The reasoning for the award, such as it is, can be found here. It’s quite odd. I really don’t think Obama has achieved much at all internationally. Probably it’s for not being George W. Bush.
There’s a paradox here. On one hand, it’s very US-centric – as if the US really were the ‘leader of the free world’. On the other, it’s most unlikely to do the President any domestic good.
Update: Maria explains at Crooked Timber:
But this isn’t about domestic politics, or about what he’s done yet. President Obama has changed how the world feels about America. He’s lifted the planet’s mood. This guy is global Prozac.
Lordy. I think a lot of people in the world would quite like America not to think it was the centre of it. Perhaps, in particular, people in those countries currently occupied by US troops. I thought Crooked Timber was supposed to be some sort of high falutin’ academic blog.
Update: Here’s the Nobel Committee press release; Michael Tomasky asks whether Obama should accept the award.
Update: Glenn Greenwald is worth reading, and has a number of interesting links.
Elsewhere: Legal Eagle.
Hmph. Well, I think that’s kinda bullshit. I like Obama and all, but the reward is for people who make peace, not for what they’re _gonna_ do, what their vision is, etc. I mean, if Bush wasn’t so shit, would he really have got the award?
I’m not saying it’s as bad as Kissinger, but jesus, compared to winners from the last few years it seems a bit piss weak.
“Probably it’s for not being George W. Bush”
Probably? Indisputably!
“it’s most unlikely to do the President any domestic good”
True, but a bonus effect will be that it will drive the Fox News crowd nuts. These people are unhinged as it is. They already think of him as a Swedish socialist. This will confirm their worst fears/prejudices (I know, I know, the Peace Prize is awarded by Norwegians not Swedes.)
Frankly, however, I think it brings the Peace Prize into disrepute. Obama has done nothing to deserve it.
It should bring the award into disrepute, but if it survived Kissinger I think the damn thing is teflon.
Now how is Obama going to give McChrytal his 40,000 troops to wage an even bigger war in Afghanistan?
Update: Maria explains at Crooked Timber:
Lordy. I think a lot of people in the world would quite like America not to think it was the centre of it. Perhaps, in particular, people in those countries currently occupied by US troops. I thought Crooked Timber was supposed to be some sort of high falutin’ academic blog.
Mark,
you’re right: the justification is very weak. He has made some modest steps in pursuing multilateral diplomacy, but then so have many leaders of powerful nations. Let’s see some more tangible results before he deserves the biggest gong.
I hope this doesn’t send j_p_z apoplectic.
jeepers, Henry Kissinger and his North Vietnamese counterpart had negotiated a ‘peace’ agreement to a bloody conflict that had lasted decades; there was a tangible outcome (of sorts).
We can’t blame Obama for not ending the protracted problems he inherited, but his administration’s policy on democracy in Honduras hasn’t been very flash.
Hm, Reuters article: “It’s quite likely this committee will reward somebody who is engaged in current processes… They want the prize to have an impact on things that are about to happen and want to affect events”.
Well, understandable in that case. I’m out on whether I think it’s a Good Thing, or not.
Hmmm. On the same logic, patrickg, they could give it to Netanyahu in the hope that he might actually negotiate something meaningful. What events? What processes?
I agree with people who think this is absurd and embarrassing to both the peace prize committee and to Obama himself. And I say that as someone who is very positive about Obama. But he’s only been there for nine months! The positive initiatives they cite are only at their beginning! Do they give the literature prize for promising outlines of works not yet written? Or the physics prize to people with cool ideas but no evidence? If life functioned like reddit.com, I’d be giving a downvote right now to this announcement by user Nobel_Peace_Prize.
Yeah, I still think it’s dodge, but I would say, Mark, they suspect Obama’s gonna have a better change of enacting peace than Netanyahu.
Reuters Article here
Brendon @4: “Now how is Obama going to give McChrytal his 40,000 troops to wage an even bigger war in Afghanistan?”
Good question…
mitchell,
Nice analogies. I hesitate to mention I’ve got this very special hypothesis about gumtree molecules. Look, I’d really rather not face the glare of publicity and celebrity. I refuse to become the Brendan Fevola of Australian science. Let the medical ladies prevail.
@11, patrickg, I think Obama’s got Buckleys. The only way to get Netanyahu to do anything meaningful would be a meaningful threat to cut off the subsidies to Israel (like George H. W. Bush did). Obama simply wouldn’t do that. I think he’s already pretty much given up on the Palestine question.
“they could give it to Netanyahu”
Well, they actually gave it to Mencahem Begin and Yassir Arafat.
People always cite Kissinger as the nadir of the Peace Prize, but there are worse cases, like those two.
I do too, Mark, but do read the article, they lay it out pretty well, esp according to Nobel’s original criteria. It has mollified me somewhat, though I do hope and pray he makes good on the incipient promise, to the point of even renouncing the award.
Prize for peace? I’m disgusted, too.
A man who would hurt a fly.
They should have a Prize for Dogs as well.The only thing stopping the Republican Right from going completely crazy,is Obama’s dog has a birth certificate.!Withour very own Deputy P.M. talking to Jeb Bush in a manner,that Australians never noticed strange election results,I declare I am a two passport Australian!Part Texan part Australian.I am Alex Jones ‘s illegitimate offspring!Cheerios Alex!
