The question is often asked: how political is the Nobel Peace Prize?

I view it as an inherently political award, and I think Alfred Nobel intended it that way. That’s why he left it to the Norwegian parliament to elect the committee that picks the winners each year.

Given that the laureates are chosen by current and former politicians, it stands to reason that it would be a political prize. But if your politics are motivated by a yearning for peace, freedom, democracy, human rights, and the empowerment of women, is that a bad thing?

Here I discuss that question with Larisa Epatko of the PBS Newshour: Is the Nobel Peace Prize Overtly Political?

Wangari Maathai, the environmental and political activist from Kenya, passed away on Sunday. She was one of the most memorable figures I’ve covered as a journalist, a woman of extraordinary courage and dignity. She was also possessed of a disarming humility, a wonderful sense of humor, and a rare luminosity of spirit.

Wangari won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 chiefly for her environmental work in Kenya. In 1977, she started the Green Belt Movement, a grassroots tree-planting campaign aimed at combating soil erosion and deforestation while also providing fuel for cooking in rural villages where women were often forced to walk miles in search of firewood. To date, the Green Belt Movement has planted over thirty million trees, provided work for tens of thousands of women, and seen its efforts replicated in countries across Africa.

For Wangari, planting trees wasn’t only about protecting the environment. It was a way to promote democracy, empower women, and safeguard human rights in Africa. As she saw it, there was a direct connection between the depletion of natural resources and the failures of Kenya’s authoritarian government. In fact, she had taken on Kenya’s ruling party and its autocratic president, Daniel arap Moi, on numerous occasions during the 1980s and 90s. Though she was vilified by the government, arrested more than a dozen times, and even beaten by police, her methods were surprisingly effective.

The Nobel Peace Prize for Wangari Maathai was the first ever to an environmental activist and still the only award to an African woman in the prize’s 111-year history. She accepted it at an unusually festive award ceremony that included African drumming and performances by a Kenyan dance troupe. Over 1,000 guests filled the auditorium of Oslo City Hall, including a large delegation of Africans, many of them cheering, whistling and waving small hand flags — a welcome departure from what tends to be an overly solemn and formal award ceremony.

Dressed in a bright orange gown with a matching headband, Wangari was radiant that December afternoon. She said she was humbled and uplifted by the award and accepted it “on behalf of the people of Kenya and Africa.” In her acceptance speech, she looked back on her work over the course of three decades. The Green Belt Movement, together with other civil society organizations and the Kenyan people as a whole, had much to be proud of, she said — most notably, the peaceful transition to democratic government in 2002. Yet there were still a host of critical challenges.

She concluded her speech with words that are still vivid in my memory. “In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fears and give hope to each other.” That time, she said, is now.

Wangari's inscription in my copy of her memoir 'Unbowed'

When the story appeared a few days later I was quoted in it, saying that if Assange were to get the prize, it wouldn’t be the first time a whistleblower has been honored. Even so, I said, “the notion that his actions have in some way promoted ‘fraternity among nations’ (to invoke the famous line in Alfred Nobel’s will) would be far-fetched, if not altogether inaccurate. It might be truer to say that he has undermined that fraternity by creating a culture of anxiety and suspicion in international affairs, especially between countries in volatile regions like the Middle East.”

The story appeared in a few places here and there. (See “Nobel Peace Prize nomination for WikiLeaks founder?”) But then, some days later, news broke that Snorre Valen, a young member of the Norwegian parliament, had officially nominated Assange for the 2011 award. Suddenly news outlets the world over jumped on the story, saying that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks were now officially in the running for the world’s most prestigious prize.

My line in the AFP story about WikiLeaks “undermining” fraternity among nations by causing widespread anxiety and suspicion got picked up and cited near and far. I must confess that it was more than a little strange to find my name in newspapers like the Financial Times and journals like Foreign Policy appearing to come out against Julian Assange, someone I happen to respect and admire.

What was perhaps most unsettling was how quickly WikiLeaks supporters tracked me down and unleashed verbal assaults via e-mail. I was taken to task for being in favor of censorship and state secrets, for failing to support freedom of information, and for being on the side of those who wish to attack and silence Julian Assange. Of course, none of those things are true, but never mind. It seems you can’t be too careful about what you say in the press or online, because not only is it on the record for the rest of time, but people may quote it whenever they wish, in or out of context.

