Acting against the will of Alfred Nobel
As the Cold War ended, the peace prize lapsed further into a sharp weapon for the Western countries to spread their values and development models – under the disguise of "human rights first". In the last decade, half of the prize winners are "human rights fighters" like Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi and Iran's human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi. We could barely see those who fight truly for peace and disarmament during the award presentation ceremony. The peace prize is veering ever further away from what Nobel first intended for. Even the Dalai Lama was awarded the prize in 1989. It is therefore no surprise that the Norwegian Nobel Committee chose Liu Xiaobo today.
It has been 109 years since the establishment of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Because of its selection of peace prize winners, the committee has never failed to draw controversy. In recent years, the Norwegian academic community has constantly questioned the justifiability of committee's formation, its faithfulness to execute Nobel's will and its independence.
First and foremost, whether the distribution of committee seats based on party affiliations is true to Nobel's original intentions. According to Nobel's will, the Nobel committee should be composed by five Norwegians, all elected by the Norwegian parliament. But the reputation, not the criteria, of the peace prize, won so much over the Storting (the parliament) that it decided to only allocate the committee members seats to the five top political parties in the Storting for the purpose of favoring all the political groups, one seat for each party, thus making five veteran politicians to share the five seats. The distribution of committee seats has made the prize actually a "prize of the Norwegian Storting".
Second, whether the Nobel committee faithfully carried out Nobel's will. Nobel made it quite clear in his will as to who should win the peace award. But Norwegian jurist and writer Fredrik S. Heffermehl concludes in his new book The Nobel Peace Prize: What Nobel Really Wanted that the selection of more than half of the peace prize winners has disregarded what Nobel first intended and run counter to his will. He said Nobel established the prize for "the champions of peace" to support their efforts at disarmament and peace movement rather than for the broadened conception of "peace" best suited to Nobel committee's political needs. When the award was presented to Liu Xiaobao, Mr Heffermehl reiterated his conclusion that Liu is not the "peace fighter" in Nobel's will and it is inappropriate to give him the award.
Third, whether the Nobel committee is truly independent in practical operation. The Norwegian Nobel Committee – and the Norwegian government for that matter – has always claimed the committee is independent from the government and the parliament and no one could interfere with its operation. Even under pressure, the Nobel committee could make its own decisions. Yet skepticism never ceased. Thorbjørn Jagland, current chair of the committee, is not only a former member and president of the parliament, the Storting, former Prime Minister for Norway's Labour Party, former Foreign Minister of Norway, he is also the current Secretary General of the Council of Europe. Deputy chair Kaci Kullmann Five used to serve as Norway's minister of Trade and Shipping and she is also a former member of Storting and cabinet minister for the Conservative Party. Sissel Rønbeck, the committee's deputy director, is a former member of the parliament and cabinet minister for the Labour Party. Of the remaining two members, Ågot Valle used to serve as the president of the Odelsting, a legislative chamber of Storting, and Inger-Marie Ytterhorn was a member of Norway's Election Law Ad hoc committee. As Heffermehl put it, these members all advocate close military ties with NATO and close diplomatic relations with the US, no matter which party they belong to. They are seasoned players in Norwegian politics, with the same system of values and ideology, which means they have no independence whatsoever in the selection of peace prize winners. It is also the fundamental reason why the choice of peace prize winners during and after the Cold War era clearly bears the marks of the US global strategy.
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