The committee granting the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize had obviously a difficult choice to make. Its sights may have been set on climate activist Greta Thunberg for berating heads of states in a bid to avert the ecological Armageddon, political (Russian or Belorussian) dissidents Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and Alexei Navalny (Julian Assange need not apply), The World Health Organization for courageously combating the WORLD WIDE MENACE, the Black Lives Matter movement for opposing ubiquitous racism, President Joe Biden for putting an end to the nightmarish Trump era and many others in the similar vein. I believe you get the picture of possible contenders. The choice was made and the prize was awarded to a Filipino and a Russian journalist: Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of many years’ standing of “Novaya Gazeta.”
Why Dmitry Muratov of all the people? “Novaya Gazeta” since its inception in 1993 has been engaged in issues that the post-West absolutely adores: keeping watch over human rights and the abuse of power in – yes, yes, you guessed it right! – Russia. The paper developed as an offshoot from “Komsomolskaya Pravda” with some fifty journalists as its founders. Mikhail Gorbachev contributed with some of the money from his 1990 Nobel Peace Prize to help it get started and with a 10% share he remains its co-owner to this day. A number of “Novaya Gazeta” reporters or commentators are said to have been murdered or assaulted because of their investigative journalism. Isn’t it one more argument to draw the world’s attention to the paper by decorating its founding father?
Julian Assange has been tossed from prison to prison and is currently awaiting another court ruling that will decide whether he will be delivered to the United States, where a long term prison if not death are in store for him. His journalism has not found recognition, his suffering has not been appreciated, his courage to unmask the inhuman machinations of the United States has not been praised. Why?
Prizes – like the media, the entertainment industry, education – are all in the hands of the powers that be. Prizes are used as weapons. When in 1980 the Solidarity Movement in Poland broke out, Czesław Miłosz, an obscure Polish poet and an émigré to the United States, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature; a few years later when the Polish government cracked down on the Solidarity Movement, it was the movement’s leader – Lech Wałęsa – who was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Of the five Soviet (Russian) recipients of the Nobel Prize for Literature three – Ivan Bunin, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Joseph Brodsky – were émigrés. What a sheer chance! Barack Hussein Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for… yes, who can tell for what? Perhaps for the complexion of his skin. The first black US president merits a Nobel Prize, just like Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan, who received the Peace Prize at the age of … SEVENTEEN for running a blog and being wounded by her political opponents. Do you still remember one Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan, who was awarded a Nobel Prize for… well, for planting trees? You don’t? It wasn’t long ago… Al Gore was also a recipient, probably for the dramatic footage of polar bears struggling for balance on melting ice packs; and don’t forget about the European Union: another recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize “for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe”. Did the men and women in charge of awarding the Prize take into consideration the EU’s ignoble participation in the war in Yugoslavia, the incessant importation of Third World people – a sure trigger of future civil wars that will rend the continent asunder – or the support the EU gives to Ukrainian nationalists, a support otherwise denied French, German or Hungarian patriots? You can bet they did not.
With all the contenders being confidential, do you think you will be surprised by the selection of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize recipient? I for one, won’t.