Last year, I placed my bet on several Chinese dissidents I felt deserved the prize, most notably the jailed pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobo. Hu Jia, Sun Wenguang, Chen Guangcheng, and Gao Zhisheng also struck me as worthy candidates. 2009 was a fitting year for such a prize, I felt, since it was the 50th anniversary of the completion of China’s occupation of Tibet and the 20th anniversary of the massacre at Tiananmen Square. Besides, the peace prize had never yet been given to someone from China.

This year, I again feel that those risking their life for the cause of greater human rights in China are eminently deserving of the award. And in fact, several high-profile individuals, including former Czech president Vaclav Havel, have stepped forward in support of Liu Xiaobo recently.

It would make for a risky choice on the part of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, as China has made it clear that such a move on the Nobel Committee’s part would seriously damage relations between Beijing and Oslo. But, as we know, the committee has not shied away from that kind of controversy in the past.

But such a prize would seem, at least to me, less timely this year. There are also other worthy candidates. The committee will pick from a record 237 nominees (199 individuals and 38 organizations). The names on the list are a well-kept secret, but nominators sometimes make a point of going public with their recommendations.

We know that this year’s nominees include Svetlana Gannushkina and Memorial, a prominent rights group she works with in Russia. The list also includes former Illinois Governor George Ryan, Brazilian human rights champion Abdias Nascimento, Guyana’s president Bharrat Jagdeo, Father Roy Bourgeois and School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch), and Canada’s David Matas and David Kilgour, a lawyer and former MP who have campaigned for the Falun Gong and called attention to human rights abuses in China.

In addition, the Internet and Esperanto have both been nominated this year. Needless to say, it would be a long-shot if either of them were to win the award, even if it were possible — and I’m not sure it is — to make a reasonable case for why they deserve it.

Thorbjørn Jagland, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, went on record last month saying that the 2010 prize promises to be an “exciting” one, and another “surprise choice.” He also said that the committee tends to think a little differently than many Nobel experts and journalists.

It’s partly for this reason that I believe the winner of this year’s award will be someone few people will have heard of. It may be a person working for peace in some unconventional way — a peace researcher such as Gene Sharp or Paul Collier, for example, or an investigative journalist like Malahat Nasibova.

Geir Lundestad, the secretary of the committee and director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, has said for years that peacemaking takes many forms and that the traditional categories need to be expanded, and I agree with that. In the early days, the peace prize went primarily to statesmen, mediators, international lawyers, and leaders of the organized peace movement. The Nobel Committee’s selection criteria have broadened over the years to include great humanitarians and human rights activitists.

But there are other types of efforts that also bear directly on the question of international peace and freedom — as we saw in 2004 and 2007 when the prize went to champions of environmental sustainability, and in 2006 when it was given to a “banker to the poor.”

I think — and I hope — that we’ll see the definition for what constitutes important peace work expanded still further in 2010.

SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING BUSH MIGHT HAVE SAID

The American journalist Scott London was disappointed with Obama’s acceptance speech

By Amund Aune Nilsen

American commentators described President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech earlier today as contemplative and philosophical, Norwegian political leaders said it lacked vision but was grounded and pragmatic, while other opinion leaders here in Norway reacted favorably to the address.

But not everyone responded with the same enthusiasm.

“I’m disappointed,” American journalist Scott London told NRK. London is best known for his work on American public radio and has attended numerous Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies since 2001, as both journalist and invited guest.

“Obama is a great orator,” London said, “and he tends to use his speeches to raise difficult questions, to muster courage, to suggest possibilities. At their best, they challenge our assumptions while at the same time moving and inspiring us.”

London cited Obama’s speeches in Cairo and Prague as examples.

“But that’s not what we got today. Much of today’s speech was given to explaining, perhaps even justifying, why war is sometimes necessary.”

“Why would he do that on the occasion of winning the Nobel Peace Prize? Why would he offer such a sober defense of war? What would bring him to say ‘make no mistake: evil does exist in the world’ — a statement that sounds like something George Bush might have said?”

According to London, the answer is that the lecture was calculated to address Obama’s critics, to lower the public’s expectations, and to assure people that’s he’s a realist — not, like many laureates before him, a mere idealist.

The speech “will help to dispel some of the criticism he’s been getting at home in recent months,” London said. “But it will also disppoint some of his supporters.”

He went on to say that Obama has managed to make the most of his visit to Oslo, in part by avoiding the usual news conferences and public appearances. Obama did not meet the press prior to the award ceremony and has only fielded a couple of questions from journalists while in Oslo, following his meeting with prime minister Jens Stoltenberg.

“Briefings with the media are time-consuming and potentially risky,” London said, “since they allow the questions being asked, rather than the answers given in response, to frame the story.”

