This year's political statement is not hard to discern. As tensions escalated on the India-Pakistan border, exciting fears of two nuclear armed neighbours who might become trigger-happy with nukes, it was the perfect time for the Nobel committee to send a political signal through two non-political entities.
The politics of the Nobel Peace Prize have been described as tragic, outrageous and sometimes cringe-worthy.
Kailash Satyarthi's Nobel Prize is a cause for national celebration in India, even if many Indians had to Google him on Friday to appreciate the battle he has fought for child rights. There was a time when many in India were scathing of Satyarthi's work, particularly his 'Rugmark' which was opposed by carpet weaver organizations as a "western" conspiracy to render their work uncompetitive. But today, as Satyarthi becomes the toast of the nation and the world, its unconditional applause for the nation's latest celebrity.
But Malala Yousufzai, who received her much deserved Nobel exactly two years after she was shot in the head by the Taliban while travelling to school, will be the second Nobel laureate from Pakistan who will be forced to make her home outside her own country. The first, Abdus Salam, was one of the finest minds in theoretical physics. In 1979, he became the first Pakistani and so far the only Muslim scientist to win the Nobel Prize. But he was shunned in his native Pakistan, and settled in Trieste in Italy. He was an Ahmadi, and therefore not acknowledged as a Muslim in Pakistan.
In 2010, the Norwegian lawmakers who decide the world's most important awards gave the Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese dissident and political prisoner Lu Xiaobo. An enraged Chinese government snapped political and economic ties with Norway. Norway could only claw back into favour in 2014, when the government refused to meet the Dalai Lama who was visiting the country.
In fact, 2014 is the 25th anniversary of the Nobel Prize to the Dalai Lama himself, also regarded as a dangerous "splittist" by China.
In 1994, the Nobel committee risked popular outrage to give the Nobel to Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres for the Oslo accords. Not only was Rabin assassinated a year later, two decades after, peace is yet to descend on the Middle East.
In 1973, Henry Kissinger won the award with North Vietnamese leader Le Duc Tho (who refused the award). Easily one of the most controversial, the award became meaningless when, two years later, North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam. No peace had been achieved.
The world did a collective jaw-drop in 2009 when Barack Obama won the prize -- primarily for not being George Bush. In subsequent years, Obama expanded the drone campaign, bombed Libya and has had to return to Iraq to fight another war against ISIS.
http://ift.tt/1vH7pqd Peace Prize,Malala Yousafzai,Kailash Satyarthi
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Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1qBTnhe
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