The peace prize is for peace1
The Chinese government is correct, Liu Xiaobo did not meet the criteria to win
the Nobel Peace Prize -- but, as usual, its heavy-handed methods obscure real
progress for Chinese citizens
By Ramesh Thakur, Citizen Special, December 23, 2010
An image of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo is projected on a hotel in the centre of Oslo
following the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo December 10, 2010.
Photograph by: Toby Melville, REUTERS
Of all the annual Nobel awards, the Peace Prize is the only one to be
chosen by Norwegians; all others are chosen by Swedish jurors.
Alfred Nobel directed in his will that the Peace Prize should be
awarded to the person who "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."
This seems clear enough. Yet over the last decade, only four laureates
would appear to satisfy the specified criteria: the United Nations and
former secretary-general Kofi Annan (2001), former U.S. president
Jimmy Carter (2002), the International Atomic Energy Agency and its
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director-general Mohamed ElBaradei (2005), and former Finnish
president Martti Ahtisaari (2008). Other laureates in this period were
recognized, not for any one of the three categories listed by Nobel, but
for promoting democracy and human rights, advancing economic and
social opportunities for the poor, and contributions to protecting the
environment.
Thus, at least in the past decade, the prize being awarded as intended
by its founder has been the exception rather than the norm. If we go
farther back in time, the most scandalous all-time omission from the
list is Mahatma Gandhi. Others who generated intense and lasting
controversy include Henry Kissinger (1973), Menachem Begin
(1978), F.W. de Klerk (1993), Yasser Arafat (1994), and Barack
Obama (2010).
I
t is hard to dispute that the choice of several laureates was a gross
distortion of the terms of the prestigious prize. Promoting
environmental consciousness and financially empowering the poor
and needy of Bangladesh are worthy endeavours eminently deserving
recognition and reward. But it is less clear that they merit the award of
the world's most prestigious peace prize. The same comments apply to
other critically important goals like promoting democracy and human
rights. This year's winner, Liu Xiaobo, deserves admiration for his
convictions and the courage to act on them at great personal cost.
China made a tactical error in the manner and stridency of its
opposition to Liu winning this year's prize. Its hamfisted effort to
browbeat and bully not just Norway, but several countries into not
attending the prize ceremony, proved predictably counterproductive.
If a country, like a man or woman, is known by the company it keeps,
then the list of 16 countries that boycotted the glittering ceremony
does not flatter China's global reputation. To many, Beijing's over-thetop reaction merely proved that China is authoritarian and so insecure
as to be frightened of a foreign prize given to one man who peacefully
advocates civil, political and democratic rights. Labelling Liu a
criminal does not make him into a criminal but it does bring the
system of criminal justice in China into disrepute.
It was a costly and avoidable tactical error. Instead, China should have
permitted Liu to receive his prize and instructed its own ambassador
to attend. In addition, it could have politely but firmly communicated
five key messages.
First, it could have drawn attention to the terms of Nobel's will for
deciding on the award every year, and asked which criterion exactly
did Liu meet to merit the prize?
Second, it could have drawn attention to the history of the committee
getting it wrong, even to the point of choosing well-known
warmongers. This could have been further underlined by highlighting
the absurdity of awarding it last year to Obama: giving prizes for
aspirations and enthusiasm belongs in primary schools.
Third, Beijing could have highlighted the breathtaking hypocrisy of
the prize ceremony occurring while WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange was held in prison in London on dubious charges that were
remarkably convenient in their timing. Sweden has managed to bring
its own system of jurisprudence into disrepute and simultaneously
discredit the institution of European Arrest Warrants. When a Danish
cartoonist insulted the Prophet Mohammad, the Muslims were told
sanctimoniously that press freedom in the West trumped all other
considerations. Apparently press freedoms of some are more equal
than others. Instead of accountability on the part of those who
perpetrated and sanctioned illegal and criminal acts, Western
governments are more interested in persecuting the person and
organization that bring the lies and deception to public light.
Fourth, if Professor Muhammad Yunus is a deserving recipient, then
on those criteria of "advancing economic and social opportunities for
the poor, especially women," the government of the People's Republic
of China is the most worthy recipient of all of the Nobel Peace Prize.
The communist regime has overseen the biggest eradication of
poverty in human history and is responsible for hundreds of millions
of Chinese being uplifted from extreme and abject poverty into a
semblance of life with dignity. This may not be of any solace or
comfort to the many Chinese who are politically aware and active,
have incurred the wrath of the state in consequence and been harassed
and incarcerated. But, for the majority who are apolitical, life in China
today is infinitely better than their ancestors could have imagined in
1949, when the communist regime was established.
Finally, a similar argument can be constructed with regards to the
importance of stability of government for the peace and safety of
citizens. What most Chinese are intensely conscious of is how periods
of political volatility and disorder in the imperial capital translate into
instability, lawlessness and violence for ordinary people in the cities
and villages of the kingdom. Strong rule does not guarantee good
governance. But Chinese history is replete with examples of weak and
ineffectual rulers guaranteeing violence, upheaval and threats to
personal safety.
Of course, the jury that decides on the prize is made up entirely and
solely of Norwegians. By definition, human rights are universal, not
European or Asian: they are rights we all hold as human beings, from
the very fact of being human beings. But they still have to be
translated into concrete laws, institutions, practices and safeguards in
specific contexts. And they are an empty abstraction to the literally
starving. The threats of human insecurity that hundreds of millions of
Chinese have experienced, and from which they have been mostly
rescued by the communist regime since 1949 -- or more accurately,
since 1978 -- is not written into the DNA of Norwegians and
Europeans as it is into the DNA of most Chinese.
If the award of the Nobel Peace Prize is to be limited to promoting
peace, demilitarization and disarmament, Liu was not a good choice.
If a broader remit is justified, then, on the scale of human misery and
its alleviation in the grand sweep of history, instead of being the
object of censure, is not the government of China a more worthy
recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize than any individual Chinese?
Former UN assistant secretary-general Ramesh Thakur is a professor
of political science at the University of Waterloo.
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