Nobel for Peace: the deserving and the undeserving

Let's begin with a truth, harsh though it may sound. Of late, in fact in the past many years, a considerable degree of controversy has come to be associated with the selection process relating to the probable winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. There have been regrettable instances of people not qualified for the prize to be honoured nevertheless by the Nobel Committee, leaving questions hanging in the air about the way these individuals came by the award.

Fortunately for us, though, there have also been circumstances where the Nobel Peace Prize did not fall into the lap of the undeserving. We recall a time following the invasion and destruction of Iraq by George W. Bush and Tony Blair in 2003 when the idea of the two men being awarded the Nobel was floated. It would have been a scandal had these men, so responsible for destroying a sovereign country on the basis of a lie, walked away with the prize.

But now we are assailed by worries about Donald Trump coming by the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Voices, including Trump's own, are being raised to demand that the current US President be honoured with the prize for his contributions to making peace in the world. That begs the question: does a political leader's decision to bomb a sovereign country, in association with another foreign leader, qualify him for the Nobel? Iran has been laid low by American attacks on its nuclear facilities. Here is a President who has been waging an unprovoked war. And his followers think he has ensured peace in the region through a demonstration of military might.

And so we have this question about the sliding reputation of the Nobel for Peace coming up again. In the past, Henry Kissinger, responsible for the prolongation of the war in Vietnam, the bombing of Cambodia and the coup in Chile, was awarded the Nobel along with Vietnam's Le Duc Tho in 1973. Peace was yet elusive in Vietnam and the war would go on till April 1975, but that did not prevent Kissinger from happily accepting the prize. Le Duc Tho wisely declined the prize. Why the Nobel Committee decided in 1973 that peace had come to Vietnam when clearly it had not remains a mystery. Kissinger, regarded as a statesman by a class of historians, demonstrated poor judgement by not declining to accept the prize.

This year Trump might end up getting the Nobel. He is busy showcasing his role in trying to broker a ceasefire in Gaza, attempting to bring an end to the Russia-Ukraine war and pummelling Iran into destruction, qualities he believes entitle him to the prize. Ironically, it has been Pakistan, a nuclear state, which has been behind this proposal for Trump to be honoured with the prize. Why did Pakistan get involved? Is there a fear that following the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities the Trump White House might turn on Pakistan and go after its nuclear machine in Kahuta? 

We do not know. With men like Mark Rutte going all out to be sycophantic to Trump --- think of the recent NATO summit in The Hague --- anything is possible. Who knows? There might be some individuals around to suggest that Benjamin Netanyahu, having done what he has done to Gazans, to Hamas, to Hezbollah, to Iran, to Lebanon, now deserves the Nobel for Peace.

One is of course quite aware of the Nobel for Peace having gone to deserving men and women in recent decades. But there have been individuals who have deserved the Nobel, and richly too, but were ignored. Richard Nixon ought to have been given the prize for his historic opening to China in 1972 and the efforts he expended in promoting détente with the Soviet Union. No one thought of nominating him for the prize. 

Or think back on the difficult negotiating process between India and Pakistan in Tashkent undertaken by Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in January 1966. The summit between Ayub Khan and Lal Bahadur Shastri produced the Tashkent Declaration, but the Nobel Committee had little time to be analytical about the achievement. Kosygin was ignored.

In times closer to the present, Germany's Angela Merkel demonstrated admirable statesmanship through her defence of refugees making their way to Europe in search of a better life, indeed in search of the means of survival. Merkel was criticised for her policy at home and by her fellow western leaders in Europe. But she did not waver in her belief that those who fled disaster and deprivation in their home countries deserved to be treated with respect. 

Human rights mattered to the former chancellor. Her principles did not matter to the Nobel Committee, though. A Pakistani schoolgirl who gets shot by extremist Islamist elements earns, for no rhyme or reason, the Nobel. Barack Obama, without any contributions to peace, gets the Nobel, to his and the world's consternation. But Merkel?

Mahatma Gandhi, the revered apostle of non-violence, never had a chance with the Nobel. But his young American disciple Martin Luther King Jr came by the prize in 1964. Dag Hammarskjoeld posthumously won the Nobel for his peace mission in Congo, but Charles de Gaulle, who boldly took France out of Algeria in 1962 and so built a structure of peace by doing away with the colonisation of Algerians was never considered for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Between 1972 and 1974, the leading voices in the South Asian subcontinent expended their efforts in turning the region away from conflict and towards reconciliation. These efforts led to the Simla Agreement of 1972 and the Tripartite Agreement of 1974. The Nobel Committee, having been witness to the war involving India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in 1971, ought to have highlighted the leadership demonstrated by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and gone for an awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize jointly to these three leaders. It bypassed them, sadly.

The Nobel for Peace will in the years ahead yield a good number of surprises in both positive and negative terms. For the Nobel Committee, however, there should be a reworking of the criteria for the selection of individuals and organisations eligible for the prize. It ought to go to people who truly promote peace, not to those who impose the peace of the grave through violating the sovereignty of nations and indulging in the mass murder of men, women and children living under foreign occupation in their ancestral lands. 

Nothing of the ignoble should come to be attached to the Nobel Prize for Peace.

ahsan.syedbadrul@gmail.com