Every year, the controversy around the Nobel Prizes is centered in the same two categories: the Peace Prize and the Literature Prize. Never has there been a torrent of polemics about the award for medicine, for example, nor has there even been broad outrage about the recipient of the award in physics, chemistry, or economics.
The debate was limited to these two categories once again. Public opinion was divided over Laszlo Krasznahorkai, the Hungarian writer who won the award for literature, and the Venezuelan Maria Corina Machado, who received the Peace Prize. This year was nonetheless different in that global opinion was divided over a nominee who did not win the Peace Prize: former US President Donald Trump, who never misses an opportunity to claim that it should have gone to him!
Despite the many cases of the Nobel Peace Prize committee defying traditions, two notable cases stand out: one from each of the first two decades of this century. Strangely enough, both recipients received the prize in their second year in office, only aggravating the controversy.
The first notable recipient was US President Barack Obama, who entered the White House in 2008. He hardly settled into the famous Oval Office when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to him in 2009. The key question at the time was whether he had accomplished anything yet to justify the honor. His time as president, which would continue until 2016, had just begun, and it would have made far more sense for him to receive the prize in his final year in office, as a crowning achievement, or even the year after.
Indeed, some argued that Obama’s role in fanning the flames of the so-called “Arab Spring” in our region should cancel his Nobel Prize. After all, can anyone deny that much of the suffering in the Middle can be traced back to this “Spring,” specifically to Obama’s zealous support for it and his persistent efforts to fuel it? The question, then, could be rephrased as follows: would the Nobel Peace Committee have granted him the prize if it had waited until his final years in office? Those were the years when the dire consequences of his support for the “Spring” became painfully clear; the countless victims continue to add up.
As for Abiy Ahmed, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, he entered office in 2018. Just like Obama, he had barely settled into his seat when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to him in 2019.
The consequences of his policies in East Africa are no secret to anyone. It is enough to recall the recent images from Sudan and Egypt, where vast were flooded as a result of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam that he had built on the Blue Nile without addressing the concerns of both Cairo and Khartoum.
From the very beginning, Egypt’s government stressed that the dam must not harm Egypt nor reduce its share of the Nile’s water. The Sudanese government said the same. The logical solution would have been for the two downstream countries to be partners in filling the reservoir and operating the dam, as per the guiding principles of international law.
Abiy Ahmed chose to ignore all of that. He turned a blind eye and ignored the fact that the water flowing from the Blue Nile is nothing less than life itself for the peoples of the downstream states. Thus, the eventualities he envisions or imagines will not come to fruition.
When the debate resurfaced this month over whether Donald Trump deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, many mentioned Obama’s role during the so-called “Arab Spring,” which was not a spring in any sense. They also recalled, or rather observed in real time, the hardship in Egypt and Sudan caused by the Ethiopian prime minister’s actions.
It seems that this is precisely why the Nobel Peace Committee in Norway hesitated to hand the prize to the American president. It is quite possible that the committee reflected on what Obama had after receiving his prize, and on what Abiy Ahmed has been doing since receiving his.
These two cases suggest that the Nobel Peace Prize should be granted as a reward for genuine, tangible achievements in the pursuit of peace, not for making promises. Otherwise, it would do the opposite of promoting peace, as we saw from the former US president and the Ethiopian prime minister.
I believe that this is the most reasonable explanation for why the Nobel Peace Prize did not go to Trump this year. Although the committee in Oslo has not justified its decision on these grounds, it remains the most logical and sensible interpretation. If we consistently stress this point, perhaps then the prize will no longer go to those who do not deserve it, or perhaps those who deserve it will first act in accordance with its spirit and only then receive it rather than winning it first and disappointing us afterward.
