The Nobel Peace Prize: Discretion or Merit?

Barack Obama the American Blue eyed boy, the first black president of the country. The man who taught us the “Audacity of Hope” was declared the winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. This announcement left many gasping for air while some said that it was a pleasant surprise. Though one thing is true that this is “too much and too early”

The Nobel prizes are the highest honour bestowed on civilians on this planet. The Nobel Prize which was instituted by Alfred Nobel was originally given away in 5 categories : Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace. A 6th category was added in 1968, and this award was instituted by Sweden’s central Bank. The category of Economics.

If you look at the 5 categories (Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Economics) you will realize that all those are academic subjects. Where things have to be written down and proved beyond a measure of doubt. Hypothesis could be made but they have to be substantiated by things which happened in real life. And because of this very fact, the 5 categories (as stated above) have never been subject to criticism. But somehow PEACE is something which can never fall in line with the above 5 categories.

PEACE is a relative term. And that PEACE can be achieved by different ways. The 2 that come to my mind are 1) By destruction: Simply uproot the population who is causing the disturbance and you can establish PEACE or 2) Dialogue: Engage in dialogue and try to address the needs of the population causing the disturbance.

Point 1 mentioned above is like the “ready to eat” fast food solution, you have to be a World Power, you should have the capacity to pocket the UN and you should leave aside the considerations of collateral damage. If you look at the winners of the Nobel peace prize (http://nobelprizes.com/nobel/peace/peace.html) you will find it loaded with politicians. Politicians who did not usher in Peace but tried to broker it and almost everytime the discussions, which earned them the Prize came after the backbone of the enemy was broken using force. If this the case then tell me is it really worth it?

Mr Obama won the Nobel Prize for (and I quote): “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”, sounds vague to me to be frank. The category of PEACE has always been won by international people who were present at the right place at the right time, their past or their rise to fame has never been a consideration. I would say that if somehow Dr Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, get together and ink a deal on peace and keep it going for atleast 6-8 months even they can bring home the NOBEL PEACE PRIZE.

Infact I am sure that this year's prize would have been closely contested, and the man who just missed out would have been non other that the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Pajapaksa. Does he not claim that he has brought peace to the island nation after ending the menace of LTTE?

What better way to rest my case when I say that the Nobel Peace Prize has always been a matter of discretion than merit, than the fact that the Mahatma never won it!!!

P.S: also read: http://greatbong.net/2009/10/09/the-obama-lama/