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.