If you won any other Nobel Prize (including the literature) is because you deserve it. If you won the Peace Prize, is only partially because you deserve it, but also because you need it.
Nobel Peace Prize laureates are usually taking a stand on controversial topics in their own countries/communities. They need an international prestigious stamp to show that they are on the right side of history and have international support. But also you need to deserve it.
Malala has the perfect balance of both. She is incredibly smart, self-conscious, has a natural sense of dignitiy and integrity that protect her from the traps of ego and fame - something very hard to do for any human being, let alone a teenager. She is making quite an impact on girl's education.
But also she needs it badly. Her life is constantly in danger and this stamp and support from the Nobel Prize will protect her life and her struggle. More people in her community will consider that she might be right.
Red Cross is another example of both deserving and needing the prize. They must enter the worst war zones, and all sides must believe they are not spies for the enemy. Their brand is the most important brand in the world.
Then you have Obama. His prize is controversial because he obviously didn't deserve it. But the commitee thought he needded it, and I agree. Not because he needed more power or validation, like Malala. But he could use a "nudge" to improve peace in the world. Sure, it was a risky move - and didn't pay well. But it is part of the goal of Nobel Peace Prize as I see it: help the laureates to do the right thing toward peace. So I don't think it was a necessarily bad move. But it surely hurts its brand. I think the commitee should be more conservative about who deserves its prize; but I agree that is also important to find who need it.
Pretty much agree with your analysis, I think you explained Obama's prize very well. It is not only case and they made several very controversial awards recently, which did hurt it's brand.
I personally think Nobel prize lost it's prestige and became very political, and not only for peace one.
I don't care any more who gets one, it's not important. It's role like ultimate prize is very positive thing and I think world needs something like this, just not Nobel any more.
Nobel Peace Prize laureates are usually taking a stand on controversial topics
More accurately, they are usually taking the politically fashionable stand on controversial topics. If you can imagine a Nobel Peace Prize being granted to a vocal defender of apartheid or a staunch opponent of abortion, you imagine a world very different from the one we live in.
If you think, "and thank God for that", it simply means that your political beliefs are fashionable, too. Being on the "right side of history" just means that your side won. Louis XVI was on the wrong side of history, but that doesn't mean we should all become Jacobins—although, in many ways, we have. (I'd guess the Nobel Peace Prize committee would have little problem endorsing liberté, égalité, fraternité.)
I know it's kind of cynical, and I'm probably wrong, but I thought Obama won the Nobel peace prize because he wasn't George W. Bush.
It was more about the Nobel Committee sending a message to the US about the previous disastrous presidency than anything else. The way I remember the political mood at the time we could have elected a dead cat and half of the world would have been ecstatically happy.
To understand why Obama won the prize, you need to understand about the history of the prize. The prizes were created because Nobel was upset that his invention of TNT caused so much destruction in the world. At the time, TNT was a WMD.
Obama's worked to reduce nuclear weapons while in the US Senate. That effort would've made Nobel proud.
Further, Obama recently removed Syria's declared chemical weapon stock pile. If he didn't earn it before this, he definitely earned it now. This is directly at the heart of why the Nobel prize was created.
In 1888, Nobel was astonished to read his own obituary, titled The merchant of death is dead, in a French newspaper. As it was Alfred's brother Ludvig who had died, the obituary was eight years premature. The article disconcerted Nobel and made him apprehensive about how he would be remembered. This inspired him to change his will.
I was a physicist before becoming an engineer, and I love to hear about all that science during the Nobel Prize season, but the Peace Prize is my favorite. I would even say it's the only one to be "useful" (is it really useful to award money to someone sometimes many years after (s)he has retired from doing any research?)
The Peace prize is different, by nature it is always non-consensual, because there would be no reason to award a Peace Prize if there were not someone else who is waging a war, denying other people their basic rights or doing other Bad Things. Today it's the Taliban and the child exploiters who are the bad guys pointed out by the prize. Last year it was the Syrian dictatorship, in 2011 the Chinese government.
When Obama was given the Peace Prize, I was also shocked in disbelief, and like most people I think it was not deserved. But then I saw that some people in the US were not simply shacking their head, they were foaming with rage. Coincidentally, they were the same people who supported, and sometimes continued to justify the disastrous foreign policy of the previous administration. And that make me think this prize was actually well awarded. It was not deserved by Obama, and I think the Nobel committee, by giving him the prize at the beginning of his presidency before he could actually do anything for or against peace, was almost explicitly saying that they didn't care that he didn't deserved it. This prize was a middle finger to the Bush administration and I think that middle finger was well deserved.
