A confused Nobel Peace Prize Committee

Nobel Peace Prize was traditionally given to leaders who contributed to preventing wars, or ending ongoing wars, and expand international cooperation, not conflagration. Very good award then.

For instance, the first Nobel Peace prize award was given in 1901 to two leaders, Henry Dunant of Switzerland "for his humanitarian efforts to help wounded soldiers and create international understanding" and Frederic Passy of France ""for his lifelong work for international peace conferences, diplomacy and arbitration."

I like these awardees and what they were working, 1950s after WW2.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Peace_Prize_laureates

Awardees in mid-70s. Like Sakharov on disarmament, Sadat and Begin on Israel-Egypt peace accord.

The late 80s awardees, fighting nuke war, peace in Central America, peaceful fight for Tibet liberation, and Gorbi, he tore down the Berlin Wall in 1989, reunification of East and West Germany, liberation of several republics from Russia. Without the use of guns and tanks.

Currently there are several potential wars. In the Middle East, Iran vs Israel. In Europe,  Russia vs Ukraine and allies. In Asia, China vs Taiwan, North vs South Korea, India vs China border. In Africa and South America, there should be huge conflict between/among some neighbor countries.

Nobel Peace nominees and awardees should be leaders, diplomats, heads of state, who contribute to preventing wars in these and other places. But in the past decade or two, awardees are based on media optics and not on contribution to preventing wars.

Take the 2007 award to Al Gore and UN IPCC headed by Mr. Rajendra Pachauri. They prevented a war, where? War to fight less rain and more rain, less cold and more cold, less snakes and more snakes? Sus ginoo. Nobel Peace award can be funny sometimes.

Then Obama in 2009. He was inaugurated January, by September or October or just 8-9 months he was announced as Peace awardee. But consider these:  Bush Jr. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, then Iraq in 2003. Obama continued and sustained the invasion with zero plan or pronouncement of US troops leaving both countries. And he got Nobel peace award. Hahaha, ok.

Another weird Nobel peace awardee was 17 yo Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan. Taliban tried to kill her for blogging against them, she survived and narrated her experience and work in international media. I think the narrative in Malala case is that US continued occupation of Afghanistan, use of military bases in Pakistan to hit Taliban, are nice and justified. So justifying and sugar-coating endless wars instead of  preventing invasion and foreign wars.

The 2021 Peace awardees are famous journalists Maria Reesa of the Philippines (founder of Rappler) and Dmitry Muratov of Russia (founder of Novaya Gazeta). Both are good journalists, have decades of experience and achievements in their profession, no question about that. But why the Nobel Committee just create a Nobel Prize for Journalism?

There are other institutions and leaders who really focus on settlement of disputes, prevent wars. I'm thinking of the UN Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) that ruled in July 2016 that China ownership claims of the South China Sea (aka in the PH as West Philippine Sea) 9 dash lines is not valid.

That ruling was used by the US, UK, AU, JP, etc to continue free navigation and reduced CN Navy belligerence in the area because international law is not on their side. But PCA is not cute so perhaps no one nominated the PCA or similar institutions for Nobel peace.

Last October, this is among the widely-circulated quotes in social media.

I find this funny. With facts, people or governments, multilaterals, etc. can "conquer coronavirus, conquer climate change"? Wow.

"Conquer coronavirus"... the Spanish flu 1918-19 was a coronavirus, until SARS 1 in 2002-2004, H1N1 2009-2010, MERS 2013-2014, and this SARS2 in 2019-2021, All coronavirus. They just mutate and evolve naturally, 100%. People can conquer it? How, vax vax vax?

"Conquer climate change"... there was CC since 4.6 B years ago, warming cooling warming cooling cycle. People and governments can now"conquer" it? How? By fighting less rain and more rain, less flood and more flood, less storms and more storms, less cats and more cats? 

I think Nobel Peace Committee is confused and pursuing certain narratives and political agenda. They lose the real purpose and spirit of the award -- to have peace in the world, in each region or continent, to have no wars. Nobel in Physics, Chemistry, Economics, etc, fine somehow. But Nobel Peace,... ouch.