Peace Prize. The Nobel Peace Prize 2014 will be remembered for the wisdom and thoughtfulness of both award winners, Kailash Satyarthi (60) and Malala Yousafzai (17). World clock from India and Pakistan, which both Norway and the world need.
(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Finally, a peace prize with a deeper meaning, although the Nobel Committee cowardly failed to highlight Yousafzai's criticism of the Western drone war, which has affected civilians – children, women and men – in both Pakistan and Afghanistan in recent years.
But it was hardly similar wisdom that made the Nobel Institute's director and Nobel Secretary Geir Lundestad four days before the award chose to present his views on the Nobel Committee's design in a portrait interview in Aftenposten on 6 December. Included were some poorly hidden ladle kicks to committee leader Thorbjørn Jagland. In practice, Lundestad shot himself in the foot. A somewhat more clumsy, unworthy and poorly timed proposal could not have come from a Nobel Secretary earlier – just a few days before the Nobel Prize winners arrived in the country.
And Lundestad also goes beyond himself and his own principles. In January 2013, he spoke to Ny Tid about the criticism from all the critics – and when asked why he would wait to present his views until after he had resigned, in January 2015, Lundestad replied:
"Of course I have many views on this, but it is not natural for me to comment on this as long as I am in this job."
But then he did it anyway. Lundestad now says that he had come up with three important answers to important questions. Lundestad firstly says "no" to having non-Norwegian members on the committee. That point has disappeared completely in the controversy surrounding the Lundestad statements. He escapes far too cheaply by dismissing committee members from countries other than Norway with "in practice it is difficult". Lundestad believes members from outside Norway are not free enough to make independent choices: “We cannot have members with limited freedom of action. That would be the recipe for breaking the Nobel Committee. "
What makes Norwegian members, usually retired politicians with no experience or insight into peace work or international issues, have so much more freedom of action than party-bound candidates is not trying to justify Lundestad. He can also struggle to do so in a good way.
This is point number two from Lundestad, which has been reviewed in the Norwegian media over the past week. Here, there is little caution to be found at Lundestad. "You mentioned Jagland," Lundestad told Aftenposten. "After thinking a lot about this, I have come to the conclusion that former ministers of state and foreign affairs should not sit on the committee. Making the world understand that the committee is independent is a difficult task in itself. We fight backwards to make the world understand what it means. The load will be too heavy to carry if there are former ministers of state and foreign affairs in it. "
Ny Tid has long meant the same thing as Lundestad on this point – something we already pointed out in the leader «A new Nobel Committee» on 15 October 2009, five years ago. It is wise to depoliticize the committee. But the effect of Lundestad's statement is that the choice of new leader may be influenced by the secretary's sudden need to let go of his thoughts. Maybe he was afraid of being hidden to be forgotten in the New Year when no one thinks about the Nobel Prize? In any case, the consequence is that both the Conservatives and the Green Party can increase the pressure to remove Jagland and secure one of "their own" committee chairmanships. The unworthy Norwegian politicization of the Nobel Committee continues. Alfred Nobel's will is thus not followed according to the intention. It is Norwegian elected representatives who can elect the committee, but that does not mean that Nobel believed that such a party struggle and power strategy should go into it.
The reactions have since been negative. The Labor Party's leader Jonas Gahr Støre says they came at "an unfortunate time, and takes the attention away from the prize winners". Øyvind Halleraker (H) in the Storting's foreign affairs committee thinks it was "unmusical" of Lundestad, while VG used the word "ugly" in the leadership position about the coryphaeus' considerations.
Dagbladet, for its part, believes it is all «a storm in a duck pond». Avisa writes: "It is only in Norway that it is believed that an interview in a Norwegian newspaper overshadows an international media event, and that questions about the Nobel Committee are about Thorbjørn Jagland. Admittedly, in recent years it has been possible to get the impression that it is the same thing, but Lundestad cannot be blamed for that. In terms of timing, it could hardly have been better at a time when everyone is talking about the Peace Prize. "
Unfortunately, the latter is not a good enough argument. The point is rather that one did not need such a debate now in the Nobel Board in December, but rather in January / February, when otherwise one does not have enough Nobel debate. It is also strange that a peace committee can be such a conflicting assembly, then including the outgoing secretary. Lundestad appears whimsical, but if nothing else, the puffin from Nordland, or the whale bird, has now almost flown to more peaceful mountains.
Leader of Ny Tid 12 December 2014
