Tag Archives: nobel peace prize

On the left, President Barack Obama (USA). On the right, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg (Norway). One of these is the most influential man in the world.

The recent uproar over this year’s Nobel Peace Prize has prompted yours truly to look more deeply into the matter. The criteria for the Prize are:

“The capital shall be invested by my executors in safe securities and shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: … one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

Alfred Nobel’s will (emphasis added).

The prize physically consists of a nice gold medal, and approximately $1.5 million dollars in cash. It is officially awarded on the 10th December each year (the anniversary of Nobel’s death), but the deadline for nominations to be received is several months earlier – in fact it is February 1st each year. Now, here is the funny thing: Barack Obama only became President of the United States on January 20th 2009 (or if you want to be pedantic and say he got the words wrong when he took the inauguration oath the first time, January 21st 2009). Furthermore, Alfred Nobel’s will specifically says it must only be awarded for work done in the preceding year, not for the results Obama is expected to achieve in the future. You see what this means?

Barack Obama is being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for doing just 11 days “work.”

This is the equivalent of being paid approximately $140,000 per day for not doing anything. It was at this point in my researches that if I had had sufficient taste in music, I would have started hearing Billie Holiday singing “Nice work if you can get it.” I am glad to say that I am cultured enough not to have started singing “Money For Nothing” by Dire Straits. Instead, all I heard was a lot of cash-registers going “Kerching!”

Now, call me cynical, but if some secretive organization pays a high-ranking politician $1.5 million on the flimsiest of pretences, that is technically known as a bribe. The Nobel Prize Committee is quite shamelessly trying to influence President Obama’s future policy direction by paying him loads of money, and what is more, they are being quite blatant about it. Had this been someone like the Bilderberg Organisation doling out the wonga everyone would be shouting “New World Order!” But because the Nobel Prize has the sheen of respectability (the omission of Mahatma Gandhi notwithstanding), they seem to get away from the taint of accusations of conspiracy.

So who are these members of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee? Alfred Nobel’s will goes on to specify that they are five people appointed by the “Storting” i.e. the Norwegian Parliament. The Storting is currently dominated by the so-called “Red-Green Coalition” (which maintained its grip on power after this year’s general election), which is a grouping of three left-wing and left-of-centre parties: the Socialist Labour Party, the Labour Party (the largest group in the three), and the Centre Party. The leader of the coalition and thus the Prime Minister is Jens Stoltenberg, the head of the Labour Party, who was also the incumbent before the recent election.

Now, call me cynical in Norwegian, but it seems to me that if the Storting appoints the committee which decides the Nobel Peace Prize, then its composition cannot fail to reflect the influence of Jens Stoltenberg’s government. And, what do you know? The recipients in recent years are people who have generally held views coinciding with Stoltenberg’s brand of centre-left politics. Had this year’s recipient been someone who had actually done stuff in the past year, it could justifiably have been argued that this simply reflects the fact that the majority of Norwegians are naturally inclined to that view of international relations. However, the fact that this year the Nobel Peace Prize has spectacularly come a cropper suggests that other considerations are at work, e.g. the Nobel Peace Prize committee is cynically trying to influence the direction of US policy, or that Stoltenberg is pathetically trying to curry favour with the new US President.

Hence, I therefore say to the people of the World generally, Norway specifically, and Prime Minister Stoltenberg in particular:

• I, Alex Sumner, hereby fully commit myself to the cause of World Peace.
• I have not actually done anything in particular for world peace, but as events have shown, this is not necessarily a bar to consideration and, what is more,
• My rates for not doing anything are considerably cheaper than President Obama’s. I am prepared to go as low as accepting $100,000 a day, and will limit my “working” days to no more than the last guy’s.
• I really appreciate the Christmas Tree you guys in Norway send us every year. Honestly, Trafalgar Square just would not look the same without it.
• I will of course continue to work for World Peace at least as hard as President Obama has done after receiving the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize; and lastly and most importantly
• JEG ELSKER NORGE! 🙂

The opinions expressed in this article are complete bullshit, but hey! If I am going to monetize my blog, I have got to find some way to attract traffic to it.