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OPPORTUNITIES & OTHER VIEWS: A COMMENTARY BY HAROLD HOUGH

The Ignoble Peace Prize

by Harold Hough

At first glance it appeared that Al Gore’s winning of the Nobel Peace Prize was the biggest debasement of international prizes since the Emperor Nero won six Olympic gold medals in the 67 AD Olympics. However, after looking at the list of Nobel Peace laureates, it looks like the Nobel Prize committee engages in this type of behavior on a regular basis. After some research, I now know why governments revere this prize – two thirds of winners are politicians and bureaucrats. No special knowledge or major breakthrough is needed to win this award. In fact, misguided mediocrity can give you a peace prize (Al Gore being the most recent example).

So, how many great humanitarians have won the award? I mean real humanitarians – the type that spent decades working for the unfortunate, without thought of their own health or wealth. Alas, there are only two of them, Mother Teresa (1979) and Albert Schweitzer (1952). Two awards in over 100 years. The rest are usually politicians and directors of major non-governmental organizations who travel around the world in private jets and stay at first class accommodations on the taxpayer’s dollar. That’s not to say that all the awards are worthless. The first one went to the founder of the International Red Cross. The organization won one in 1944, when their efforts did help hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war in Europe (The Soviets and Japanese, unfortunately, weren’t as concerned with the Red Cross). Then there are they winners who represent the struggle against Tyranny: Lech Walensa (1983), the Dali Lama (1989), Aung San Sou Kyi (1991), and Carl Von Ossietzky (1935). Mr. Walensa did live to see a free Poland, even though it was more due to the efforts of Pope John Paul II and Ronald Reagan, who destabilized the Soviet Bloc. The Dali Lama and Aung San Sou Kyi still see repression in their respective countries of Tibet and Burma. Then there is Mr. Ossietzky, who warned the world about the Hitler’s rearmament program. He was arrested for high treason and sent to a concentration camp. He died about the same time many Nobel peace laureates were trying to downplay the threat of the Third Reich.

So how do most of the winners get their awards? It entails the sort of mindset that you expect from a beauty queen contestant – “what I really want is world peace.” In fact, the Nobel Peace Prize awards are a history of failed and often naļve attempts at peace. There is no better example than Aristide Briand (1926) and US Secretary of State Frank Kellogg (1929), who crafted the Briand- Kellogg Treaty that outlawed war as an instrument of national policy. The 1931 Award went to Nicholas Butler, who championed the treaty. Within ten years, World War Two was raging. Then, there were Lord Robert Cecil (1937) Woodrow Wilson (1919), Carlos Lamas (1936), Sir Norman Angell (1933), Authur Henderson, (1934), Karl Branting (1921), and Leon Bourgeois (1920) who were all given the award for their contributions to the failed League of Nations. But, the awards committee was so committed to “giving peace a chance,” that they were still giving out awards to League of Nations diplomats even as it was becoming evident that the League was incapable of keeping the peace or confronting Hitler. In his defense, 1937 laureate Lord Cecil finally saw the threat posed by Hitler and was one of a few to oppose concessions to Hitler in the 1938 Munich Accords.

Over the years, the Nobel Prize committee has also given its award to a number of organizations and their directors, whose view of peace seem as unrealistic as a John Lennon lyric. Jane Addams (first cousin of cartoonist Charles Addams), who was the international president of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom won the award for 1931. The organization was founded in 1915 to advocate world disarmament and still continues to espouse an agenda that makes the current crop of Democratic presidential candidates look like warmongers. The group’s naļve disarmament agenda and the “authority” of the Nobel Prize only helped blind the West to the threats from Germany and Japan. In that regard, it undoubtedly led to even more deaths in WW II. Personally, I think her first cousin, Charles Addams, who provided the inspiration for the Addams Family was a better choice – he at least made us laugh.

Unfortunately there are the Nobel embarrassments that don’t make us laugh. There was Yasser Arafat (1994), Le DucTho (1973), and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (1985), who were more eligible for an award for war, aggression and tyranny. So, what does the Nobel Peace Prize represent? It’s a prize by politicians for politicians who espouse unrealistic, warm fuzzy platitudes about peace. At worst, it honors tyrants. Unfortunately, it rarely honors those humanitarians who bring a bit of peace to a part of the world. Al Gore will not change that miserable record.

Harold Hough has been writing about precious metals and mining for the past fifteen years. He is the author of three books, including Satellite Surveillance which was named one of the Outstanding Academic Books of 1993. After graduating from Anderson University with a degree in Economics and serving in the Navy, he worked as an economist for two Fortune 500 companies. He now writes full time for the Miners News.