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> I'm starting to think that the Nobel Peace Prize should only be awarded posthumously That's never going to happen. Nobel Peace Prize is a political tool and
by qubax 8y ago
> I'm starting to think that the Nobel Peace Prize should only be awarded posthumously
That's never going to happen. Nobel Peace Prize is a political tool and has always been so. It has nothing to do with peace but advancing post-colonial european interests. Go read the history of the nobel prize and who has won. The prize was created by alfred nobel, noted for inventing dynamite and being a major war munitions manufacturer.
Why was Suu Kyi given the nobel prize? Because she loved democracy and human rights? Of course not. Lots of people love democracy and human rights and they haven't won the award. She was given the award because the british thought that they could use her to take over mynammar again and they felt that they could control her. Turns out that they couldn't since she's a nationalist, like her father. Think about it. She was given the nobel peace prize in 1991 while there was no democracy or human rights in myanmar ( it was a military dictatorship ). So her award was "forward looking". What were the british looking forward to? Gaining influence in their former colony.
Why was obama awarded the nobel peace prize before he even took office? Because europeans wanted to influence obama going forward. Funnily enough, the nobel peace prize probably influenced obama into helping france and britain by militarily attacking libya. After all, he owed the europeans.
Awards are more about influencing the future rather than celebrating the past. This is especially the case with the nobel peace prize. It's part of what we call soft power.
Guess what? The chinese are playing the same game now. That's right. They have their own "peace" prize.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius_Peace_Prize https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius_Peace_Prize
- majos 8y agoIf the Confucius Peace Prize is a genuine attempt at projecting soft power, it is a hilarious one. Candidates for the 2017 award included Bashar al-Assad, Rodrigo Duterte, and eventual winner Hun Sen. In 2015 it went to Robert Mugabe.
- qubax 8y agoThe candidates you listed shows that it is a genuine attempt at soft power. Just because it's soft power directed to people we don't like doesn't mean it isn't soft power. China is using their "peace" prize as soft power to further their own interests. They are being rather blatant about it as you showed with mugabe winning it in 2015. And europe is using their "peace" prize to further their own interests. Though they do pay lip service to "peace", "human rights" and "democracy". The chinese haven't bother with that much, but if history serves as an example, it won't be long before the chinese pretend to be the champions of the "peace", "human rights" and "democracy" like europeans do. Also, the chinese peace prize winners are suspect for sure. But so are the european peace prize list. People like woodrow wilson and henry kissinger are nobel peace laureates.
- notahacker 8y agoIt's a bunch of Norwegian academics. Of course they have their Western and liberal biases and blind spots, but the theory a prize for the incarcerated Burmese election victor was motivated less by the symbolic importance of her continuing to express a belief about democracy and nonviolence and more a ruse to flatter her in the hope she would reinstate British colonialism in Myanmar which would somehow achieve a Norwegian foreign policy goal is just bizarre. Not sure what influence the committee hoped to obtain over the likes of Mother Theresa, Malala or the International Campaign To Abolish Nuclear Weapons either
- dagw 8y agoIt's a bunch of Norwegian academics. The committee is basically always split 50-50 between academics and former politicians.