Nobel Prize session is
reaching its climax with the much awaited annual event of the announcement of
the Nobel Peace Prize announcement tomorrow.
Though there is buzz around
every category of Nobel Prize and it builds up to the global outreach level
with the Prize announcement season kicking off but with the Nobel Peace Prize,
the visibility of ‘who and why’ discourse on the possible Nobel Peace Prize
recipient witnesses a manifold jump.
It is recognition to the
importance of the Nobel Peace Prize in the hallowed Nobel Prize league.
Another recognition to the
global significance of the Nobel Peace Prize is the regular controversy on the ‘who
and why’ discourse on who got it.
Many Peace Nobel decisions
have been geopolitically sensitive (positively) and so have been controversial for
they endorse the work of activists and organizations in world’s most oppressive
regimes, some of them being large and powerful nations.
China’s displeasure and
efforts to thwart the Nobel Peace Prize to Dalai Lama or Liu Xiaobo or Iran’s critical
stand on Peace Nobel to Shirin Ebadi are some of many such instances.
On part of the Norwegian
Nobel Committee, last few years have seen balanced decisions except in 2009
when Barack Obama, an African American, was announced the recipient for raising
hopes with his ascension as the President of the world’s most powerful nation. Four
years on, the decision still remains in the grey area of debates.
Let’s see who wins the
Peace Nobel this year. Like always, there have been analyses and discourses.
One name that figures in every
discourse is Malala Yousafzai. But choosing her now may become a decision like
2009.
Malala, 16, is an education
activist who rose to the global prominence after Taliban militants shot her in
Pakistan for defying the dictat to ban schooling for girls. Like Obama, her ascension
to the global stage raises hopes. She has become a forceful symbolism.
But any decision to decide on
her should come after some significant body of work behind this symbolism, a
must to build on the prospect of the Malala symbolism.
Then there are other names
like Denis Mukwege, a doctor from the Democratic Republic of Congo for his
humanitarian work in a hostile environment of a civil-war torn nation;
Memorial, the Russian rights groups, a regular contender in last few years, and
the Russian activists; Guatemala’s first female attorney Claudia Paz y Paz for
her work against organized crime and political corruption; and Edward Snowden,
the NSA whistleblower in the list of 259 nominees of this year.
My pick would be the
Russian activists because they have been a constant voice of protest against an
increasingly dominating and ruthless Vladimir Putin, indisputably the world’s
most powerful dictator capable enough to affect and subvert decisions to let the
humanity remain suppressed and crushed like he is doing by helping the Assad
government in Syria, like he is doing by incarcerating the voices of dissent in
Russia. And he is doing this all in the name of democracy.
He is to be denounced at
every possible platform and a Peace Nobel decision to the Russian activists
would be a fitting symbolic reply to the democratically elected dictator. It
may not affect Mr. Putin in real terms but it will certainly encourage the
voices of dissent to build on their work.
But, let’s wait till
tomorrow to deliberate on the ‘who and why’ discourse of the Norwegian Nobel
Committee decision on the Nobel Peace Prize 2013.
Let’s see who is going to
be the next Peace Nobel Laureate.