This from the Raw Story:

“Yet in the peace-giving west, the award remains significantly venerated – a testament, surely, to being a dynamite idea in principle (if you’ll forgive the cliched reference to Alfred Nobel’s other gift to the world) but a mostly damp squib in practice. Understandably, it is less revered in the sort of countries to which peace tends to be done.
As for Malala, shot not in the line of duty, but in the line of living her 15-year-old life – that ordeal and the thing of wonder she has turned it into were perhaps a little too peace-prizey to win the peace prize. It’s not the most enormous surprise. Thanks in large part to the committee making it so, the honour has long been seen as so political that damp-squibbery seems to be increasingly what is regarded as expedient. Perhaps the committee’s admiration for Malala was tempered by fretting that giving her the prize could see non-peaceful protests in Pakistan. Add to that its pretensions to nation-building and the rather woolly hope that this will persuade the likes of South Sudan and North Korea to sign up to the chemical weapons treaty, and the OPCW was a shoo-in.”
Yes, apparently the brave actions of Ms.Yousafzai are indeed just a little too “peace-prizey”. Although, as the rest of the article mentions, being in the company of the Nobel’s Prize’s alumni isn’t that great in the first place.




5 comments
October 14, 2013 at 7:18 am
john zande
Can’t get the politics out of it. I thought Obama could have scored some serious points in 2009 if he’d declined the prize. It was a slap in the face to Bush and just publicly awarding it to Obama accomplished that goal.
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October 14, 2013 at 7:45 am
Moe
@John – I agree. The Nobel Committee did Obama no favor. And yup, he got it because he wasn’t Bush. A lot of our neighbors on this planet were pretty glad to see Bush gone :lol:
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October 14, 2013 at 7:46 am
The Arbourist
@JZ
The selection committee, in theory, are educated people. I’m not sure how they justified giving the NPP to Obama, given the record of the US and its presidents. I find it hard to believe they are really that blinkered.
The political angle you mention is probable and the NPP committee probably has its fair share of courtesans thus rolling over to power must be an extremely comfy maneuver by now.
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October 14, 2013 at 7:49 am
The Arbourist
@Moe
I think it is kinda of unfortunate that the world rejoiced for finding a dude better than GWB. That doesn’t seem to be a very high bar to pass over. :/
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October 14, 2013 at 8:13 am
john zande
Aren’t they just ordinary, albeit distinguished, folk who serve an allotted time on the board? I could be wrong. Never really looked into it. My heads still spinning after researching the Templeton Prize (for oogity-boogity) which Sir John insisted must always award more money than the Nobel.
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