Posted on 03/08/2012 7:11:54 AM PST by WesternCulture
The Nobel Foundation, which administrates the prestigious prizes in line with the will of Alfred Nobel, on Thursday rejected criticism of recent choices for the Peace Prize.
"Despite that many lively discussions have been held on whether the chosen Peace Prize laureates fulfilled the prescribed provisions, the Foundation does not consider that the prize decisions made by the Norwegian Nobel Committee have entailed any such deviation," it said in a statement.
Swedish authorities had asked the foundation to look into claims from Fredrik Heffermehl, a lawyer and author of the book "The Nobel Peace Prize: What Nobel Really Wanted," that the Norwegian Nobel Committee had gone far astray from the wishes expressed in prize creator Alfred Nobel's 1895 last will and testament.
Heffermehl claims that the five-member prize committee had deviated from Nobel's wishes by honouring human rights activists, such as Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in 2010, environmentalists such as Al Gore and the IPCC in 2007, and humanitarian workers like Mother Teresa in 1979.
The pick of US President Barack Obama for the 2009 prize, after he had spent just a few months in office, also met widespread criticism.
Heffermehl was outraged by the opinion expressed by the Nobel Foundation and supported by the Norwegian Nobel Committee Thursday.
"The Nobel Committee confirms again ... that it has made this into its own prize (with) its own content inserted into the arbitrarily self-chosen term 'peace' and again shows no interest in Nobel and what he wanted with the prize," he said in a statement.
In his will, Nobel stipulated that the Peace Prize should go to the person or organisation that has "done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."
"The Norwegian prize committee appears to still think it is their task to hand out a prize for 'peace' in general despite the fact that Nobel, according to his will, created a prize for 'champions of peace'," Heffermehl said.
The Stockholm-based Nobel Foundation meanwhile stressed that Nobel had wanted the different prize committees to be independent in their decisions, and pointed out that in all the prize categories there was room for interpretation and debate about which areas should be included.
It will in the end officially be up to the Stockholm county administration (Länsstyrelsen) to determine if the Norwegian Nobel Committee has followed the rules or not, but it has already rejected a similar complaint filed by Heffermehl in 2008, and is likely to fall in line with the Nobel Foundation's opinion.
"If the Stockholm county administration rejects Heffermehl's arguments again, I hope this case will be closed for good," said the head of the Nobel Institute in Oslo, Geir Lundestad.
"We are optimistic because we have not done anything wrong. Quite the contrary," he told AFP.
As a Swede, I fail to understand why we Scandinavians should award people like Jimmy Carter a peace prize for his lack of patriotism.
From all of us Conservatives in my part of the World:
- God bless America!
The Nobel Peace Prize, these days, will go to whoever is seen to have advanced or most likely to advance, the cause of global communism.
Nothing other than that is the truth.
“As a Swede, I fail to understand why we Scandinavians should award people like Jimmy Carter a peace prize for his lack of patriotism.”
###
Condescending Euro disdain for us backward American Cowboys and our antiquated, old fashioned ideas, such as love of God and country?
Also, thanks for your sentiments.
Of course they “reject” the criticism. If they were smart enough to accept it then they would have been smart enough to have not done the things they are being criticized for.
“The Nobel Peace Prize, these days, will go to whoever is seen to have advanced or most likely to advance, the cause of global communism.
Nothing other than that is the truth.”
- Well put.
Nobel might have been naive, but he definitely believed in Capitalism.
Intelligent people furthermore realize Capitalism in many ways promotes peace.
Therefore, I suggest we give a peace prize to someone that has promoted both Capitalism as well as peace, patriotism and human rights. For instance Thatcher, while she’s still alive.
Semmens, you got me again!
Irena Sendler
Died
12 May 2008 (age 98)
Warsaw , Poland
During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a
Plumbing/Sewer specialist.
She had an ‘ulterior motive’.
She KNEW what the Nazi’s plans were for the Jews (being German).
Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she
carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids).
She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi
soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto.
The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking
covered the kids/infants noises.
During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500
kids/infants.
She was caught, and the Nazi’s broke both her legs, arms and beat her
severely.
Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept
them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard.
After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and
reunited the family.
Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.
In 2007 Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize.
She was not selected.
President Obama won one year before becoming President for his work as a
community organizer for ACORN and
Al Gore won also -— for a slide show on Global Warming.
Here’s something about Irena Sendler you probably didn’t know.
After the war...she was persecuted for years by the Polish Soviet Puppet Government....in 1968, most of the remaining Jews in Poland were expelled by the Communists.
Sendler threatened to once again hide Jews from the government, for that, the Polish Communists expelled her children from Warsaw University.
Wow! That story made my day.
My Catholic grandfather was a civil engineer who was executed by the Nazis for refusing to help rebuild a bridge that was blown up by the Polish resistance. My grandmother was shipped off to Germany, never to be heard from again.