@16 -
I find it a strange notion that Obama needs his influence boosted, patrickg.
I could see it in a case like Tzangerai – perhaps it would give him more leverage. But this doesn’t make an awful lot of sense to me.
“Giving the prize to someone in the middle of a security conflict, and with a chance of boosting his or her influence, is a wise way to use the power of the Nobel”
On this criterion, they could have given it to Bush in 2002.
I want to know what he’s going to do with the $20 million prize money.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/10/obamas-prize-for-peace.html
Seems like it’s for making a speech about non-proliferation, making a speech about climate change and “his public addresses and promised strategic changes toward diplomatic action over rapid military decisions – such as Iran”.
It’s 10 million kronor, which is about US $1.4 million
Not nearly so much money then. But I’m still curious as to how he’ll handle it.
Maybe he could donate it to the Clinton Foundation!
“But I’m still curious as to how he’ll handle it.”
Well, obviously it will be donated somewhere. Hard to be too curious about exactly where though, is it?
That’s just ridiculous. I like Obama too, but … Jesus H Christ on a pogo stick, couldn’t they have waited till towards the end of his Presidency? They don’t normally hand out such gongs in advance.
I am so looking forward to what j_p_z will have to say about this!
Barack Obama is many things, but he has done absolutely nothing whatsoever at all to merit the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Committee’s rationale was a corker: They swooned over him.
The guy has troops committed in two wars. Funny definition of peace.
Nominations for the award closed 11 days after he was sworn in. Busy guy!!! How many awards is he going to have after four years?
Perhaps this in the Nobel way of launching a pre-emptive peace strike. Not a good look is it for a Nobel Peace Laureate to be getting over-medieval on Middle Eastern ass? Reckon General McCrystal will be spitting chips at the announcement, if not surrender-monkey fries. This is one for the Doves whichever way it’s spun.
Wonder if Nixon’s henchman will has conveyed his warmest congratulations yet?
“Kissinger received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for his work on the Vietnam Peace Accords, despite having instituted the secret 1969–1975 campaign of bombing against infiltraiting NVA in Cambodia, the alleged U.S. involvement in Operation Condor—a mid-1970s campaign of kidnapping and murder coordinated among the intelligence and security services of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay—as well as the death of French nationals under the Chilean junta. He also supported the invasion of Cyprus resulting in approximately 1/3 of the island being occupied by foreign troops for 33 years. Some peace activists go so far as to suggest that the Nobel Peace Prize has become irrelevant due to Kissinger being a laureate………
……….Mahatma Gandhi was never awarded one (though he was nominated five times).”
http://listverse.com/2007/10/17/top-10-controversial-nobel-peace-prize-winners/
Only a matter of time really before Sarah Palin wins the Nobel for Literature.
Update: Here’s the Nobel Committee press release; Michael Tomasky asks whether Obama should accept the award.
Its a bitch slap for neo-cons. In that sense, richly deserved!
EC, I will pay that line… very good indeed. I must admit when I first saw this I thought it was a headline from The Onion
It seems Tomasky also subscribes to the “pre-emptive peace strike” view.
Frankly, such a theory grossly overestimates the ability of foreigners to achieve any change in US politics. If the rest of the world had any pull at all, we’d be in the second term of a Kerry presidency.
Le Duc Tho refused his half of the dual award given to him and Henry Kissinger, on the grounds that (in 1973) peace had not yet come to Viet Nam.
Henry accepted his half “with humility”.
After the American defeat in Viet Nam, and the coming to power of the Pathet Lao in Laos and Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Henry sent his prize money back to the Nobel organisation. They then returned the money to him.
The award was recognition of the conclusion with an agreement, to the long drawn out negotiations (with very public meetings in Paris) to end the war in Viet Nam: the most publicised war in the 60s and 70s; very bloody. Many Australians have reason to remember that war.
It appears that the following factors do not exclude the Nobel Peace award:
i) you hold high office in a belligerent state
ii) you have had a hand in war-making decisions
iii) your nation is still involved in other wars
iv) you favour bilateral rather than multilateral diplomacy
*****
Could the Nobel Prize for Obama be a Consolation Prize, to make up for the disappointment that Michelle Obama suffered recently, when Chicago didsn’t get the Olympics, even though her Dad had had a difficult life???
(I couldn’t believe her narcissistic speech to the IOC selection group. Michelle, it’s NOT all about you, Ma’m.)
Mark says:
By that standard I should get the Nobel Peace Prize.
“Shannymoore” on Twitter: “I like having a president who doesn’t consider the Rapture an exit strategy.”
This announced on the day Obama attacked the Moon in an act of unprovoked aggression. Shame on you Nobel people.
So basically Obama received the prize for doing this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib-Qiyklq-Q
I hope he does sort out a few of the conflicts, Iraq is getting there (slowly) but Afg is still a long ways off from settled.
I think Obama missed a huge chance to boost his presence and deprive the Republicans of a lot of oxygen by refusing the prize, making a grand “Praise me in 6 years when Palestine and Israel are both free from fear”, and springbording from that.
I find it hard to believe his team havent considered that option.
In Norwegian does “Nobel Peace Prize” mean “consorting with international criminals”?
