＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49) on X
<Added October 12, 2024> Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo) Wins 2024 Nobel Peace Prize for Calling for Nuclear Weapons Abolition
The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, which has advocated for the abolition of nuclear weapons from the perspective of atomic bomb survivors. The award recognizes the organization’s efforts to realize a nuclear-weapon-free world and its testimony demonstrating that nuclear weapons must never again be used. This marks the first time a Japanese person has received a Nobel Peace Prize in 50 years, since former Prime Minister Eisaku Sato in 1974.
On October 9, 2020, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that this year’s Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded to the World Food Programme (WFP, headquartered in Rome), which delivers food to those in need.
The award comes amid the worsening hunger situation due to the spread of the novel coronavirus.
This marks the ninth time the prize has been awarded to the United Nations itself or a UN-affiliated organization, and this time it seems to be “aimed at encouraging international cooperation during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
However, I have long had doubts about the Nobel Peace Prize, as there are many cases in which the award criteria leave me scratching my head.
I previously wrote an article stating that the Nobel Peace Prize has long been awarded with political motives, but President Trump and the leaders of North and South Korea are completely out of the question. This year’s award is equally questionable.
So this time, I would like to consider the issues surrounding the Nobel Peace Prize.
1. What is the Nobel Peace Prize?
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of five categories established in the will of Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), the Swedish inventor and businessman who invented dynamite.
He chose to have the Peace Prize awarded in Norway “in hopes of achieving reconciliation and peace between Sweden and Norway.” Furthermore, “the Norwegian government is the sole recipient of the Peace Prize.”
The selection is made by the Norwegian Nobel Committee (members serve six-year terms), which is composed of five members appointed by the Norwegian Parliament and a representative selected from among them. A request for nominations is sent to each country, and the Nobel Prize is selected from these recommendations.
The award criteria state that the prize should be awarded to “the person or organization that has made the greatest and best contribution to friendly relations between nations, the reduction or abolition of armaments, and the organization and promotion of peace conferences.”
2. Why does the World Food Programme deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?
The World Food Programme and other UN agencies are simply carrying out their assigned tasks as their “original job,” and I don’t think they meet the criteria for receiving the award.
To put it in extreme terms, if the World Food Programme can receive the award, then it makes sense that all other UN agencies can too.
By the way, the UN agencies that have received the Nobel Peace Prize are as follows:
① Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (1954)
For political and legal protection during the Cold War.
② United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) (1965)
For its role as an international aid organization.
③ International Labor Organization (ILO) (1969)
For its efforts to improve working conditions and living standards.
④ Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (1981)
For its efforts to improve the resettlement, settlement, and treatment of refugees.
⑤ United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) (1988)
For its significant contribution to the realization of the fundamental tenets of the United Nations.
⑥ United Nations (2001)
“For their work for a better organized and more peaceful world”
⑦ International Atomic Energy Agency (2005)
“For their contributions to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy”
⑧ Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (2013)
“For their extraordinary efforts to eliminate chemical weapons”
⑨ United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) (2020)
“For their efforts to overcome hunger, their contributions to peace in conflict zones, and their role as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict”
Furthermore, in developing countries currently receiving aid, the politicians of each country should be making responsible efforts to eliminate hunger. The real problem is repeated civil wars over religious or ethnic issues, and dictators living luxurious and elegant lives despite the poverty and hunger of their people.
Furthermore, it is also problematic that the rapid population growth is being allowed to continue without taking measures such as population control policies (e.g., China’s one-child policy and two-child policy) to address the food shortages caused by the predicted future population explosion.
Rationing food without eliminating the root causes of these problems is like continuing to fill a bucket with a hole, and is a waste of UN contributions, of which Japan also bears a huge financial burden.
I believe it is an important role for Japan to propose and promote “pointing out problems in the current operation of the UN and making reforms.”
3. Past Nobel Peace Prize Laureates who have caused controversy
Peace Prize laureates have sometimes caused disappointment around the world, raising concerns. Some laureates have engaged in actions that are considered to have promoted war, leading to the irony of the “Nobel War Prize, not the Nobel Peace Prize.”
In its October 9, 2015, issue of Die Welt (a German daily newspaper), under the headline “A Huge Mistake in the Nobel Peace Prize,” the paper listed “Nobel Peace Prize Laureates” that it found questionable.
(1) Awarding the Prize to “Political Prisoners” in Their Home Country
This provokes strong backlash from the government of the country in question. Furthermore, if the laureate is detained in the country as a political prisoner or is not permitted to leave the country, they are often unable to attend the award ceremony.
The recipients of the award include Ossietzky (1935, Nazi Germany), Sakharov (1975, Soviet Union), Walesa (1983, Poland), Aung San Suu Kyi (1991, Myanmar), and Liu Xiaobo (2010, China).