“In 2007 Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize.
She was not selected.”
###
This reminds me of the relatively quiet, almost unnoticed passing of Mother Teresa, around the same time as the garish media circus surrounding the death of Princess Diana.
No, I did not know this...Thank you.....
Makes my blood boil...
The Nobel committee rejects criticism because they are shameless.
Past winners had seemed to get their prizes based on them making a political statement.
But in 2009, when we learned that Obama was nominated by Feb. 1, 2009, for the prize awarded in October, that was a smoking gun which exposes what a scam this is.
On Feb. 1, 2009, after Obama had been president for exacly 11 days, the Nobel committee decided that he was deserving of the prize, and accepted his nomination for the prize. Then, he won when they did the actual voting.
I remember it was a funny day here on Free Republic when Obama won the prize. Numerous vanity posts about Obama winning the Indy 500 and such flooded this site, to make fun of Obama winnning the Nobel prize.
Even the White House staff that day, when they first learned the news that Obama had won, questioned if it was some sort of joke. Pres. had no idea he was going to win it.
The whole concept of a peace prize is unworkable. In practice, it can only be awarded to people or institutions that forestall military efforts. Could Israel get one for bombing Iraq’s nuclear reactor in the 1980s? Could Roosevelt get one for bringing the US into World War II and defeating the Nazis? Of course, they wouldn’t give one to Ronald Reagan for accelerating the arms race that resulted in the fall of the Soviet Union.
And what is peace? Is it the absence of war? Should China have gotten a peace prize for stopping the disruptive demonstrations in tien an men square? After all, things have been “peaceful” in China since they took out the man who stepped in front of the tank.
The world would be better off without any kind of a peace prize.
Bless her. Damn the “peace prize” committee.
LOL, of course they do.
They have their heads up their behinds, and that's right where they should stay.
The sooner the laughingstock "Nobel Prize" fades into obscurity, the better.
Yasser Arafat... Jimmy Carter... Al Gore... Barak Hussein Obama. Yeah - they have nothing to be embarrassed about.
Yasser... The guy was an arms dealer and terrorist. What else is there to say.
Jimmy… He got his for convincing the North Koreans to abandon their plans to build a nuclear weapon. That worked out real well - South Korea and Japan now live in fear of nuclear war because of Jimmy.
Al - He got his for saying that Mount Kilimanjaro was melting, only to be proven wrong.
And Barry... He got his because he was elected as President.
All outstanding candidates – for a joke, that is. Alfred rolls around in his grave every time they give a peace prize out.
However, I don't agree The World would be better off without any kind of a peace prize.
We humans need role models. Wouldn't you agree we need to commemorate and express our gratitude towards a man like.. Christ?
Jesus Christ will, of course, never come in question as a Nobel peace prize laureate, but what about a person like Albert Schweizer who did his best to, in a Christian manner, resolve a thoroughly destructive and unproductive conflict like that between Germany and France of his days?
I disagree with some of his ideas, but as a European, I'm pretty convinced Germans, the French, the Catholics and the Protestants actually can live in peace.
Do like I do. Travel to the paradise that today is Kaysersberg, Alsace, France (his hometown - Schweizer’s, not Jesus Christ's or Nobel's) and enjoy a glass or two of the magnificent wine that is produced in the area.
I wish to live in a world where little children and young students get inspired by people like Marcus Aurelius, Gustavus Adolphus, Churchill, Reagan and Thatcher.
These leaders are often associated to warfare, but despite the unspeakable atrocities often committed in the darkest eras of World History, this question remains:
- In what way do we promote peace by subjugation to evil?
As a Swede having talked to businessmen (among them my own grandfather) who were active some few decades after Nobel died, I could tell you these two things;
1. These guys were no fakes.
2. A good hearted, Nordic businessman like Nobel would never have approved of the prize he founded being awarded to a dishonest demagogue like Al Gore.
We don't need to scrap the Nobel peace prize, just like we don't need to scrap France, Germany, the idea of peace or Scandinavian philanthropists in general.
What this world, badly, needs is more of Western Civilization!
Some wars are necessary to fight, but some are not.
In what way were the good forces of this planet aided by what took place in Europe twice last century?
I am indeed proud of what my ancestors did in terms of displaying to the World what an incompetent leader and above all incompetent commander Stalin actually was through their heroic efforts in the Winter War, but both Russians, we Westerners and the rest of the Human Race need to embrace the vision of an enlightened, productive and civilized world living in peace and prosperity nurtured by capitalist companies like that established by Nobel and his family.
It might have to take the eradication of Islam.
So be it.
Speaking of the World of Islam, how many Nobel laureates have they produced?
It's a complete joke given the number of Muslims this planet houses and the number of multiculturalist PC idiots in charge of Scandinavia of today.
Thanks for your comment and regards from Volvo Land..
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