The same goes for other polemical awards. Al Gore got it, and it made all the climate science deniers mad. Yasser Arafat got it and the Israeli political right got crazy.
It's not always like this (The Red Cross got the prize a number of times, and nobody disagrees with it), but often, if you don't understand why a Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, look at who it pisses off.
We should not. It's nation branding and it's politicized (I'm Norwegian btw). The members of the committee are appointed by the Norwegian parliment and are mainly former politicians. We all knew they would never have the balls to give it to Snowden. To me, that proves the impotence of the prize.
It's just a prize, an award. It's not supposed to be the unique trademark given to the greatest humans on Earth. It doesn't matter if you take it seriously, it may be an important milestone and encouragement for the laureates, though.
It's hard to judge what you think, but certainly more seriously than the Academy Awards. Do you take the Wateler Peace Prize or the Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize or any other peace prize seriously?
I don't personally agree that Obama should have received it, but this article presents an interesting position as to why he did [0]. The author argues that giving the president the prize at the beginning of his presidency may have been motivation for him to make more peaceful decisions while in charge.
Interesting that the section of the press release about Malala doesn't mention that she was shot in the face for her activist work, and kept doing it regardless.
I think they should put a 10-20 year waiting limit on the Peace price. Give history some time to see what actually happened. Not to denigrate Malala, she sounds like an amazing young women. But I don't see that she has actually accomplished anything yet. Maybe in 20 years the quality of life and education for women in Islamic countries will have gone up notably, and she will have been identified as the catalyst for that. Then she will definitely deserve the prize.
But right now it sounds like feel-good wishful thinking.
I think that giving the prize to the people who contributed the most for peace in 1994 or earlier would give us some perspective, some confirmation that what they actually did worked and led to a better, more peaceful world.
It is a shame that Indian government never even conferred a Padma award to Kailash Satyarthi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padma_Shri) but was bestowing these awards in abundance to corrupt and classless politicians and journalists (Rajdeep Sardesai, Burkha Dutt)
Govt of India and Indian media was probably caught off-guard by this development.
I did some looking up on pages of the linked website here to see what the criteria are for choosing winners of the Nobel Prize for world peace. First, one must be nominated by an eligible nominator:[1]
"Who may nominate candidates for the Peace Prize?
"According to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, a nomination is considered valid if it is submitted by a person who falls within one of the following categories:
"Members of national assemblies and governments of states
"Members of international courts
"University rectors; professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology; directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes
"Persons who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
"Board members of organizations that have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
"Active and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; (proposals by members of the Committee to be submitted no later than at the first meeting of the Committee after February 1)
"Former advisers to the Norwegian Nobel Committee"
Then there is a process for choosing a prize winner or prize winners for the year from among the list of nominees:[2]
"At the first meeting of the Nobel Committee after the February 1 deadline for nominations, the Committee's Permanent Secretary presents the list of the year's candidates. The Committee may on that occasion add further names to the list, after which the nomination process is closed, and discussion of the particular candidates begins. In the light of this first review, the Committee draws up the so-called short list - i.e. the list of candidates selected for more thorough consideration. The short list typically contains from twenty to thirty candidates.
"The candidates on the short list are then considered by the Nobel Institute's permanent advisers. In addition to the Institute's Director and Research Director, the body of advisers generally consists of a small group of Norwegian university professors with broad expertise in subject areas with a bearing on the Peace Prize. The advisers usually have a couple of months in which to draw up their reports. Reports are also occasionally requested from other Norwegian and foreign experts.
"When the advisers' reports have been presented, the Nobel Committee embarks on a thorough-going discussion of the most likely candidates. In the process, the need often arises to obtain additional information and updates about candidates from additional experts, often foreign. As a rule, the Committee reaches a decision only at its very last meeting before the announcement of the Prize at the beginning of October.
"The Committee seeks to achieve unanimity in its selection of the Peace Prize Laureate. On the rare occasions when this proves impossible, the selection is decided by a simple majority vote."
With that in mind, it's actually remarkable to me how often non-politicians and non-jurists have won the Nobel Prize for world peace. Each year, the committee has a lot of nominees to consider from a lot of different sources. During the process of investigating nominees and seeking unanimity, a lot of names fall out of consideration.
"According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who in the preceding year "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.""
What you listed is just bureaucratic procedures and maneuvering. For tat, the Nobel Committee deserves a Nobel Prize in Bureacracy.