Guantanomo is still open. The Israelis are still occupying Palestine. The Afghan War is raging. He’s a nice bloke and I really like him, but wtf?
btw, he sent me this (this morning I think.) I’ve been on his mailing list ever since I wrote to him and told him I thought Ratty was a twat, way back when.
Paul –
This morning, Michelle and I awoke to some surprising and humbling news. At 6 a.m., we received word that I’d been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009.
To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize — men and women who’ve inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.
But I also know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it’s also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes.
That is why I’ve said that I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations and all peoples to confront the common challenges of the 21st century. These challenges won’t all be met during my presidency, or even my lifetime. But I know these challenges can be met so long as it’s recognized that they will not be met by one person or one nation alone.
This award — and the call to action that comes with it — does not belong simply to me or my administration; it belongs to all people around the world who have fought for justice and for peace. And most of all, it belongs to you, the men and women of America, who have dared to hope and have worked so hard to make our world a little better.
So today we humbly recommit to the important work that we’ve begun together. I’m grateful that you’ve stood with me thus far, and I’m honored to continue our vital work in the years to come.
Thank you,
President Barack Obama
He should donate the prize money to…ACORN
Update: Glenn Greenwald is worth reading, and has a number of interesting links.
Yes indeed Paul, it would have been preferable if this is how he’d responded, and even better if he’d said that perhaps someone else should get it instead, at least until he’d checked off a couple of the tthings on the to do list …
As leaders of American capitalism go, he’s about as appealing as they come, and the yawning gulf between him and his predecessor exaggerates this appeal. Certainly, he’s someone I’d regard as probably, at a purely personal level if one could have such a relationship, an endearing fellow.
But Nobel Peace Prize material? Not yet. Not even close. I can’t imagine who would be, but I’m sure there must have been any number of more deserving others.
Nobel is to dynamite
What Obama offers
“Peace bro’ peace”.
You know what to do, boys. Hit it…
The bridge, I think, says it all.
The real “WTF” factoid for me was that the deadlines for Peace Prize nominations was February the 1st, 2009. Obama assumed office on January the 20th. So he got nominated only 11 days into his presidency.
From Greenwald’s post:
‘I thought Crooked Timber was supposed to be some sort of high falutin’ academic blog.’
Such arrogance. Don’t like their position? Diss them – that sounds a nice academic approach.
Jeeezzz.. what a bunch of whining hand wringing grandmothers you lot are.
I would look back over past winners of the peace prize before saying that this one is out of the ordinary.
The reason this was given is obvious and legitimate. Obama took a superpower that was pretty much a cause for evil and flipped it 180 degrees. Eschewing unilateral actions, addressing Muslim Arabs in their own country, bringing back diplomacy as a tool for solving conflict, repairing relationships between the superpower and its estranged allies. Obama has and is undermining the basis on which terrorists base the cause against the west, creating the environment where Muslims can view terrorists as causes for evil rather than a means to give the west a bloody nose for its arrogance.
It is astonishing how quickly and easily how much the advent and election of Obama has changed the world. How soon we forget how the world looked just 18 months ago.
Obama gets the peace price for meaning of what he has already achieved in becoming POTUS. Being black in the USA but still able through the force of character and exceptional intelligence and skill become POTUS. This changed the worlds view of the USA as much as Obama’s stance on many things. Then we have Obama’s plans and means to achieve them which is the opposite of what went before.
Obama is a significant force for world peace by just turning up and not only not being Bush but have a direction and style which is a cause for good.
And yes, the USA is still the center of the world by being the biggest economy and superpower.
Others are right in that the Murdoch media wingnuts will hate Obama even more and become even more feral – which is probably a good thing as it loses them credibility.
“He makes people feel better about themselves overseas – global Prozac”. That’s not exactly an academic argument.
Pretty good sample of RWDB outrage on display here. Look for more of the same just on a grander scale from Fox News. Now move along, nothing to see here.
Anyone know who the other contenders were?
I heard something on AM about an Afghani women’s rights activist, and Morgan Tvangirai, but that’s about it.
For the Amazing Kim:
There were a total of 205 nominations for the award. Other nominees, including civil rights activists in China and Afghanistan, as well as African politicians, Colombian Senator Piedad Córdoba,[9][10] Afghanistan’s Sima Samar,[9] Chinese dissident Hu Jia, and Prime Minister of Zimbabwe Morgan Tsvangirai, had been regarded as pre-announcement favorites for the award.[2]
The Nobel Peace Prize is just an award by a bunch of old white scandanavian guys, its not the Word of God or the Flying Spaghetti Monster Speaking.
Relax, climb down, its OK. Most people on the planet don’t give a damn or have never heard of him.
Obama has changed the american voice internationally from one of idiotic bellicosity and belligerence – axis of evil, eek – to one of calm diplomacy – reaching out and all that.
That’s quite an achievement, even in 9 months. And its driving the right wing noise machine in the USA absolutely nuts. Yuk Yuk.
And Obama will really be tested now – how to wind down Afghanistan without the military machine exploding in his face.
Raises the level of the conversation somewhat.
My immediate reaction is that Obama should gracefully decline to accept the award. On the impeccably true grounds that the world had not become a safer or better place owing to any actions taken by himself or his party.
I see that Mickey Kaus has already beaten me to the punch on the blogging of this reaction. Thats why “Mickey the K.” turned pro a decade ago whilst I am still just a try-hard amateur.
