Nobel Committee under Criticism: “A Slap in the Face for the Peace Movement”

The Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Barack Obama was not discussed delightedly everywhere. American peace activist Cindy Sheehan candidly criticizes the decision.

“Obama’s prize is an insult,” says U.S. peace activist Cindy Sheehan, who is presently in Stockholm. “A slap in the face for the whole peace movement, a big tragedy. And a signal to Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan that their dead don’t count,” she explained in an interview after the announcement of this year’s prize winner.

The Nobel Peace Prize has almost always been controversial. What does it actually want to reward? Taking the founder Alfred Nobel at his words: he who “works most or best toward fraternization of nations and disbanding or reduction of stationed armies as well as holding or supporting peace congresses, should receive the prize.”

The prize winners of the first years like Henri Dunant (the Red Cross) and Bertha von Suttner met these requirements but, already in 1906, criticism was loud when the prize was bestowed on a U.S. president for the first time. Is it because Theodore Roosevelt was a politician, for whom military actions were an appropriate means of establishing the peace and who never made any secret of his enthusiasm for wars?

On the whole, all of the prize winners can be divided into four groups. Those rewarded have been organizations, which generally campaign for “a better world,” along with individuals and organizations committed to the human rights or the fight for disarmament. In recent years, a further category of campaigning for the environment and climate was added.

Most often, the prize was the reward for past achievements or the distinction for an initiative that the Committee regarded as worthy. Sometimes the council also interfered actively in current politics–as in 1991 when Aung San Suu Kyi won the award or when the fight for independence of East Timor was honored.

Basically, one could never deny that this is a Norwegian prize and thus reflects Norway’s view of the world. The committee is staffed by the Parliament according to the political party proportion – currently the red-green majority. A Nobel Prize for the EU would probably be taboo as long as Norway itself is not an EU member–even if the new chairman of the Nobel Committee, Thorbjorn Jagland, personally considers it “incomprehensible” that “the most successful project for peace in the world’s history” has not received the prize yet.