Nobel Peace Prize brings jubilation and resentment

Nobel Peace Prize brings jubilation and resentment

By Lela E. Madjiah

JAKARTA (JP): "War is the father of all things," said the
Greek philosopher Heracleitus.

Indeed, the history of mankind has been blazing with wars. In
modern times there have been more wars than peace to prove
Heracleitus' thesis.

In Promise And Peril In A New World, Robin Wright and Doyle
McManus write: "In terms of all aspects of warfare, the 20th
century has marked the bloodiest period in history. Just in its
second half, the Cold War era witnessed more than 125 wars and
almost 22 million deaths -- an average yearly basis five times
more than the 19th century and eight times more than the 18th.
And the 1980s marked one of the most violent in decades in the
Modern Age. In 1987, almost half a million people were killed in
27 separate wars worldwide, the highest total since 1700."

Sometimes people even choose war over peace. Indonesians, for
example, chose to fight the Dutch and then the Japanese to become
an independent nation rather than remaining under their rule and
relative peace.

Despite this gloomy reality, people of all nations have
continued to work for peace. And, although many have failed,
peace is still the ultimate dream of most, if not all, people.

It is for this purpose -- to uphold the dream and recognize
human efforts at creating and preserving peace -- that Alfred
Bernhard Nobel set up the Nobel Peace Prize as one of his five
prizes.

Nobel set up a fund and in his will he states that one part of
the interest on his fund should be apportioned "to the person who
shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between
the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies
and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

The question is, has the Nobel Peace Prize really contributed
to efforts to bring peace to this world?

Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan shared the 1976 prize for
promoting peace and non-violence in Northern Ireland. They led
demonstrations in which Protestants and Catholics walked together
to urge both conflicting parties to return to the old Christian
rule: Love thy neighbor. Although there has been progress in the
peace talks between Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams and the British
government, peace looks like a faraway dream for the people of
Northern Ireland.

PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat shared the prize in 1994 with
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister
Shimon Peres for their efforts to create peace in the Middle
East. But peace seems to elude the region, even today.

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama and religious and political
leader of the Tibetan people, was the 1989 winner of the prize
and Tibetans have yet to become a free people.

South African Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu was
convinced that the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Aung San Suu Kyi
of Myanmar in 1991 would help make international pressure on
Myanmar's ruling military a sure success.

"We know ultimately it's going to succeed," said Tutu, who won
the prize in 1984 for his fight against South Africa's apartheid
system.

Was Tutu too optimistic?

Suu Kyi, the eighth woman to receive the award, was unable to
receive the prize in person as she was detained by the military
in Myanmar. She was released from her six-year house detention in
July last year, and there have been high hopes that democracy
will finally arrive in Myanmar. Last Wednesday, however, Suu Kyi
was once again confined to her home by the military, although she
was allowed out on the following day.

History has shown that the Nobel Peace Prize has not always
been welcomed by everyone. In some cases, it has caused
controversies or worsened animosities between opposing parties.

This is because so much politics is involved. Virtually
nothing is left unpoliticized in today's world. The Nobel Peace
Prize, too, has not been without political meaning.

The 1935 prize awarded to German journalist and pacifist Carl
von Ossietzky, for example, was interpreted as an expression of
worldwide censure of Nazism. This prompted Hitler to issue a
decree prohibiting Germans from accepting any Nobel prize.

The political significance of the prize may be due to a shift
in the selection of recipients. In the past, it was often nothing
more than a recognition of one's achievements, but recently it
has been awarded to politicians or activists who have yet to make
accomplishments.

This change has often caused controversy. China, for example,
was furious when the committee gave the award to the Dalai Lama.
China denounced the award as interference in its internal
affairs.

Committee chairman Egil Aarvik said that although the award
for the Dalai Lama was not designed as a reprimand of Beijing for
either its destructive occupation of Tibet or the Tiananmen
Square massacre, "we are aware that the Nobel awards often have
such effects."

Aarvik added: "If I were a Chinese student leader now, I would
say that the committee has done the right thing."

Another controversy relates to the backgrounds of some of the
winners. Many, for example, could not accept the fact that Henry
Kissinger shared the prize with Le Duc Tho. Didn't Kissinger have
a key role in the bombing of enemy forces in Vietnam and help
engineer U.S. bombings of Cambodia from 1969 to 1970?

The 1992 prize that went to Rigoberta Menchu Tum of Guatemala
also plunged the Norwegian Nobel Committee into another
controversy.

Previously, the Nobel Peace prize has been awarded only to
champions of human rights who used non-violent methods like Aung
San Suu Kyi. Critics charged that Menchu had taken part in
violent Guatemalan guerrilla actions against the government.
The committee, however, defended its decision, saying that Menchu
did not turn to violence but to political and social work for her
people.

Francis Sejersted, the head of the committee, said Menchu's
award might be controversial in Guatemala, where the military
views Menchu as allied to guerrillas.

"...but it will have positive effects on human rights in
Guatemala and around the world," Sejersted maintained.

Menchu herself said: "If I had chosen the armed struggle, I
would be in the mountains now."

The latest controversy stems from the committee's decision to
give the 1996 prize to East Timor's self-exiled pro-independence
leader Jose Ramos Horta and East Timor Bishop Carlos Ximenes
Filipe Belo.

The Indonesian government reacted strongly to Horta's prize,
saying they could accept the committee's selection of Bishop Belo
but not that of Horta.

The latest case adds proof to the fact that the Nobel Peace
Prize is a double-edge sword. It brings both jubilation and
resentment. Jubilation to the recipients and those they
represent, and resentment to those who feel they are being
reprimanded.

The Nobel Peace Prize does not always bring immediate peace.
On the contrary, it often shatters the peace of mind of both
governments and individuals who become the indirect target of the
Norwegian Nobel Peace Committee's rebuke and secretive work.

Despite its failure to bring ultimate peace to many feuding
parties, the peace prize helps remind the world of humanity's
greatest challenge: To bring peace to this world and to maintain
it for the sake of all.