Elsewhere: Legal Eagle.
Obama seemed sheepish in his comments about this.
I actually think Obama has changed the atmosphere in which decisions at international meetings are made (nowadays Republican ideology sees just about every international agreement as an attack on their country’s sovereignty…they really are nuts).
Obama looked very sheepish in his comments. It’s a difficult position to be in. He couldn’t accept or decline it without upsetting people.
But I like the fact that this will drive the Right nuts…that is, nuttier than they already are.
Sorry for repeating myself.
Smörgåsbords have been banned at FoxNews.
John Howard should have won the Nobel Peace price x2 for liberating the East Timorese and integrating remote indigenous communities.
These were troubled places before he turned his attention to them. Now they are peaceful and on the road to self-sustaining progress.
But a Howard award would pose too many embarrassing questions to the kinds of people who nominate, adjudicate and celebrate such awards.
Grace Pettigrew # 54. To be pedantic, the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded not (as you suggest) by “a bunch of old white scandanavian guys”, but by a bunch of white scandanavian sheilas. The committee is Eighty percent chicks.
Jack Said:
Well they managed to give one to Eisaku Sato, Henry Kissinger, Menachem Begin, Yassir Arafat, Mother Teresa …
Some of you might like to read these comments by Greg Laden.
Thanks SATP, but in this instance, same difference.
I take it that “white” in this context is code for “out of touch”, “old fashioned” or even “irrelevant”, as in the oft-used cultural war term of art, Dead White Males.
It already is.
Good point Sam! To get all Freudian over this; A bunch of over-the-hill white chicks gives an award to a virile young(er) Black Man…..
Didn’t nominations close 11 days after he was elected? But he gets it… for what, exacty?
Must have been an impressive 11 days of peace-making the guy did. Did anyone catch what it was, thoughh?
So much for the prestige of the Nobel Prize.
IT
“A bunch of over-the-hill white chicks gives an award to a virile young(er) Black Man…..”
So now we know where Strocchi drinks – the Mandingo Lounge at Steve’s joint.
Do not start me FD-Beardo. Don’t do it.
How do we know the Nobel Peace Prize Committee is not made up of Flying Sphagetti Monsters?
How the Nobel Committee chose Obama.
Good news is, he’s cutting back on skulls.
http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/20091009_obamas_nobel_peace_prize/
Not a bad piece on why he deserves it.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091009_hes_earned_it_for_now/?ln
Although nominations close in February, they don’t make the decision until September. I get the impression the group of people allowed to nominate just chuck in as many names as possible, then the (smaller) group that decides goes through the list not long before the announcement.
Matter of fact, Bill O’Reilly says yay.
That ‘yay’ is through clenched teeth and viewed only through the prism of possibly prolonged American prestige.
Which was the point of electing Obama in the first place.
SATP and Sam, your sensitivity on the “old white guys” mention of mine is sadly touching (virility?), but my context was more about the rest of the world not being old or white (mostly young and non-white) and my emphasis was really on the “scandinavian”.
Civilised Old Europe, represented by the scandinavians in this instance, have been highly offended by the utter vulgarity of the Bush years (as have many Australians) but the truth is that five billion other people on the planet probably do not care, or simply don’t know anything about the Nobel Peace Prize. Just ask the chinese.
After 24 hours of the news cycle, and now that the shock has worn off, the american right wing noise machine is looking seriously crazed, and gasp, unamerican. Thanks be to a small bunch of scandinavian sheilas…
Great Expectations:
http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/20091010_jumping_the_gun/
Cheers and ta, SL@ 33.
Sometimes when I peruse the latest outrage in the morning paper or lament the fact that I am not getting any younger I feel the occasional twinge of despair.
But then along comes the white liberal media with its beat-up about “racists” attacking Indians in Flemington, moral panic about “black face” skits and its affirmative action Nobel Peace Prizes.
Then I realise that this is, after all, Australia, and that nothing very much happens here any more. We must have something to be indignant about in the land where History has a happy ending.
My concern with Obama was always that most of the world would go gaga over a black president who says a few things about peace and change. Meanwhile ,US policy and war would continue with less opposition. Civilians are still being murdered by the US military in Afghanistan, US spy bases still exist in Australia, the US still supports humsn rights abusing regimes and anyone who thinks the US does not torture is naive. Ask the Afghans who have had loved ones killed in cowardly ait striked about Obama. A bomb fro Obama or from Bush still kills. Same engine, just new spark plugs. Opposition to the US empire must continue. Obama presnts nothing new.
I don’t know what Crooked Timber is supposed to be, or whether any group blog can be fairly criticised for not being homogenous, but I always enjoy Maria Farrell’s posts, which more often than not provide the leaven in the lump.
It’s entirely obvious to me that Obama received his prize for calling Kanye West a jackass.
Who’s Kanye West?
