Even the most fervent advocates of
the Nobel Prize will admit that the various
committees selecting the prize winners sometimes
make mistakes.
Consider the Nobel Prize for literature. How many
can claim that they have read the works of Theodor
Mommsen (1902), Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1903), Henryk
Sienkiewicz (1905), Selma Lagerlöf (1909), Karl
Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan (1917), Sigrid
Undset (1928), Frans Eemil Sillanpää (1939), Pär
Lagerkvist (1951), Halldór Laxness (1955), and
Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson (1974)?
The list above is entirely made up of Scandinavians.
It could be that Scandinavia routinely produces
global literary masters whose works, being in
Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish and Icelandic,
are only read by the very few who live in those cold
climes. What seems more likely — and this has been
stated by many — is that every once in a while, the
selection committee feels that something must be
done for the kith and kin. And so it does.
There have also been terrible omissions. In
literature, it starts with Mark Twain. Goes on to
Leo Tolstoy. James Joyce. Henrik Ibsen (a Norwegian
to boot). Robert Frost. W.H. Auden. Vladimir Nabokov.
And a man who was rejected for almost two decades on
the trot — Jorge Luis Borges.
What is true in literature also holds for the Nobel
Prize for peace. There have been major boo-boos and
equally cardinal omissions. Among the poor choices
are Teddy Roosevelt (1906, US President, lover of
wars and annexing territories, uncontrolled killer
of big game in Africa, whose “Speak softly and carry
a big stick” says more than anything else). A bunch
of Scandinavians who got it for truly small
measures: Klas Pontus Arnoldson and Frederik Bajer
(1908); Karl Hjalmar Branting and Christian Louis
Lange (1921); Fridtjof Nansen (1922); and Nathan
Söderblom (1930). Henry Kissinger (1973) for bigger
things, such as mercilessly bombing North Vietnam
and Haiphong for months to force a truce with North
Vietnam. Among the omissions, the most glaring one:
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
This brings me to the Nobel Peace Laureate for 2009
— Barack Hussein Obama, the current and 44th
President of the USA. According to the Norwegian
Nobel Committee, the prize has been awarded to Obama
“for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen
international diplomacy and cooperation between
peoples”. The Nobel Committee would have us belief
that in just 10 months at the White House, Obama has
not only “created a new climate in international
politics” but also a vision of “a world without
nuclear weapons”. That “multilateral diplomacy has
regained a central position”; and thanks to Obama,
we are looking at “the vision of a world free from
nuclear arms” and a world ready to deal with the
challenges of climate change. Great words, indeed!
I sincerely hope that all these sentiments turn out
to be true. Four years from now, I pray that
President Obama is universally seen as one the most
influentially peaceful, caring and prophetic leader
of the modern world. But these are my hopes and
prayers. In the last 10 months, none of us can say
with any certainty — and with enough facts at our
disposal — that Obama has shown all the attributes
which the Norwegian Nobel Committee seems to have
seen in bestowing the prize. The good and glorious
things that the Committee has stated in its press
release just haven’t happened.
I believe that the issue is deeper than what meets
the eye. One way of interpreting this is that it is
a ‘deep strategy’ play. By awarding Obama the Peace
Prize, the Nobel Committee is attempting to force a
series of ex ante (before the event) actions on the
current US President. A Nobel Peace Prize winner
will find it very difficult to increase troop
concentration or drone air attacks in Afghanistan;
engage in cross border reprisals against the Taliban
in Pakistan; take a hard-line with Iran, North
Korea, or an increasingly resurgent Russia; take a
tough position in climate change negotiations; or be
a bad boy in major multilateral bodies. “Make him
Jesus, so that Jesus He will be.”
Another interpretation involves huge faith. Those
who proposed Obama’s name and the Nobel Peace
Committee truly believe that the 44th US President
of the US is a person who will do all the good and
glorious things for global peace and cooperation —
although one hasn’t seen much of it yet. Since the
belief is so overwhelming, why wait?
Whatever the reason, rational thought suggests that
selecting Obama the Nobel Peace Laureate for 2009
has been rash. It would have been far more sensible
to see how he actually administered his first term
before taking a decision. And if there was no other
candidate in the fray, the Committee need not have
announced a winner. After all, that has occurred 19
times since 1901 — so the 20th would have been no
great shakes.
Published: Business World, October 2009