“By not giving any interviews, he’s using his Nobel lecture, not comments made to the press, to create the headlines,” he added. “With little else to report on, most news organizations will focus on the content of the speech instead.”

London referred to a news story by the Associated Press’s Ben Feller. Obama decided to stay in Oslo for only about 24 hours and skip the traditional second day of festivities, the article said. “This miffed some in Norway but reflects a White House that sees little value in extra pictures of the president, his poll numbers dropping at home, taking an overseas victory lap while thousands of U.S. troops prepare to go off to war and millions of Americans remain jobless.”

When asked about Norwegians’ handling of the event and whether they have been too uncritical and naive in connection with the award ceremony, London said he had not found that to be true.

His only comment was that the award ceremony was still unnecessarily formal, in spite of the committee’s efforts to bring a little showbiz to the proceedings in recent years. “It’s still embarrassingly stiff and formal,” said the journalist, “and having President Obama here makes that especially obvious.”

Read the article in the original Norwegian: Høres ut som noe Bush kunne ha sagt

I was also interviewed for some other recent stories:

• Nobel Peace Prize Celebrates Power of Committed Individuals
• Survey: Obama Will Make the World More Secure
• Obama Nobel Prize Win ‘Premature’
• Obama Fortjener Ikke Fredsprisen

It’s been a big week here, juggling a thousand projects and, in the midst of it all, getting swept up in the media whirlwind surrounding the announcement of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama. Like many people I was stunned by the news. I certainly agree with the Norwegian Nobel Committee that no one has done more “to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” as the citation put it, and that thanks to President Obama the United States is now playing a more constructive role on a wide range of global fronts, from democracy and human rights to climate change and the reduction of nuclear weapons.

But prizes awarded to statesmen always present certain challenges. There have been about about three dozen such prizes, by my count. The most significant problem is that political leaders who win the prize are being awarded for work they were appointed or elected to do. If the fundamental task of a political leader is to keep the peace, as it were, then they hardly deserve a prize for that.

In his will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the prize should go to individuals who have won some victory for peace during the preceding year. But in the case of statesmen this rules out a longer term perspective, to say nothing of a deeper analysis of documents and other evidence about the underlying motives behind their efforts to solve conflicts and promote peace.

Few of the prizes awarded to statesmen have stood the test of time, in my view. Even the two awards to sitting US presidents (Roosevelt in 1906 and Wilson in 1919) were controversial. Roosevelt was hardly a man of peace, as we know, though he did manage to help bring the Russo-Japanese war to an end. And Wilson’s great achievement, the League of Nations, failed to accomplish what it was supposed to.

That said, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has taken an increasingly broad view of peace in the 21st century, defining it not in the narrow terms Nobel laid out in his will, but as a broad mission that must include work for human rights, environmental sustainability, international tolerance, economic justice, mutual understanding between peoples, and a range of other pressing challenges. From that broader perspective, the prize to Obama certainly makes sense and might yet serve its intended purpose.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has taken a gamble by giving the prize to Obama. It may weigh heavily on him now, especially at home. But in time we make look back on it as one of the best and most obvious of prizes, much as we now look upon the awards to Martin Luther King Jr., Dag Hammarskjöld, Nelson Mandela, and other great figures who were not only exemplary leaders but also champions of human rights, human freedom and human dignity.

For more of my thoughts on the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, check out the links below. I was interviewed for several newspaper stories and also appeared on a number of radio and television programs. I’ll be adding to the list in coming days as the clips are posted online.

• Wall Street Journal: An Award Often Tinged by Politics by Michael M. Phillips and Guy Chazan
• Toronto Star: Nobel Peace Prize Coveted, But Oh So Controversial by Olivia Ward
• Christian Science Monitor: With Elinor Ostrom, Oliver Williamson, US Nearly Sweeps Nobels by Mark Sappenfield
• NewsHour with Jim Lehrer: Examining the Road to Becoming a Nobel Laureate by Jeffrey Brown
• WYPR Public Radio: President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize from Midday with Dan Rodricks

The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in Oslo on October 9. In recent weeks, there has been a lot of speculation — as there is every year — about who will get the award. The Norwegian Nobel Committee will pick from a record 205 nominees this year (172 individuals and 33 organizations). While most of the names on the list are a well-kept secret, nominators sometimes make a point of publicizing their recommendations.

For example, we know that Íngrid Betancourt, the former Colombian senator and anti-corruption activist who was kidnapped and held by guerrillas for six years, was nominated by Chile’s president, Michelle Bachelet. Similarly, Greg Mortenson, the American humanitarian and co-founder of the Central Asia Institute and Pennies for Peace, was nominated by several members of the U.S. Congress.