You are all being extremely silly!It was the presence of the Obama’s family dog having a Birth Certificate.I mean what else could it mean.Pedigree is everything,you agree!Thus as a function of the tried and true process of symbolic representation being as close to the reality as is possible,the Obama Family dog,is a Peace loving dog,rather than a dog of war, Right!So if you get the Dogs of War around the table,uncontesting the bone of contention,because the Chair wont bite into it because the quality of pedigree, then they all will stop because the alpha dog is behaving in a manner that has to be followed.Now compere ,sorry,compare George’s first White House dog Spot,and the famous quote,you all remember, about the name of the dog by George.”I guess I am a Creative Sort of Guy”. Simple isn’t it. The name of the U.S. President resounds with the word bones if you replace vowels, and thus have bow-wows, a term often used to describe the nature of a dog bark.Some in fact call the Pres. Barky. So the presence of the Certificate of Pedigree means the Pedagogic Sciences involved in peace-making, and the same applies to Dynamite,[that would make a good name for commercial dog food],are all dependent on the fine calculating mind and memory of Obama and dog.Obama and friend Rahm are just two that sing at the mooners at night etc. Down and out in Sai’ Gon. first post should also have read “the British are a Coming all the way to the Gulf of Mexico”.And Kerry the husband of someone who had something to do with Baked Beanz has made a few million dollars out of certain war efforts so far.
Picky, picky, picky. Some people are never satisfied. I’d hate to be your drycleaner Enemy Combatant. The point about Obama is that he got himself elected. That deserves a Nobel Prize. This in a country where blacks, even ones like Duke Ellington, had to stay in hotels for coloureds not all that long ago.
This cartoon with the skulls, EC, nah… Obama inherited the wars and he has to operate within the context of the US, such as it is. Would you rather another Eugene Maccarthy or Ralph nader effort? Look what that got the Democrat voters. Bubkes.
I think the world just sighed with relief after Dubya and his pigsty full of cretins were run out of town.
Underneath I have for you the running sheet of Peace Prize winners since 1901. The appraisals and commentary are mine just in case you have come down with the last shower like EC:
Nobel Peace Prize Winners 2009-1901
2008 MARTTI AHTISAARI for trying to resolve international conflicts. Sigh. Tick.
2007 INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE (IPCC) and AL GORE JR. for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change. Tick.
2006 MUHAMMAD YUNUS and GRAMEEN BANK for their efforts to create economic and social development from below. Tick.
2005 Jointly to INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY and MOHAMED ELBARADEI for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way. Tick.
2004 WANGARI MAATHAI for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace. Tick.
2003 SHIRIN EBADI for her efforts for democracy and human rights. Tick.
2002 JIMMY CARTER JR., for his decades of effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development. Yeah, why not, he’s put in the effort, tick.
2001 UNITED NATIONS, and KOFI ANNAN, UN Secretary General. Bullshit. No tick.
2000 KIM DAE JUNG for his work for democracy and human rights in South Korea and in East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular. I don’t think so. No tick.
1999 DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS (MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES), Brussels, Belgium. Big tick.
1998 JOHN HUME and DAVID TRIMBLE for their efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland. Benefit of the doubt. Tick.
1997 INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO BAN LANDMINES (ICBL) and JODY WILLIAMS for their work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines. Tick. (Eight pointer.)
1996 CARLOS FELIPE XIMENES BELO and JOSE RAMOS-HORTA for their work towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor. Tick.
1995 JOSEPH ROTBLAT and to the PUGWASH CONFERENCES ON SCIENCE AND WORLD AFFAIRS for their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms. Fair enough. Tick.
1994 YASSER ARAFAT , Chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO, President of the Palestinian National Authority. Dead in goal. No tick. SHIMON PERES , Foreign Minister of Israel. No tick. YITZHAK RABIN , Prime Minister of Israel. Call for video. Ref’s call. Dead in goal. No tick. Overall no tick.
1993 NELSON MANDELA Leader of the ANC and FREDRIK WILLEM DE KLERK President of the Republic of South Africa. Half a tick.
1992 RIGOBERTA MENCHU TUM, Guatemala. Campaigner for human rights, especially for indigenous peoples. Tick.
1991 AUNG SAN SUU KYI, Burma. Oppositional leader, human rights advocate. Tick in extra time.
1990 MIKHAIL SERGEYEVICH GORBACHEV , President of the USSR, helped to bring the Cold War to an end. Video ref says at least he didn’t start WWIII or run the tanks into Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Eats Germany, knock on in-goal. Half a tick.
1989 THE 14TH DALAI LAMA (TENZIN GYATSO) , Tibet. Religious and political leader of the Tibetan people. Just cause but he failed the steroids swab. No tick.
1988 THE UNITED NATIONS PEACE-KEEPING FORCES. What is this? A lifetime achievement award? Worthy idea but a Clayton’s. No tick.
1987 OSCAR ARIAS SANCHEZ , Costa Rica, President of Costa Rica, initiator of peace negotiations in Central America. No tick.
1986 ELIE WIESEL , U.S.A., Chairman of ‘The President’s Commission on the Holocaust’. Author, humanitarian. Tick.
1985 INTERNATIONAL PHYSICIANS FOR THE PREVENTION OF NUCLEAR WAR Boston. Tick.
1984 DESMOND MPILO TUTU , South Africa, Bishop of Johannesburg, for his work against apartheid. Tick.
1983 LECH WALESA , Poland. Founder of Solidarity, campaigner for human rights. Tick, but the guy’s an arsehole.
1982 Jointly ALVA MYRDAL , former Cabinet Minister, diplomat, delegate to United Nations General Assembly on Disarmament, writer. ALFONSO GARCIA ROBLES , diplomat, delegate to the United Nations General Assembly on Disarmament, former Secretary for Foreign Affairs . ref’s call. Tick.
