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Controversy Over Bush-Blair Peace Prize Nomination
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| “How can these people be nominated for a peace prize when they are waging war?” |
OSLO, Feb. 6 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – U.S. President George W. Bush’s and British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s nomination for Nobel Peace Prize has caused much controversy since populist Norwegian deputy Tom Nesvik put forward the candidacies.
One has threatened military action against what he describes as "evil" nations and keeps a scorecard of dead Al-Qaeda leaders, marking each fatality with an X.
The other has ordered his forces into battle more times than any other postwar British leader, the British daily newspaper, The Guardian, reported.
Now, Blair and Bush have received international recognition for their unswerving willingness to use force: a nomination for the 2002 Nobel peace prize, said the paper.
The British prime minister and U.S. president have been jointly nominated for the accolade by a rightwing Norwegian politician who believes their military campaign against terrorism meets Alfred Nobel's criteria that the winner "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".
"The background for my nomination is their decisive action against terrorism, something I believe in the future will be the greatest threat to peace,” said Harald Tom Nesvik, who represents the right-wing Party of Progress in the Norwegian parliament. “Unfortunately, sometimes you have to use force to secure peace."
Nesvik has nomination rights as a member of a national legislature.
The FRP has a long history of campaigning against immigration, particularly from Muslim countries, and has notably been accused of whipping up xenophobia, according to The Times of India.
The committee keeps the names of nominees secret for 50 years, but those making nominations often make their choice public. The full list of nominees will not be completed until later this month.
There are signs that Blair and Bush are up against tough competition to secure the $940,000 (£670,000) prize money and see their names added to an elite list which includes Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela.
Other unconfirmed September 11-related nominations are believed to include Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, and Guy Tozzoli, an engineer who helped design the World Trade Center. The winner will be announced in October.
Blair's nomination appears to have brought little cheer to Downing Street. On Tuesday night, a British cabinet spokeswoman said: "I think it would be a matter for the committee to consider any nomination. I don't think it would be a matter we would comment on."
However, Blair and Bush are nowhere near a shortlist. Last year, 136 individuals and groups were nominated; this year’s count is expected to exceed 160, with many nominees linked to 11 September and its aftermath. The nomination would please Blair, who argued throughout that the bombing campaign in Afghanistan was intended to lay the foundations for lasting world peace, BBC’s online news service reported.
In a BBC online questionnaire entitled “What do you think? Who should win the Nobel Prize for peace?”, the majority criticized the Bush-Blair nomination, with one participant calling it “most idiotic”.
“Bush is a wartime leader and inspires loyalty among Americans. But that doesn't make him a peacemaker,” said Richard Chubb, from the United Kingdom. “So far he has bombed Afghanistan, disengaged from the crumbling Israeli Palestinian peace process and made threatening overtures towards three sovereign states. If that's a peacemaker, I'd hate to meet a warmonger.”
Saiyed Husain, from the United States said the two leaders should be given any "Military Peace Prize" if there is one, “but certainly not the Nobel Peace Prize”, which should not be associated in any way with "killing & destruction".
“Nominating George W. Bush and Tony Blair for the Nobel Peace prize is one of the most idiotic things I have heard,” said Peter LaBorde, another American. “This is too bad, since even the nomination carries some prestige that neither Bush nor Blair deserves to have associated with their names. To associate what they are doing with ‘peace’ is preposterous. They might deserve a prize for "police action," if there were such a thing [and maybe there's a reason why there isn't, but certainly not for peace!”
Samantha, a Canadian, termed the nomination “a joke”: “How can these people be nominated for a peace prize when they are waging war. War is war, no matter the motivation”.
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