Questioning the nobility of the Nobel

The Nobel Peace Prize is probably the most widely recognized of the all the Nobels. As a lay person, I have always seen it as a celebration of individuals or organizations whose work has served to defuse hostility between nations, generally diplomats, activists, politicians and others who have been directly involved in peace negotiations of one kind or another or in the uplift of a certain segment of society.

When I heard that this year WikiLeaks is among the 241 Nobel Peace Prize nominees, my first reaction was, “Seriously? The WikiLeaks? Along with Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela?” I mean granted that the WikiLeaks caught the world's attention with the publication of thousands of secret US reports on the war in Afghanistan last summer and since then, has stayed in the public eye with similar reports on the war in Iraq, and the gradual release of thousands of secret US diplomatic cables, but in recent months,  an increasing number of allegations, including allegations of rape and sexual molestation, against the website's founder, Julian Assange, have downplayed the site's reputation. The controversy surrounding WikiLeaks founder is sure to leave scope for debate. But more than that, it is the website’s contribution to world peace or making a significant difference to world-order that I seriously question. On the one hand I am very appreciative of the freedom of speech and the transparency that WikiLeaks represents, but on the other hand, many a time the means used were questionable, to say the least.

Alfred Nobel wrote in his will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who “...shall have 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.” Even if we were to lose sight of the original intent of the prize, the fact remains that over the last 60 years it has been associated with people like Martin Luther King, Bishop Desmond Tutu, The Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and organizations like The Amnesty International and Médecins Sans Frontières.

Since I started penning my thoughts here, the Nobel Peace Prize for this year has been declared to be shared by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen, "for their nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work.” But this post is not about that. The fact that a nomination was considered for WikiLeaks was demoralizing for me as a common citizen. To me it represents an erosion of values, a redefining of priorities that I am not ready for. I still belong in an old world where stories of exemplary lives lived on  high principles dedicated to bringing about a more just world-order help average people like me to live our humdrum existences with hope.