Nobel Peace Prize triggers questions

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2022 has been awarded to Alez Bialiatski, who is head of the Belarus rights group, Viasna, fighting for democracy and human rights, to Memorial, a Russian rights group, and Ukraine’s Centre for Civil Liberties. The award was announced on Friday. The Nobel Peace Prize has had its share of political controversy. In 1983, when the Polish trade union leader Lech Walesa was chosen for the Peace prize, it was clear that the Nobel committee was sending a clear message to the communist bloc that the West applauds the dissidents who challenge the communist leadership. Nearly 40 years later, the Nobel Peace Prize committee has made a similar gesture towards the Russian and Belarus governments ruled by Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko, who have shown scant respect for the Western European notions of democracy and freedom. Ten years after Walesa led his Solidarity trade union movement in Gdansk, the Soviet Union and other communist bloc countries of eastern Europe fell in a domino effect. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee had not really helped the cause of democracy when it chose Walesa for the peace prize. The Soviet Union and its satellites fell under the weight of their own conditions. But it is unlikely that the peace award for Bialiatski, Memorial and Centre for Civil Liberties will in any check the governments of Putin and Lukashenko.

But what makes the prize suspect is that Peace Prize committee chose the awardees in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine at a time when Russia is engaged in a war with Ukraine. Memorial has been fighting for human rights in Russia even before Putin had come to power in 2000. Memorial could have been chosen for the award before the Ukraine war. But the peace committee did not do so. Similarly, Lukashenko has been ruling Belarus with barely any respect for human rights ever since he came to power in 1992, and Bialiatski has been fighting for democratic rights from late 1980s onward. Bialiatski should have been chosen for the award long time ago. And Ukraine’s Centre of Civil Liberties is not fighting the violations of human rights by its own government and it is working to establish the misdeeds of Russian soldiers against Ukrainian civilians in the ongoing war between the two countries.

It is generally the case that civil liberties groups fight for the rights of individuals against its own government. This does not seem to be the case with Ukraine’s Centre for Civil Liberties. The American Union of Civil Liberties (AUCL) had bravely fought against the government of the United States for violation of human rights of the inmates of the Guantanamo prison. But the Nobel Peace Prize committee never chose AUCL for the prize. And it is this that makes the Nobel Peace Prize this year a suspect, and makes it appear as an anti-Russia, anti-Belarus statement. This does not however mean that Bialiatski and Memorial are not fighting for democratic rights, but the motive of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee certainly becomes apparent. The committee members would argue that they do not indulge in political partisanship, but they seem to be doing so more often than not. And this is especially evident in the choice for this year’s prize.

It can be argued that the Nobel Peace Prize committee is made of fallible human beings and that their choices for the award could be wrong but it cannot be faulted for premeditated partisan choices. This could indeed be the case. And it has to be said that the Nobel Peace Prize committee based in Oslo, Norway, displays distinct Western bias more than anything else.