The Nobel Peace Prize: Most Controversial Nobel Prize?

From the 1935 awarding of Carl von Ossietzky to the 2010 awarding of Liu Xiaobo, does the Nobel Peace Prize truly deserve being described as the most controversial of the six Nobel Prizes ever?


By: Ringo Bones


Once upon a time, the Nobel Peace prize was used to be awarded to anyone who had done the most or the best work for fostering fraternity among nations, for the abolition of standing armies, and for holding and promotion of peace congresses. Unfortunately, the relentless march of history and dynamically evolving geopolitical events had forever redefined – over the years – what used to pass as the textbook definition of peace.

What used to be defined as the absence of war and/or conflict, peace is now often defined as the absence of extreme disparity of food and wealth distribution and the ensuing conflict thereof. Which means anyone trying to eliminate extreme poverty, hunger, and even as of late – climate change / global warming – can now be eligible to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. But is there any reason why the Nobel Peace Prize has to be so controversial?

For most of the 20th Century, those that had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that fulfils the criteria of conflict mitigation had often been the thorn of the side of a great dictator or some uncompromising powers-that-be hell bent on maintaining the status quo. From my point of view the top 3 most controversial Nobel Peace Prize laureates are Carl von Ossietzky, incumbent US President Barack Obama, and the 2010 Nobel Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo.

As of late, I’ve started to view the German journalist and pacifist Carl von Ossietzky as the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of his time due to his whistle-blowing revealing that the Nazi government under the chancellorship of Adolf Hitler had been secretly violating the Treaty of Versailles under the nose of the international community. Even the now unified Germany – at least the official German government stance - still treats Carl von Ossietzky as a traitor.

While the 2009 awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the then newly-elected US President Barack Obama was widely seen by his detractors as premature given that he only offered a proposal to reduce the number of nuclear weapons around the world close to zero and has only done tentative steps to initiate a plan that has been mired in global bureaucracy since the 1970s. Even though president Obama probably deserves the Nobel Prize just for not kicking the asses of Republicans blocking his plans to better the American society at large, or maybe the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Norway probably got sick and tired of not issuing Nobel Peace Prizes on some years during the 20th Century whenever they can’t find a worthy recipient.

And as of late, many – probably those who believe that the September 11, 2001 terror attacks are nothing more than a Zionist plot - had considered the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Mainland Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo as nothing more than proof of the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency’s stranglehold on the Norwegian Nobel peace Prize Committee, which from my point of view, probably as ridiculous as that Moon Landing Hoax story. Some even considered the awarding of Liu Xiaobo the Nobel Peace Prize a “clerical error” since his actions will only foster peace in the Chinese Mainland and not a group of nations. Well, given that Alfred Nobel probably started this Nobel Prize business – especially the Nobel Peace Prize – as a way to pay his guilty conscience to go away after inventing a way to make nitro-glycerine stable enough for everyday use, doesn’t this make the whole Nobel Peace Prize business a controversy in itself?