There are, for the layman, two kinds of Nobel Prizes. The first — given for chemistry, physics, medicine and economics — are given to technical and academic experts. While every award can be contested, there is a broad acceptance that a certain level of expertise in these areas is a prerequisite, as is the seminal nature of the work being considered.
Literature and peace, though, are far more subjective. Here, politics and culture, historical bias and competing ideas in contemporary morality and aesthetics rule the roost. After all, Mahatma Gandhi didn’t win the peace prize. But maybe, just maybe, Donald Trump should have.
Around 30 heads of government or state have received the peace prize, many of them while holding office. Often, they have been awarded for their work and image in the moment, as in the case of Barack Obama or Yitzhak Rabin. Obama went on to use drones and US armed forces abroad, with several reports of civilians being killed. Rabin’s work, such as it was, lies in tatters in Palestine today, with years of Benjamin Netanyahu’s excesses finally paused after a Trump-brokered “peace plan” has been announced. Even less controversial awardees like Muhammad Yunus and Aung San Suu Kyi — both were seen as apostles of “peace” before they took power — have, over time, lost their moral halo.
In many cases, if not most, the peace prize is about the year and the time in which it is awarded, not a broader body of work or even a consistent political and ideological orientation. That is, perhaps, understandable. But “momentism” isn’t all that plagues the award.
The values the Nobel committee appears to champion stem from a tradition that seeks to elevate a particular kind of person and organisation. Anti-war protesters who have taken on powerful forces – the student movement against the Vietnam War, for example – did not get the millions of kroner of prize money. Anti-colonial activists suffer a similar fate. And while Martin Luther King Jr was a worthy candidate, and won, it is unlikely that Malcolm X and others who questioned systemic racism and White supremacy in the US more militantly were even considered.
Now, to play devil’s advocate for Trump. He did indeed, however messily, end the US’s seemingly unending intervention in Afghanistan. In his first term, the Abraham Accords were a major breakthrough in West Asia, paving the way for diplomatic ties between moderate Gulf monarchies and Israel. If the current peace in Palestine holds, and if he also succeeds in helping end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, doesn’t he deserve the prize?
Trump didn’t get the prize, and likely won’t, because the Nobel Peace Prize committee, like so many other corporate social responsibility outfits, isn’t about either rewarding or promoting peace. And, as with many a CSR outfit, those running the show don’t really know what they are about.
There’s an apocryphal tale about the origin of the Nobel Prize. In 1888, Ludvig, brother of Alfred Nobel (inventor of dynamite, who endowed the prizes in his name) died. Some newspapers at the time thought it was Alfred who had passed away, and an obituary in a French newspaper appeared claiming that “Dr Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.” Worried about his legacy, Alfred bequeathed his fortune in a bid to build a legacy and a name that would be more forgiving. He succeeded.
The Nobel Prize, particularly the one for peace, is both a PR exercise and a way to champion “Western values”. Donald Trump has upended both those “values” and the global order that made such hypocrisies possible. He is as draconian at home as his predecessors have been abroad. Most of all, he is boorish and unpredictable.
But given his ego and penchant for shiny things, the prize might have actually helped the cause of peace by placating the man who is both capable of bringing it about (thanks to his office) and destroying it fundamentally. This is something that the 2025 winner, Maria Corina Machado, seems to realise.
The Venezuelan democracy activist, who has called for foreign intervention and is a Trump supporter, praised the US President and got on a phone call with him soon after winning the prize. This, even as petulant statements emerged from the White House and Trump supporters about the Nobel committee “playing politics over peace”.
Peace, like war, is always about politics. Perhaps it’s time that the good folks who give out awards realise that.