Unconfirmed nominees this year apparently include French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Vietnamese monk Thich Quang Do, Bolivian president Juan Evo Morales Ayma, Denis Mukwege and the Panzi Hospital of Bukavu, and the Israeli anti-nuclear activist and whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, among others.

As we move into the final week before the announcement, I’m inclined to favor a number of Chinese activists who have been pressing for basic human rights and expanded political freedoms in their homeland. Among the most prominent are:

• Hu Jia
• Sun Wenguang
• Liu Xiaobo
• Chen Guangcheng
• Gao Zhisheng

Anyone of them, individually or in combination, would be eminently worthy of the award — especially this year. 2009 marks the 50th anniversary of the completion of China’s occupation of Tibet, and the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, two events which continue to cast a long shadow over China and raise troubling questions about its dismal commitment to political freedom and basic human rights.

A year has also passed since the Chinese abruptly broke off talks with the Tibetans following the Olympic Games last year, clearly showing that the discussions were little more than a publicity stunt on their part and that they had little intention of granting the Tibetans greater cultural and religious autonomy.

Just as it’s been 20 years since Tiananman Square, it’s also been 20 years since the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Dalai Lama. It’s worth noting that for the first time he has started to express his doubts about the effectiveness of his policy of nonviolence and open dialogue with the Chinese. That was most likely an important factor in his decision last December to enter into semi-retirement. As we know, he’s been embroiled in a complicated chess game with the Chinese for decades, but time seems to be running out and the Chinese are clearly well aware of that.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee could do worse than to call attention to the plight of those in China advocating basic human rights and cultural and religious tolerance. A prize to those advancing the cause of freedom in China might also lend much-needed support to the Tibetans and the Dalai Lama himself.

No Chinese person has ever been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize (although some Chinese might claim the Dalai Lama as one of their own, he hardly qualifies). That could change this year and I for one hope it does.

World Scientific has just published the latest in a series of volumes of Nobel Peace Prize lectures, which I co-edited together with Irwin Abrams. These are the acceptance speeches of the laureates as they were given at the annual award ceremony in Oslo. The latest volume includes some brilliant and remarkable lectures from people like Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, Shirin Ebadi, and Wangari Maathai, along with presentation speeches, biographical information, notes, bibliographies, and extensive editorial commentary. The work was commissioned by the Nobel Foundation and represents the closest thing we have to an authoritative reference work on the prestigious lectures.

Read more

Al Gore was quoted in The Guardian yesterday, saying that he believes we’ve reached a “political tipping point” regarding global climate change and that “a very impressive consensus is now emerging around the world that the solutions to the economic crisis are also the solutions to the climate crisis.”

It was Gore’s first newspaper interview since the November elections in the U.S. Part of his optimism, he said, is tied to the willingness of the Obama administration to tackle the issue of climate change head-on — in stark contrast to the Bush administation. Evidently, Gore met with Obama in December to discuss some of the green components of the $787 billion stimulus package that was passed last month.

But he also attributed some of his optimism to what he described as a shift taking place in the business community. Many business leaders “are seeing the writing on every wall they look at,” he said. “They’re seeing the complete disappearance of the polar ice caps right before their eyes in just a few years. They’re seeing the new U.S. administration. They’re seeing Gordon Brown and David Cameron both advocating dramatic changes here in the U.K.” In short, he said, more and more business leaders now recognize that addressing this global crisis will require “a change in business practices.”

He went on to say that he was hopeful an agreement can be reached in December when nearly 200 nations will meet in Copenhaged to try to seal a new international climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol after 2012.

Meanwhile, another conference has just wrapped up in Copenhagen where members of the IPCC issued some fresh statistics — most of them deeply worrisome — about the state of global warming. Reporting from the conference, The Guardian’s George Monbiot says it’s now clear that the world’s policymakers have fallen behind the scientists and that global warming is already catastrophic.

Presentations by climate scientists suggest that we’ve underestimated the effects of global warming in three important respects, he says:

1) Partly because the estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) took no account of meltwater from Greenland’s glaciers, the rise in sea levels this century could be twice or three times as great as it forecast, with grave implications for coastal cities, farmland and freshwater reserves.

2) Two degrees of warming in the Arctic (which is heating up much more quickly than the rest of the planet) could trigger a massive bacterial response in the soils there. As the permafrost melts, bacteria are able to start breaking down organic material that was previously locked up in ice, producing billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide and methane. This could catalyse one of the world’s most powerful positive feedback loops: warming causing more warming.