(2) Eisaku Sato (1974, Japan), who won the award for “advocating the Three Non-Nuclear Principles.”
In 2010, the Democratic Socialist Party and the United Nations-backed government, which took power, acknowledged that a “secret agreement regarding the introduction of nuclear weapons” had been concluded between the U.S. military in Japan, sparking controversy known as the “Japan-U.S. Nuclear Weapon Introduction Issue.”
(3) Kim Dae-jung (2000, South Korea) for “realizing the first-ever inter-Korean summit.”
A former South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) employee who defected to the United States revealed that Kim Dae-jung’s administration had been systematically manipulating the award since its inception and had “illegibly transferred $500 million to North Korea, the country with which the two leaders met.” This led to criticism that the Peace Prize was “bought with money.”
(4) Kissinger (1973, USA) for “signing the Paris Agreements to end the Vietnam War.”
Kissinger and North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho were “joint laureates,” but the awarding of the prize to Kissinger sparked heated debate within the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, with two members resigning in protest. Le Duc Tho declined the award, citing “the lack of peace in Vietnam.”
North Vietnam subsequently violated the Paris Peace Accords and resumed attacks on South Vietnam. In 1975, it captured Saigon, militarily unifying the entire country and establishing the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976.
(5) The two recipients of the award for the Palestinian Peace Accords subsequently resumed fighting.
In 1994, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, along with Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat, were jointly awarded the award. However, the Palestinian peace agreement did not last, and armed conflict eventually resumed.
(6) The award was given for critical stance toward the Iraq War.
The awards to former President Carter (2002, USA) and Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency ElBaradei (2005, Egypt) have been criticized as a criticism of the George W. Bush administration.
(7) Former Vice President Gore (2007, USA), awarded for “raising environmental concerns.”
There has been persistent criticism that Sendler, who was Gore’s presidential candidate in the 2000 presidential election, was more in line with the Nobel Prize’s aims.
(8) Former President Obama (2009, USA), awarded for “calling for nuclear disarmament.”
His famous “nuclear-free world” speech in Prague, Czech Republic, sparked controversy, with some criticizing him for “a speech alone” and questioning whether he was “premature” in his first year as president, given his limited track record.
Then, in 2015, he attacked a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, a 1999 laureate, in Afghanistan, based on false information, leading to accusations of “war crimes.”
(9) The European Union (2012) received the Nobel Peace Prize for its “longstanding contributions to peace and reconciliation in Europe.”
While some praised the award, some criticized it for being “a tool for political gain,” as it was given amid the strong impact of the euro’s sovereign debt crisis.
(10) For “contributions to the fight against oppression of children and young people and the right to education for all children.”
Malala (Pakistan), a 17-year-old who survived a Taliban attack while riding a school bus, began campaigning for women’s right to education and peace, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.
However, criticism arose, with some saying she was “too young” and that she had antagonized Islamic nations.
Following the 2015 Die Welt article, the ambassadors of major nuclear-weapon countries, including the United States and Russia, boycotted the award ceremony in response to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (2017, Switzerland), which received the award for its “nuclear abolition movement.”
Another criticism has been leveled at Aung San Suu Kyi, who received the award for her role as “leader of the Myanmar democracy movement.”
In the 2016 general election, her National League for Democracy party won a landslide victory, and she was appointed “State Counsellor,” the de facto supreme leader. However, an online petition was launched calling for the revocation of the Nobel Peace Prize, garnering over 360,000 signatures, citing her passive response to the “Rohingya persecution,” which has been criticized as “ethnic cleansing.”
The Nobel Committee responded by issuing a statement stating that the award would not be revoked, citing the absence of a “provision for revocation.”
4. The Nobel Peace Prize’s Management Approach Needs to be Reconsidered
The three science prizes in medicine, physics, and chemistry are selected and decided after a fairly objective evaluation of achievements and a period of time. However, because the Peace Prize also covers people involved in ongoing issues, there is a lot of lobbying and political activity directed at the selection committee each year leading up to the selection process.
As a result, the award tends to be strongly political, and the selection results often spark debate around the world.
I believe that the Peace Prize also needs a review of its selection method, such as awarding the prize a certain number of years after the eligible activity has been carried out and its historical evaluation has been established, as with the three science prizes.
Former President Obama reportedly urged North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to aim for the Nobel Peace Prize, but I believe this is just as irresponsible as President Trump’s.
In fact, I believe that a country like Japan, which has maintained peace for 75 years since the end of the war, or an atomic bomb survivors’ organization that has continued to call for the abolition of atomic and hydrogen bombs, is truly deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize…
At this point, shouldn’t the Nobel Foundation also be required to establish a third-party committee to correct its management stance? However, I think this would be quite difficult in reality…