Nobel Peace Prize Winners Keep Starting Wars

how do you go from winning the nobel peace prize being blamed for a humanitarian crisis all in just months ethiopia's nobel prize winning prime minister sidelined tigre's powerful regional leaders henry kissinger yasser arafat and nabi ahmed have two things in common war and the nobel peace prize the prime minister of ethiopia who won the award last year for helping unify his country abhi ahmed ali for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation is today engaged in a bloody civil war in the north of his country that has displaced thousands of people not all peace prize winners have started wars of course it fills me with humility and gratitude to know that i have been chosen as the recipient of this almost of earthly honor most have done something extraordinary to merit the million dollars that come with this shiny new medal and what some call the most prestigious prize in the globe after all martin luther king jr nelson mandela and malala are all nobel laureates this is really an encouragement for me to go forward and to believe in myself but for some the line between war and peace has become more blurred the dichotomy begins with the founder alfred nobel was a weapons trafficker and the inventor of tnt his nickname was dynamite king it's believed nobel decided to create the prize after a french journalist accidentally published an obituary on him instead of his deceased brother entitled the merchant of death is dead he was disappointed this may have influenced him in setting up the nobel peace prize thanks to that unflattering epitaph the nobel peace prize was founded and continues to be awarded annually this is not only the the most important peace prize there is it's the one that that you know the whole world is paying attention to let's take a moment and talk about the nobel peace prize the nobel peace prize will be handed out at a ceremony in oslo tomorrow the united nations world food program is the winner of this year's nobel peace prize the nobel peace prize gets so much attention every october we in the west treat it as a moment when we sort of decide to perform our values as the west what is it that we care about who do we think is doing good in the world concerning the human right there is no national boundaries all humanity on this planet is same while the main goal of the nobel peace prize is to recognize an individual organization or cause for their peace-building efforts much of the controversy stems from the committee choosing aspirational icons criticisms abound when laureates go on to commit defend or are generally associated with atrocities from the 1970s forward the award was increasingly given to promote versions of domestic political change always in line with the larger ambitions of the liberal international orders and of course some we have seen were not quite as committed to the nobel peace prize committee's vision as we thought i'm sure that your words to us today will be written in gold the nobel peace prize a pleasant prospect but quite improbable aung helped bring democracy to myanmar and was awarded the peace prize for it in 1991. 26 years later in this bbc interview with journalist fergal keane she was defending her country against accusations of ethnic cleansing do you ever worry that you will be remembered as the champion of human rights the nobel laureate who failed to stand up to ethnic cleansing in her own country no because i don't think there's ethnic cleansing going on i think ethnic cleansing is too strong an expression to use for what's happening another winner former u.s secretary of state henry kissinger is often pegged as a terrible laureate for the role he played in multiple atrocities in cambodia east timor and bangladesh an activist from the anti-war group code pink attempted to perform a citizen's arrest of former secretary of state henry kissinger [Music] [Applause] the accumulation of laureates that have gone on to behave in a less than noble fashion has brought a lot of scrutiny to the award even obama was skeptical about winning i am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the nobel committee for many his decision to increase troop presence in afghanistan and his deadly drone program left a bitter taste in obama's case he'd been president for less than a year was involved in two wars and had overseen more drone strikes than george w bush had carried out during his entire presidency when he won the prize and i i did get the nobel peace prize oh really what was that for to be honest i still don't know we felt that obama understood our point which was that he stood for all these basic causes and we should give him a hand we should give him support so that he could have a stronger influence in international affairs there are certainly those who claim that that the committee is meddling in current affairs in a way that they're trying to uh to steer the course and the the attempt of the committee is to try to give a push in the right direction of course they have to be careful not to produce a situation that is counterproductive the winner is decided by a committee of five people selected by the norwegian government first call that we got from the nobel committee i answered the phone it was completely overwhelming wow what an honor i feel like i have to collect myself a couple of seconds i can't was awarded the nobel peace prize for our work to raise awareness of the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons but also our efforts to achieve a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons the five recognized nuclear weapon states the u.s uk france china and russia boycotted the noble ceremony they see the treaty as a as a threat to their nuclear weapons winners are also under an international spotlight for the rest of their lives but we cannot bring peace by foreign hit or miss the nobel peace prize will continue to draw the spotlight once a year i think it would be a wonderful thing if the nobel peace prize could be revoked criticism against aung san tsuchi is is getting so much traction precisely because she won the 1991 peace prize in that sense uh the the peace prize is probably doing some good after all what really changes things is long-term movement building institutions international law and i think that the nobel prize awards that but people also think that's boring people want faces they want individuals they want figureheads they want you know mlk mandela we will never have a perfect record it's impossible to have a perfect record so we should leave it as it is make our best effort to select the best people and and hope for the best [Music] [Applause]

Channel: VICE News

Views: 790,193

Rating: 4.8536267 out of 5

Keywords: VICE News, VICE News Tonight, VICE on HBO, news, vice video, VICE on SHOWTIME, vice news 2020, Nobel Peace Prize Winners, nobel peace prize, united nations, war crimes, henry kissinger, Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Barack Obama, war peace, war mongering, Kissinger peace prize, barack obama interview, aung san suu kyi speech

Id: QbHyV6N4aJM

Length: 8min 8sec (488 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 10 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/FatDalek]

And it took Western media how long to figure this out? I mean RT did this years ago.

[u/Quality_Fun]

the only nobel prize i take seriously is the one for science. even then, i'm a bit leery.

[u/RespublicaCuriae]

I remember discussing with an acquaintance of mine and we made a conclusion that we both agreed on:

Liberal democratic countries always fail because it demands an exceptionally high moral standard for governance, which is impossible. Any flaw of morality harms liberal democratic values, making it reasonable to express how meaningless liberal democracy is.

[u/damogui]

I didn't watch this since I don't support Vice, but I did read something funny recently. The same liberal Burmese student activist who spearheaded the "Free Myanmar" movement and got all the Westerners excited about it is now pro-military junta (he was caught meeting with the junta) and anti Aung Sang Suu Kyi because he's not getting the money and attention he wants.

Of course no one will talk about this because no one wants to accept that most of these activists are depraved narcissists.

[u/SonOfTheDragon101]

Why is Aung San Suu Kyi there? Myanmar hasn't started a war against anyone. The Nobel Peace Prize winners who keep starting wars are from imperialist countries - e.g., Obama!

[u/Awesomesause1988]

You’ve got to be shitting me. Did Henry Kissinger win a Nobel priest prize?