparked a wider investigation. According to the 1895 will of the Swedish industrialist who got rich by inventing dynamite, it is for “champions of peace,” people who advance the causes of “fraternity between nations, reduction or abolition of standing armies, and the promotion of peace congresses.” Mr. Nordlinger said the one perfect prize was in 1978, to Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat. Notwithstanding such giants of 20th century peace-making as Martin Luther King, Jr., Lech Walesa, or Aung San Suu Kyi, many others have reflected a loose and malleable vision of peace. Rarely is it just about peace. Regardless, its cultural power is vast. “The Nobel Peace Prize has become hopelessly politicized. I think it cheapens the prize itself. At least they didn’t give Gore the prize for economics.” The Peace Prize is a more immediate thing, vulnerable to changing circumstance, in which today’s hero can become tomorrow’s villain. news.nationalpost/2014/02/14/nobel-peace-prize-nominations-show-how-hopelessly-politicized-and-screwy-the-controversial-award-has-been/
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 15:47:55 +0000
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