I am still unable to understand what Malala is doing and why is she so great. Of course she is way better than an average teenager but I just do not understand the whole hoopla, she is safe and warm far away from SWAT valley in UK, and get to rub shoulders with powerful people who are interested in photo-op. Her ability to attain access is great but is it Nobel Peace Prize worthy.
Nobel Peace Prize lost shine for me. I still think their pure sciences awards are the gold standard, on the border on economics and completely disappointed in the peace prize.
So, after Churchill and Yasser Arafat, I see Robert Mugabe and Fidel Castro as serious contenders. Osama Bin Laden is out of the question since you have to be alive to receive the prize.
That's what made it a joke? A 17 year old can contribute to world peace just as much as anyone. What's a joke is a warmongering president being awarded a peace prize.
[+] [-] soneca|11 years ago|reply
Nobel Peace Prize laureates are usually taking a stand on controversial topics in their own countries/communities. They need an international prestigious stamp to show that they are on the right side of history and have international support. But also you need to deserve it. Malala has the perfect balance of both. She is incredibly smart, self-conscious, has a natural sense of dignitiy and integrity that protect her from the traps of ego and fame - something very hard to do for any human being, let alone a teenager. She is making quite an impact on girl's education. But also she needs it badly. Her life is constantly in danger and this stamp and support from the Nobel Prize will protect her life and her struggle. More people in her community will consider that she might be right.
Red Cross is another example of both deserving and needing the prize. They must enter the worst war zones, and all sides must believe they are not spies for the enemy. Their brand is the most important brand in the world.
Then you have Obama. His prize is controversial because he obviously didn't deserve it. But the commitee thought he needded it, and I agree. Not because he needed more power or validation, like Malala. But he could use a "nudge" to improve peace in the world. Sure, it was a risky move - and didn't pay well. But it is part of the goal of Nobel Peace Prize as I see it: help the laureates to do the right thing toward peace. So I don't think it was a necessarily bad move. But it surely hurts its brand. I think the commitee should be more conservative about who deserves its prize; but I agree that is also important to find who need it.
[+] [-] desireco42|11 years ago|reply
I personally think Nobel prize lost it's prestige and became very political, and not only for peace one.
I don't care any more who gets one, it's not important. It's role like ultimate prize is very positive thing and I think world needs something like this, just not Nobel any more.
[+] [-] lexcorvus|11 years ago|reply
More accurately, they are usually taking the politically fashionable stand on controversial topics. If you can imagine a Nobel Peace Prize being granted to a vocal defender of apartheid or a staunch opponent of abortion, you imagine a world very different from the one we live in.
If you think, "and thank God for that", it simply means that your political beliefs are fashionable, too. Being on the "right side of history" just means that your side won. Louis XVI was on the wrong side of history, but that doesn't mean we should all become Jacobins—although, in many ways, we have. (I'd guess the Nobel Peace Prize committee would have little problem endorsing liberté, égalité, fraternité.)
[+] [-] webnrrd2k|11 years ago|reply
It was more about the Nobel Committee sending a message to the US about the previous disastrous presidency than anything else. The way I remember the political mood at the time we could have elected a dead cat and half of the world would have been ecstatically happy.
[+] [-] MichaelApproved|11 years ago|reply
Obama's worked to reduce nuclear weapons while in the US Senate. That effort would've made Nobel proud.
Further, Obama recently removed Syria's declared chemical weapon stock pile. If he didn't earn it before this, he definitely earned it now. This is directly at the heart of why the Nobel prize was created.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize
In 1888, Nobel was astonished to read his own obituary, titled The merchant of death is dead, in a French newspaper. As it was Alfred's brother Ludvig who had died, the obituary was eight years premature. The article disconcerted Nobel and made him apprehensive about how he would be remembered. This inspired him to change his will.
[+] [-] BetaCygni|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ckarmann|11 years ago|reply
The Peace prize is different, by nature it is always non-consensual, because there would be no reason to award a Peace Prize if there were not someone else who is waging a war, denying other people their basic rights or doing other Bad Things. Today it's the Taliban and the child exploiters who are the bad guys pointed out by the prize. Last year it was the Syrian dictatorship, in 2011 the Chinese government.
When Obama was given the Peace Prize, I was also shocked in disbelief, and like most people I think it was not deserved. But then I saw that some people in the US were not simply shacking their head, they were foaming with rage. Coincidentally, they were the same people who supported, and sometimes continued to justify the disastrous foreign policy of the previous administration. And that make me think this prize was actually well awarded. It was not deserved by Obama, and I think the Nobel committee, by giving him the prize at the beginning of his presidency before he could actually do anything for or against peace, was almost explicitly saying that they didn't care that he didn't deserved it. This prize was a middle finger to the Bush administration and I think that middle finger was well deserved.