1981 OFFICE OF THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES Geneva, Switzerland. Clayton’s, but video ref’s says benefit of the doubt, tick.
1980 ADOLFO PEREZ ESQUIVEL , Argentina, human rights leader. Tick.
1979 MOTHER TERESA , India, Leader of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity. Bullshit. No tick.
1978 MOHAMED ANWAR AL-SADAT , President of the Arab Republic of Egypt. MENACHEM BEGIN , Prime Minister of Israel. For not continuing with the war? No way, no tick.
1977 AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL London, Great Britain. A worldwide organization for the protection of the rights of prisoners of conscience. Yep. good one. Tick. (But they let Phil Ruddock keep his badge).
1976 BETTY WILLIAMS and MAIREAD CORRIGAN Founders of the Northern Ireland Peace Movement (later renamed Community of Peace People). Tick.
1975 ANDREI DMITRIEVICH SAKHAROV , Soviet physicist. Campaigner for human rights. Tick.
1974 Divided equally between SEAN MAC BRIDE , President of the International Peace Bureau, Geneva, and the Commission of Namibia, United Nations, New York; EISAKU SATO , Prime Minister of Japan. WTF? No tick. On hold pending an inquiry.
1973 Jointly to: HENRY A. KISSINGER, and LE DUC THO , Democratic Republic of Viet Nam. (Declined the prize.) Get out of here!!!! No tick.
1972 No award.
1971 WILLY BRANDT Chancellor of West Germany, initiator of West Germany’s Ostpolitik, embodying a new attitude towards Eastern Europe and East Germany. Steroid abuse. Disqualified and suspended. No tick.
1970 NORMAN BORLAUG , Led research at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, Mexico City. Benefit of the doubt, tick.
1969 INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION (I.L.O.) Geneva. No tick.
1968 RENE CASSIN, President of the European Court for Human Rights. Tick.
1967-1966 Not awarded.
1965 UNICEF. Tick.
1964 MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. campaigner for civil rights. Tick.
1963 Red Cross. Tick.
1962 LINUS PAULING , Campaigner for an end to nuclear weapons tests. Tick.
1961 DAG HJALMAR AGNE CARL HAMMARSKJOLD , Secretary General of the United Nations. Dead in goal but benefit of the doubt. Tick.
1960 ALBERT JOHN LUTULI , President of the South Africal liberation movement, the African National Congress. Tick.
1959 PHILIP J. NOEL-BAKER , Great Britain, Member of Parliament, life long ardent worker for international peace and co-operation. Ref’s call. Tick.
1958 GEORGES HENRI PIRE , Belgium, Father of the Dominican Order, Leader of the relief organization for refugees, l’Europe du Coeur au Service du Monde. Tick.
1957 LESTER BOWLES PEARSON , former Secretary of State for External Affairs of Canada, President 7th Session of the United Nations General Assembly . Benefit of the doubt. Tick.
1956-1955 Not given.
1954 OFFICE OF THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES Geneva, an international relief organization, founded by U.N. in 1951. Tick.
1953 GEORGE CATLETT MARSHALL , General, President American Red Cross, ex-Secretary of State and of Defense, Delegate to the U.N., Originator of the Marshall Plan. Tick.
1952 ALBERT SCHWEITZER , Missionary surgeon. Tick.
1951 LYON JOUHAUX , President of the International Committee of the European Council, Vice President of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, Vice President of the World Federation of Trade Unions, member of the ILO Council, delegate to the UN. Tick.
1950 RALPH BUNCHE , Professor Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, Director of the UN Division of Trusteeship, Acting Mediator in Palestine 1948. Video ref says: No tick.
1949 LORD JOHN BOYD ORR OF BRECHIN , Physician, Alimentary Politician, prominent organizer and Director General Food and Agricultural Organization, President National Peace Council and World Union of Peace Organizations. Tick.
1948 No prize.
1947 THE FRIENDS SOCIETY (Quakers). Mmmmmmm. OK. Tick.
1946 Divided equally between EMILY GREENE BALCH, former Professor of History and Sociology, Honorary International President Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and JOHN RALEIGH MOTT Chairman of the first International Missionary Council, President of the World Alliance of Young Men’s Christian Associations. Half a tick.
1945 CORDELL HULL Former Secretary of State. One of the initiators of the United Nations. Foul play in backplay noticed in video replay (Hull’s refusal to allow in Jewish refugees aboard a Portuguese ship, the Quanza, who were fleeing the Nazis). No tick.
1944 RED CROSS. Tick.
1943-1939 Not given. Not surprising. Not much peace.
1938 INTERNATIONAL OFFICE FOR REFUGEES an international relief organization in Geneva started by Fridtjof Nansen in 1921. Tick.
1937 LORD CECIL. Founder and President of the International Peace Campaign. Tick.
1936 CARLOS SAAVEDRA LAMAS President of League of Nations, Meditator in a conflict between Paraguay and Bolivia in 1935. Tick.
1935 CARL VON OSSIETZKY Journalist, influential writer. Pacifist. Tick.
1934 ARTHUR HENDERSON Chairman of the League of Nations Disarmament Conference 1932-1934. Tick
1933 SIR NORMAN ANGELL (RALPH LANE) Writer. Member of the CExecutive Committee of the League of Nations and the National Peace Council. Author of the book The Great Illusion, among others. Tick.
