FT.com | Gideon Rachman's Blog | What is the point of the Nobel peace prize?

What is the point of the Nobel peace prize?

October 8, 2009 11:00pm

Is the Nobel Peace Prize, the most pointless of the lot? It is certainly the most controversial. The very idea of a peace prize, named after a man who invented dynamite and made his fortune as an arms salesman, Alfred Nobel, is slightly paradoxical. Perhaps Nobel wanted a peace prize as a way of atoning for his career as a “merchant of death”? Critics of the prize, which is awarded on Friday, say that it has unintentionally stayed true to the spirit of Nobel, by consistently rewarding a series of morally-dubious characters

Henry Kissinger is, of course, among the most controversial of laureates. The then US secretary of state received the prize in 1973 for his efforts to end the Vietnam war - jointly with Le Duc Tho, the chief North Vietnamese negotiator, who refused to accept the prize. Kissinger’s rightwing critics point out that the Vietnam war restarted a couple of years later and ended with victory for the North. His more numerous leftwing critics point to his role in the bombing of Cambodia between 1969 and 1973 - that (inadvertently it must be said) laid the groundwork for the ascent to power of the Khmer Rouge. Of the Prize, Mr Kissinger said: “More than the achievement of peace, it symbolises the quest for peace.” Lucky that, otherwise he might have to give it back.

Other Nobel peace prize awards that have enraged somebody or other include the prizes for the likes of Yassir Arafat in 1994 (jointly with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin) and Menachem Begin, along with Anwar Sadat, in 1978.

But maybe all this hoo-ha is overdone? Looking down at the list and commentary below, which has been helpfully compiled by Jennifer Thompson of the FT, it strikes me that most of the award-winners are pretty uncontroversial. There are people who regard Al Gore as an international fraudster, Joseph Rotblat as a “useful idiot” for the Soviet Union, Mother Theresa as an Albanian authoritarian and Jimmy Carter as a naive dupe (or worse). But most people take a more forgiving attitude and accept that these people were, whatever their faults, on the side of the angels - possibly literally, in the case of M. Theresa.

Anyway, here is Jennifer’s guide to the selected highlights from the history of the Nobel Prize:

1976
Who: Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan
Why: For their peace movement, Community of Peace People, an inter-denominational movement dedicated to ending sectarian hostilities in Northern Ireland and helping victims of the conflict.
What happened next: Twenty-two years later the Belfast Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998, earning politicians John Hume and David Trimble the Nobel Peace Prize for that year. In that time there was continued violence, such as the IRA bombing at Enniskillen which left 11 dead.

1991
Who: Aung San Suu Kyi
Why: For her efforts to secure democracy in Burma.
What happened next: After winning elections in Burma in 1990, she has spent 14 of the past 19 years under house arrest and this month a court rejected her appeal against a further 18-month sentence. Her offence was to be unable to prevent an American from swimming to her house. Her sentence will prevent her participation in the elections planned for 2010.

1994
Who: Yassir Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin
Why: For their work in the Middle East peace process, notably with the Oslo Accords and a historic “declaration of principles”.
What happened next: Years of stalemate, bloodshed and recriminations. US president Barack Obama’s efforts to get Arab-Israeli leaders to agree on a roadmap to peace are stalled, already within the first year of his administration.

1996
Who: Carlos Belo, the bishop of East Timor, and José Ramos-Horta
Why: For their “work towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor”.
What happened next: In 1999 extreme violence broke out when the majority of voters chose independence from Indonesia in a referendum held by the UN. Anti-independence militia murdered a thousand people and a quarter of the population fled. In 2002 a human rights court was set up to bring cases against those responsible, but a 2009 Amnesty International report argued many perpetrators of the 1999 violence were yet to face justice.

2000
Who: Kim Dae Jung, South Korean president
Why: For “his work for democracy and human rights in South Korea and in east Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular”.
What happened next: In 2003 two officials in his government were sentenced for illegal cash transfers to secure a historic summit with North Korea that took place in 2000. Seoul’s relations with North Korea remain tense as the issue of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme remains unresolved.

2003
Who: Shirin Ebadi
Why: For promoting democracy and human rights in Iran.
What happened next: The regime in Iran attracted international controversy when it announced the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad for a second term as president following the June 2009 elections. Opposition leader Mir-Hossein Moussavi claims the election was rigged and hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Tehran. According to official figures 20 people died in the ensuing security crackdown, although this figure is disputed by human rights groups and the opposition who say many more people died in the streets of Tehran and in unofficial detention centres under torture.