3) Four degrees of warming could almost eliminate the Amazon rainforests, with appalling implications for biodiversity and regional weather patterns, and with the result that a massive new pulse of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. Trees are basically sticks of wet carbon. As they rot or burn, the carbon oxidises. This is another way in which climate feedbacks appear to have been underestimated in the last IPCC report.

“The world has very little time,” IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri said at the conference after the new findings were presented.

George Monbiot says that it’s time to stop calling it “climate change.” Using a term like this to describe events that are having devastating impacts on global food security, water supplies and human settlements is like describing a foreign invasion as an “unexpected visit,” or bombs as “unwanted deliveries.” “Climate change,” he says, is a ridiculously neutral term for the biggest potential catastrophe that the human race has ever encountered. A better term, in his view, would be “climate breakdown.”

I think he has more than a point.

Read more:

• The Guardian: World Will Agree New Climate Deal, Says Al Gore by Leo Hickman
• The International Scientific Congress on Climate Change
• George Monbiot: Time to Change “Climate Change”
• Andrew Revkin: Why 2007 I.P.C.C. Report Lacked “Embers”
• AFP: Sea Levels to Surge ‘At Least a Meter’ By Century End
• Nobel Peace Prize 2007: A Photoessay by Scott London

(The photos of Al Gore and Rajedra Pachauri were taken in December 2007 when they arrived in Oslo, Norway, to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.)

In his Nobel acceptance speech, Al Gore drew a parallel between leaders who ignore the climate crisis and those who failed to act as Nazi Germany rearmed before World War II. “Too many of the world’s leaders are still best described in the words Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler’s threat: ‘They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent,’” Gore said. He likened the current “planetary emergency” to wartime. “We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war.” Strong words. A powerful lecture. 

It was my fifth year covering the Oslo events. More photos and text here.

Grameen, whose name is derived from the Bangla word for “village,” first began as an experiment operating from special windows in the traditional national banks. In 1983, the bank became an independent entity. Despite predictions from traditional bankers that Grameen’s clients would take the money and run, 97 percent of its loans are repaid — a rate comparable to Chase Manhattan’s. The reason is that the system is based on trust and mutual accountability. To qualify for a loan, a villager must become a member of a five‑person borrowers group. Groups share responsibility for loan repayments — and defaults — so they are typically very careful in choosing new members. Since most villagers have none of the data that bankers traditionally use to decide if a prospective borrower is credit-worthy, they must rely on trust and social pressure. As Bornstein points out, Grameen’s system ensures “that villagers are brought together frequently in a setting where they are forced to answer for their actions before all eyes.”

Villagers can borrow money from the Grameen Bank only if their assets fall below the value of a half acre of land. Since this range includes half the population of Bangladesh, Grameen Bank branches usually comprise a cross‑section of villagers: some borrowers are absolutely destitute; some are slightly better off; and some are near the top levels of the eligibility criterion. The better‑off villagers usually take larger loans thereby “subsidizing” the poorer ones. This allows Grameen to sustain itself and continue to reach more poor people.

As Bornstein makes clear, the Grameen philosophy represents a radical departure from the traditional idea of banking. By working in villages and small towns rather than cities, lending mostly to women rather than men, and promoting self-employment rather than wage-employment, as well as creating programs and workshops aimed at redressing a wide range of social problems in the countryside, the bank has effectively redefined credit from a privilege reserved for a few fortunate people to a tool by which millions of poor villagers can improve their lives.

Oddly enough, Bornstein says, the Grameen Bank represents a new twist on supply-side economics. It is founded on the idea not of   “trickle-down” prosperity but rather the “bubble-up” effect. While supply-side economics is based on the idea of injecting capital into the economy from the top down — at the level of corporate investors, in the form of tax cuts and special incentives — the Grameen approach is to inject it at ground level in the form of loans to the poor. In the long run the effects benefit everyone, including the wealthy, because as small-business people improve their social standing they eventually reach a point where they have more spending power. This ultimately translates into greater consumer demand for such items as soap, toothpaste and clothing, thereby stimulating the overall economy.

Today the Grameen Bank has become a leader of the so-called microlending movement. The model has been replicated in Malaysia, the Philippines, Malawi, and many parts of Africa. Hundreds of programs have also cropped up in Canada and the United States. Their systems vary according to context and culture, Bornstein notes, but their objectives are the same. “Like Grameen, they view poor people as clients, not beneficiaries, and they seek to provide them with the means to support themselves through dignified self-employment.”