My Two Cents: Nobel Peace Prize

So there I was, sitting in a bar in Japan. The man next to me tries to strike up a conversation in his poor English. "You from, where?"
"America."
"Ah, America. President, Obama?"
"Yes, Obama is the President now."
"Nobel Peace prize."
"Ha, ha, well, someday maybe."
"No, now."
"No, not yet. Maybe someday."
"No, already got it. Look."
He pulled out his cell phone to show me the latest internet news. Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize.

What? That can't be right. I mean if he had ended the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, maybe, but now?

And apparently this was everyone's reaction. By the time I got home and went online, the internet was already buzzing. The right wing was already in full whine mood about this. (See here for some great examples). And almost everyone I knew had already commented on their facebook page.

That's the age of internet for you. The great thing is that everyone has a way to share their opinion. The rub is that if you don't get your opinion out there within the first 3 hours, then it just seems like, "Well, what's the point. Everythings been said already on this topic."

But actually, the Nobel Peace Prize has been on my short list of "things to rant about" for a long time now. So now that it's become topical again, I'm going to indulge myself, and add my two cents to the internet.

The "Nobel Peace Prize" is one of those extremely prestigous awards that we're taught to respect as if it came down from Olympus. But if you actually look at the history of the laureates, there's a lot of problems.

The list includes Woodrow Wilson, who ran for re-election in 1916 on the promise to keep America out of the war. And then shortly after he was elected, he threw a whole generation of American youth into one of the most pointless and bloodiest European wars ever. At the same time he put in jail anyone who dared to speak out against the war, people like Eugene Debs and Emma Goldman.

Another prize Laureate is Henry Kissinger, who's war crimes are too numerous to fully enumerate here (check out this media mouse article for a succient summary), but who is probably best remembered for carpet bombing several rice farming peasant nations back into the stone age.

Next to these two, Yasser Arafat seems pretty moderate. But I'd also include him in among the people who should never have gotten this prize.

And yet Gandhi was repeatedly snubbed by the Nobel Peace Prize committee, and was never awarded the prize.

So, obviously there's a lot of room for error in the selection process, and it's not like this list is annointed by the Pope or anything.

Which reminds, you know what else is over-rated? The Papacy.
Time was when a protestant country like America had a healthy wariness for "the whore of Babylon". But recently it seems like the Pope has become an icon for the religious right. I guess they must see him as an ally against secularism and the pro-choice movement.

Now if you like the Pope as a person, that's fair enough. If a particular Pope has done something to earn your respect, I've got no beef with you. But don't tell me to respect the Pope just because he's the Pope. Have you read a history book? Do you know all the terrible things the Papacy has done over the years? Popes have started wars, suppressed democratic reforms, inquistions, et cetera, but some of them have also lived very immoral lives, kept mistresses, had illegitimate children, built up treasures for themselves, et cetera.
Why anyone would have any respect for the office of the Pope is beyond me. But we do, don't we? Crowds wait to get his blessings, people faint over him, and even in protestant America we're taught to respect the Pope as a great Christian leader.

Sorry, short digression. Back to the Nobel Peace Prize.

My Calvinist background informs me that the whole thing is rooted in total depravity. It's a committee made up of fallen men selecting another fallen man. The process is bound to be flawed, and they're bound to select some people we might not agree with.

But there's no reason why the Nobel Peace Prize has to suck as much as it does.
If I was in charge of the process, I would institute three simple ground rules (which you would think were obvious but apparently not):
In order to be eligible for the Nobel Peace Prize you can not have
1) participated in war or violence
2) advocated war or violence
3) ordered other people to commit war or violence.

Sounds very simple, but these rules would have eliminated a great deal of the past laureates.
Now, if someone had a conversion halfway through life, saw the error of their ways, and renounced their past violence, I'd be willing to consider them for the Peace Prize. But you'll note none of these past laureates have done that.

This qualification would elimate almost all world leaders and powerful politicans. Most of them have sent troops into conflict in one form or another, or advocated doing so. But so what? This award should go to the ordinary people of the world who struggle for peace, and get jailed for it. It should go to people like Eugene Debs and Emma Goldman, who were locked up for speaking out against World War I, not to the man who put them in jail.

Obviously the Nobel committee sees things differently than I do. And it's their prize, so I guess they can award it the way they want to. But there's no reason why the rest of us have to get suckered into respecting this institution. After Kissinger got the Nobel Peace prize, the idea that this prize still has any meaning is laughable.

Which brings me back to Obama. He may not have been the best person to recieve this prize. Or done anything to deserve it, really. But he's far from the worst laureate. So the right wing can stop grasping at it's chest in righteous indignation.

Further thoughts:
It seems that the basis for Obama's selection is simply him existing and being elected President. Which isn't really a credit to him so much, but in the sense that he is a symbol for the changing world it does make a certain amount of sense. The first black president was a momentous event, not just for America, but for the whole world. I can't imagine any other country electing an ethnic minority to its highest position.
But then, there's a lot of things I don't know. So, open question for fellow history geeks or political nuts. Try and think of another example in history (recent or ancient) of an ethnic minority being elected the leader of their country in a fair and open election. (No colonial or South African stuff. It has to be a free election).
Off the top of my head, the only other example I can think of is Disraeli.

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