The same goes for other polemical awards. Al Gore got it, and it made all the climate science deniers mad. Yasser Arafat got it and the Israeli political right got crazy.
It's not always like this (The Red Cross got the prize a number of times, and nobody disagrees with it), but often, if you don't understand why a Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, look at who it pisses off.
[+] [-] erokar|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pavs|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kachnuv_ocasek|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PJDK|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chippy|11 years ago|reply
Of course people can change their minds, but you must remember not to rewrite history
[+] [-] dalke|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seccess|11 years ago|reply
[0] http://controversialtruths.com/node/8147
[+] [-] aestra|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pknerd|11 years ago|reply
http://oi59.tinypic.com/9zrbco.jpg
[+] [-] mef|11 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malala_Yousafzai
[+] [-] varjag|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rverghes|11 years ago|reply
But right now it sounds like feel-good wishful thinking.
I think that giving the prize to the people who contributed the most for peace in 1994 or earlier would give us some perspective, some confirmation that what they actually did worked and led to a better, more peaceful world.
[+] [-] simplekoala|11 years ago|reply
Govt of India and Indian media was probably caught off-guard by this development.
[+] [-] simplekoala|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tokenadult|11 years ago|reply
"Who may nominate candidates for the Peace Prize?
"According to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, a nomination is considered valid if it is submitted by a person who falls within one of the following categories:
"Members of national assemblies and governments of states
"Members of international courts
"University rectors; professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology; directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes
"Persons who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
"Board members of organizations that have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
"Active and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; (proposals by members of the Committee to be submitted no later than at the first meeting of the Committee after February 1)
"Former advisers to the Norwegian Nobel Committee"
Then there is a process for choosing a prize winner or prize winners for the year from among the list of nominees:[2]
"At the first meeting of the Nobel Committee after the February 1 deadline for nominations, the Committee's Permanent Secretary presents the list of the year's candidates. The Committee may on that occasion add further names to the list, after which the nomination process is closed, and discussion of the particular candidates begins. In the light of this first review, the Committee draws up the so-called short list - i.e. the list of candidates selected for more thorough consideration. The short list typically contains from twenty to thirty candidates.
"The candidates on the short list are then considered by the Nobel Institute's permanent advisers. In addition to the Institute's Director and Research Director, the body of advisers generally consists of a small group of Norwegian university professors with broad expertise in subject areas with a bearing on the Peace Prize. The advisers usually have a couple of months in which to draw up their reports. Reports are also occasionally requested from other Norwegian and foreign experts.
"When the advisers' reports have been presented, the Nobel Committee embarks on a thorough-going discussion of the most likely candidates. In the process, the need often arises to obtain additional information and updates about candidates from additional experts, often foreign. As a rule, the Committee reaches a decision only at its very last meeting before the announcement of the Prize at the beginning of October.
"The Committee seeks to achieve unanimity in its selection of the Peace Prize Laureate. On the rare occasions when this proves impossible, the selection is decided by a simple majority vote."
With that in mind, it's actually remarkable to me how often non-politicians and non-jurists have won the Nobel Prize for world peace. Each year, the committee has a lot of nominees to consider from a lot of different sources. During the process of investigating nominees and seeking unanimity, a lot of names fall out of consideration.
[1] http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/nomination_intro/nomination...
[2] http://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/peace/
[+] [-] igivanov|11 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Peace_Prize
"According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who in the preceding year "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.""
What you listed is just bureaucratic procedures and maneuvering. For tat, the Nobel Committee deserves a Nobel Prize in Bureacracy.
[+] [-] sremani|11 years ago|reply
Nobel Peace Prize lost shine for me. I still think their pure sciences awards are the gold standard, on the border on economics and completely disappointed in the peace prize.
[+] [-] Kalium|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] huu|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pknerd|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] dismal2|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tiatia|11 years ago|reply
Besides the death of thousands of German civilians:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Cossacks_after_...
http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Others/Others-Doc-History/+D...
The only odd thing about this picture is: One guy is missing: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Yalta_sum...
[+] [-] tiatia|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kryptiskt|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] enlightenedfool|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elastine|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sanoli|11 years ago|reply
http://superitch.com/images/2010/10/Sorensen1.jpg
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Blahah|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
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