Is Nobel Peace Prize losing some of its prestige?

After giving it to Obama, who had done nothing, it showed that it was full of crap.

Not that "it" - the idea of the prize, but the committee's political meddling has resulted in major fails each year since 2009. 2011 would've been good had they not included a politician up for reelection. Pulling the tiger's tail in 2010 and trying to push an inexperienced 'Commander-in-Chief' to the left only had the reverse effect of increasing political oppression. Some like Wangari Maathai really stand out, but there are so many potential candidates who are too busy working for peace to hype themselves to fame.

Yasser Arafat, winner of the Nobel Peace prize back in 1994, a great role model for this award. If fact, as I recall, he left many man, women and children in "pieces."

When I was younger I thought the Nobel Peace Prize was the best prize there was. But as time went on I often wondered why so and so was awarded the prize as they didn't actually bring about peace in any form. Then, as "Probie" mentioned above, Obama was given the prize ... I knew for sure that it is a bunch of stuff. And I always had my doubts about such people as Rabin, Tutu, de Klerk, Mandela, etc. And I had read somewhere where the great Mother Teresa was more interested in promoting her image than what she was loved for ...

Doctors Without Borders was an excellent choice, as was Jody Williams, who is trying to ban landmines.

Anyway ... I have now think the Nobel Peace Prize is not really about "peace" but about raising issues about controversy ...

Probie and Shi are correct.

It seems more like a prize given to killers who they hope will stop killing than for anyone who actually did anything towards peace.

As a child, I looked forward to learning who had done something to bring peace somewhere in the world, but for the last 20 yrs the decision and announcement just provides 7 days of jokes for Leno and his peers around the world. I guess that is a service of some sort, but probably NOT what Nobel intended.

Alfred Nobel was a Swedish inventor. He is famous for his invention of dynamite, and ballistite, which Britain developed into cordite and which they used as a weapon of mass destruction in various wars.

There have been some notable winners of this prize,

Yasser Arafat received the Nobel Peace Prize "for his efforts to create peace in the Middle East." Yet, groups under his command, included Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Black September, Fatah, and Tanzim. These gangs were responsible for literally hundreds of bombings, hijackings, assassinations and other acts of terrorism, including the murder of 11 of Israel's athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, the 1973 murder of Cleo Noel, the American ambassador to Sudan, and the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship.

Barack Obama, as has been mentioned here won it.

And this year, the EU is going to get it!

I wonder if the Nobel Peace Prize isn't misnamed.

Nobel Peace Prize? Well, I know a good person who deserve it. My mother!!

@Shi Yuehan

When you mention only Arafat, it simply shows that you are not interested in the subject, but in polemics. Arafat was not the only one who got the prize that year. His israeli counterpart also got the prize and he had caused a lot more deaths than the palestinian.

One might also mention that a man like Henry Kissinger, who is wanted in several countries for massmurder in war crimes also got it.

And, my dear chinese commentator, it is a dead give away that you complain about this today, when someone who obviously sees the chinese leadership in a different light than you do, did get it.

volland-san,

In any case, what Shi Yuehan, you and I are saying is that the Nobel Peace Prize is largely meaningless, right?

@ Bertie....

That is exactly the horrible misunderstanding, a misunderstanding that has enormous consequences.

This prize may indeed tell those the three mentioned commentators what you say. But there exists another, a bigger world with a few billion inhabitants out there, where the peace nobel prize means a lot and has consequences. People like Kissinger still are not in front of judges to account for the all the dead he caused, instead he is a respected elder statesman with a great reputation. And as far as Mr Change goes, that prize is one of the reasons, why he gets away with ALL his wars, incl. the coming one against Iran, and with disgusting crimes like Guantanamo.

So I think you better change your mind a bit and understand how important the Nobel Peace Prize actually is....

Bradley Manning was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, I wish they'd have had the guts to give it to him. It's great to be controversial for people who represent peace/humanities/human rights, until you stop awarding it to countries who's governments might hate you but can't hurt you.

@Aliasis

Good thinking! Give it to a professional soldier!