This year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner is the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). The Nobel Committee justified its decision by the fact that WFP has made a huge contribution to the fight against hunger, as well as to the process of peaceful settlement in conflict zones. According to several media outlets, it is more than a worthy laureate. Other publications, on the contrary, do not welcome the committee’s decision, noting that it is too predictable.
Why not Belarusian women?
According to Der Tagesspiegel, the jury could have made a more courageous choice:
“The committee should have taken the opportunity — and with the prestigious award — to draw global attention to a serious case that needs urgent assistance. For example, to present the prize to the democratic movement in Belarus. Or to hand it over to the parties to a conflict ready for a truce — for example, in the newly erupted conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh — or in the protracted and brutal war in Yemen. Of course, the jury would thus directly intervene in the current political processes. But awarding peaceful demonstrators in Minsk — these heroic women … — …would have given them courage. And it would have strengthened them … …in their political choices. »
There was no trace of former courage
The Nobel Committee is walking a beaten path, — notes De Volkskrant with regret:
“China certainly took note with satisfaction of the committee’s decision. After all, Beijing has made it clear that in the case of awarding the Hong Kong activists from his side will be followed by a tough response … The most important awards for peace at the time we’re given to representatives of the state who found the strength for truly courageous action. …. Or heroes who alone opposed the dictators, as was the German publicist and pacifist Karl von Osetsky — winner of the 1935 Peace Prize. With his then decision, the Nobel Committee caused the rage of the dictator — Adolf Hitler. Today there is no readiness for such decisive steps in the devil’s eye.
The prizes were awarded to employees, not to sponsors
This award in no way deserved the UN member states, — said Nepszava:
“The World Food Programme is one of the UN institutions. That is — in theory — the Swedish Nobel Committee noted the prize the joint efforts of member states. If this is indeed the case, then the prize has never been awarded for such modest services. But there is another, narrower interpretation, according to which the prize was awarded to the board of [the World Food Programme] in the person of its 36 members and 17 thousand employees of the organization. These people try to save lives — often in hopeless situations. They fight heroically in hot spots of distress where their help is needed — and make strong appeals to heartless governments.
Reasonable decision
The fact that most of the favorites were left empty-handed is primarily related to the coronavirus, says the Neatkariga newspaper:
“If the Nobel Peace Prize had been awarded at the beginning of the year, Greta would have no competitors. However, a lot has changed with the beginning of the pandemic. If the award had been given to the WHO, it would have had an even stranger effect. It would be very difficult to explain why such a high award is given to an organization for which there is at least some doubt that it did everything possible to contain the pandemic at the beginning of the year… From this perspective, giving an award to the World Food Program is a reasonable step. However, the fact that an award is given to an organization that has not achieved truly outstanding results is also a bad sign. Are people really so happy that it is possible not to think about the world?