1932 Bye year.
1931 Divided equally between JANE ADDAMS Sociologist. International President of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and
NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER President of Columbia University. Promoter of the Briand-Kellogg Pact (a multinational treaty that prohibited the use of war as an instrument of national policy. Didn’t work but Tick for trying.
1930 LARS OLOF NATHAN (JONATHAN) SODERBLOM Archbishop. Leader of the ecumenical movement. No tick for accepting in the first place. It’s your job, pal. No tick.
1929 FRANK BILLINGS KELLOGG Former Secretary of State, Negotiated the Briand-Kellogg Pact. Tick.
1928 Bye.
1927 Divided equally between Prof FERDINAND BUISSON founder of League for Human Rights, and LUDWIG QUIDDE Historian and member of Germany’s constituent assembly 1919. Delegate to numerous peace conferences. Tick.
1926 Jointly to ARISTIDE BRIAND negotiator of the Locarno Treaty and the Briand-Kellogg Pact and GUSTAV STRESEMANN Former Lord High Chancellor (Reichs-kanzler). Foreign Minister. Negotiator of the Locarno Treaty, no tick; Stresemann initiated a trade war on fledgling Poland in 1925. Bastard. No tick.
1925 SIR AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN Foreign Minister. Negotiator of the Locarno Treaty and CHARLES GATES DAWES Vice-President of the United States of America. Chairman of the Allied Reparation Commission. Originator of the Dawes Plan. No tick.
1924-1923 Bye.
1921 Divided equally between KARL HJALMAR BRANTING Swedish Delegate to the Council of the League of Nations and CHRISTIAN LOUS LANGE Secretary General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Brussels. Benefit of the doubt. Tick.
1920 LYON VICTOR AUGUSTE BOURGEOIS, France. President of the Council of the League of Nations. Didn’t do much. No tick.
1919 THOMAS WOODROW WILSON, President of the United States of America. Founder of League of Nations. Benefit of the doubt. Tick.
1918 Bye year.
1917 RED CROSS. Tick.
1916-1914. No prizes and prizes for guessing why.
1913 HENRI LA FONTAINE, President of the Permanent International Peace Bureau, Berne. No tick. Look what happened the following year.
1912 ELIHU ROOT Initiator of several arbitration agreements. Tick.
1911 Divided between: TOBIAS MICHAEL CAREL ASSER, the initiator of the International Conferences of Private Law at the Hague and ALFRED HERMANN FRIED, Austria. Journalist. Founder of the peace journal Die Waffen Nieder. Tick.
1910 PERMANENT INTERNATIONAL PEACE BUREAU) , Bern. No tick.
1909 Divided between: AUGUSTE BEERNAERT, Belgium. Member of the International Court of Arbitration at the Hague and BARON DE CONSTANT DE REBECQUE, France. Founder of the Committee for the Defense of National Interests and International Conciliation. Tick.
1908
The prize was divided equally between:
KLAS PONTUS ARNOLDSON, Sweden. Writer. Former Member fo the Swedish Parliament. Founder of the Swedish Peace and Arbitration League.
FREDRIK BAJER, Denmark. Member of the Danish Parliament. Honorary President of the Permanent International Peace Bureau, Berne.
1907 The prize was divided equally between: ERNESTO TEODORO MONETA, President of the Lombard League of Peace and LOUIS RENAULT, France, Professor International Law, Sorbonne University, Paris. Tick.
1906 THEODORE ROOSEVELT, USA. President of the United States of America. Drew up the 1905 peace treaty between Russia and Japan. Gotta be joking! No tick.
1905 BARONESS BERTHA VON SUTTNER. Writer. Hon. President of the Permanent International Peace Bureau, Berne. Author of Die Waffen Nieder (Lay Down Your Arms). Tick.
1904 INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, Gent, Belgium. Tick, benefit of the doubt.
1903 SIR WILLIAM RANDAL CREMER, Great Britain. Member of the British Parliament. Secretary of the International Arbitration League. Tick, benefit of the doubt.
1902 The prize was divided equally between: ÉLIE DUCOMMUN, Switzerland. Honorary Secretary of the Permanent International Peace Bureau, Berne and CHARLES ALBERT GOBAT, Switzerland. Secretary General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Berne. Honorary Secretary of the Permanent International Peace Bureau, Berne. Tick, benefit of the doubt.
1901 Prize was divided equally between: JEAN HENRI DUNANT, Switzerland. Founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva; Initiator of the Geneva Convention and FRÉDÉRIC PASSY, France. Founder and President of the first French peace society. Tick.
I still think my link trumps EC:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091009_hes_earned_it_for_now/?ln
There will always be an England! Look who’s back from the Establishment Club and hitting the threads with broad-spectrum erudition. Excellent commentary on the Nobel Laureates, Sir Henry, but rest assured you are perfectly safe in your distance from my “dry-cleaning” arrangements.
No argument about Obama’s contribution to Human Rights by “getting himself elected”. Mr. Fish’s cartoon draws attention to the current invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. The Nobel could apply a bit of moral suasion to the Commander-In-Chief when he assesses General McChrystal’s demands for more sniper and IED fodder for an unwinnable war. Perhaps his humble embrace (somebody give the guy a Pulitzer) of the Prize will help in gathering ALL Players for a monster M.E. Peace Pow-Wow. Now that would be change I could believe in. Well worth another Obi gong.
Fondest to Lady Casingbroke.
————————————-
Patrick B, like the way your link finishes:
“One thing is clear: Obama brought a view of the world that was absent from Washington during the Bush years. As Obama said during the presidential campaign, he regards negotiation as a sign of strength, not weakness…..
Critics have an argument against the prize going to the president—the Afghanistan war.
The day Obama won the peace prize, The Wall Street Journal reported, he was scheduled to meet with his war council to discuss whether to increase the number of troops there by 40,000 or 60,000.
If Obama leads the country into a hopeless war to support a corrupt government—with no attainable goal and no end in sight—then his Nobel will indeed be tarnished, an ironic note in the history of his presidency.
But I don’t think it will happen. In his short time in office, he has shown he understands the world better than some of his more experienced predecessors. The Nobel Prize will help him and his administration to do even more.”
Hundreds of thousands of Afghani civilians; men, women and children would go along with that too.
Vielen Dank Sir Henry fuer Ihre aufschlussreiche Zusammenfassung, sie verleiht der kontroversen Entscheidung perspektive. Obama als Aspekt von Frieden, eventuell eine gute Investition fuer die Humanitaet?
Ootz,
Die Auswahl fuer Nobel Friedenspreis beruht aus zwei-drittel Politik, ein sechstel Idiotenentscheidung und ein sechstel Richtigkeit.
Obama having kept on GWB’s Defense Sec., Generals, and kept basically to the Iraqi determined plan to draw down and withdraw COW forces firstly into the countryside (now that the surge has done the job that leading people on this site said it would not achieve)then home, or off to Afghanistan was implicitly accepting that McCain and Bush were right. Result Bush 1 Obama 0
Obama is going to get the failed war for greater Israel ended (because it is in U.S. interests that the defeat be finalised ASAP, as GWB almost spelled-out when he became the first U.S. President to call the West Bank occupied territory, rather than ‘disputed’, but because the U.S. is now so enfeebled there will probably be little progress till after the Netanyahu government is replaced by a Livni government. When this ‘unexpected miracle’ of a Palestinian State comes about, many at sites like LP will be beside themselves over how brilliantly the committee of 80% women were in seeing where this wonderful peacemaker was heading. No one will notice that it was Obama that during the election was to the right of GWB in promising the Zionists that they could keep all of Jerusalem! After the election he has had to adopt the GWB policies re: the establishment of a Palestinian state. GWB 2 Obama 0
Then there is the state of the peace movement. Obama has demobilised 2/3rds of what was left of it and thoroughly disoriented what remains.
Now the struggle is between the new Generals and the old style realists of the Clinton and Brezinski types, who are still proud of the disgraceful role that they had played in entrapping the Soviets in Afghanistan, funding Al Qaeda etc., and holding back region-wide democratic revolution for all these years.
Can’t be certain with such a rank opportunist, but at this stage I think it more probable that the extra 40,000 troops will head to Afghanistan as the war widens into Pakistan with greater U.S. help. Bush would approve of this I think, so I think we may as well call that 3 zip.
Grace Pettigrew # 78, You misread me, I was not in the slightest concerned about your subtle bigotry toward “old white guys”. I was making a (pedantic) correction of your inaccuracy.
The American Right Wing Noise Machine may be looking “seriously crazed”, but it is the Nobel Peace Prize Committee who have made (probably irretrievably) prize twatts of themselves. (rhymes with “caps”) The Al Gore award was crazy enough, this latest one has tarnished, for our time, the Nobel Peace Prize.
Alfred Nobel’s terms of reference, such as they are, were for achievement in reducing conflicts and standing armies. Al Gore may be deserving of truckloads of awards for climate related stuff, but awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize was quite a stretch. I disagree with Sir Henry’s comprehensive tick/no tick on this award.
On a few others also, the Nobel Peace Prize is not restricted to only those peacemakers who have never previously acted for the dark side. A point that would seem to be above the pay grade of Sir Henry and many others.
SATP, so you spell it “twatts”???
Claytons Surge: U.S. Commander-In-Chief shiftily shores-up The Peace.
“The deployment of the support troops to Afghanistan brings the total increase approved by Obama to 34,000. The buildup has raised the number of U.S. troops deployed to the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan above the peak during the Iraq “surge” that President George W. Bush ordered, officials said.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/12/AR2009101203142.html
Interesting run-down, Sir Henry. What surprises me is how few of them I remember or ever learnt about. Very few seem to be — in that expression beloved of school speech nights — wholly ‘worthy’.
Dear Sir Henry,
just a brief note: [1977] Mr Ruddock is a member; the Australian Branch asked him to cease wearing his badge in public but they have no powers of excommunication.
[1920] what, are you calling the BOURGEOIS lazy?
yr ‘umble & obed’t servant
Ruddock’s pin dates from a time when Amnesty International stood for something, before it became just another grubby pro-illegal immigration lobby group.
His wearing of the membership pin was a very public daily reminder of the organisation’s shameful reversal of what had been a very moral organisation.
Shame on them, and they knew it. How their consciences must have burned to see the pin being worn by someone with actual spine.