Yesterday, October 8, 2010, the once globally-respected Nobel Peace Award made another serious self-inflicting insult and disgrace to its still, in a sense, honorable name by awarding Mr. Liu Xiaobo, a so-called “Chinese dissident,” the 2010 Nobel Peace Laureate. It did, too, in the past as well by awarding people like Mr. Henry Kissinger the 1973 Nobel Peace Laureate (probably the most notoriously contentious former US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor).
The list in regard to the dishonor, dishonest, hypocrisy, andsometimes becoming seemingly voluntarily-submissive tool for the sake of Western colonial and American hegemonic powers doesn’t stop there. It continues to even in the case of people like a leader of Tibetan Buddhism Dalai Lama the 1989 Nobel Peace Laureate who’s been, too, probably one of the most morally-contentious figures in modern global power politics.
To make the long story short, let me try to clarify why I challenge the Nobel Peace Prize by historically, morally and characteristically arguing how it made, this time too, its name further insulted, disgraced and degraded in the following way:
1) Since its inception, it has a history to preferably award people mostly white males in the West, i.e., the West- and male-centered award history;
2) Thereby, it has often dismissed, disregarded or dropped a group of great human beings, more specifically, anti-colonial, self-determined sociopolitical leaders around the world, particularly from the colonized “third world” nations;
3) One distinctive case is Mr. Mahatma Gandhi, another great human being as a sociopolitical leader of India who was probably one of the most respected figures in the history of modern anti-colonial independent movement;
4) However, he, after all, was “mysteriously” dismissed from the list of 1947 Nobel Peace Prize candidates. It’s historically a well-known fact why he wasn’t awarded. The former Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the then still most powerful colonial power on earth, i.e., the British Empire, didn’t like Mr. Gandhi. Of course, it was not the only case for what happened to him in 1947. The politically, ideologically and racially/sexually discriminating history and double-standard judgments of Nobel Peace Prize have continued till this very day;
5) It has also awarded people mostly West-dependent or pro-West anti-communists, thereby, often, pro-capitalists, while becoming anti-Soviet Union in the past and now anti-China, as in the cases of Mr. Liu this year;
6) Therefore, it had not been open or supportive of until recently (as in the case of Mr. Nelson Mandela in 1993) to more independent-minded, self-determined, and/or anti-imperialists people who’ve selflessly devoted their whole lives or shed their sweats/bloods for the sake of freedom and liberation of all colonized, exploited, oppressed, enslaved, inflicted and downgraded people around the world;
7) Therefore, one can critically argue the Nobel Peace Prize has a historical tendency to preferably award people who seem to have the following backgrounds:
(1) Powerful colonizers and/or hegemonic imperial powers like the West and the US;
(2) White males from the West;
(3) Therefore, naturally pro-West, pro-capitalism, and thereby, as a result, anti-communism and often being submissive to and/or leaning toward the West/the US, meaning supportive of or working for their colonial, imperial and hegemonic policies and interests against the independent wills of sovereign nations around the world.
Yesterday and today, already as many in the non-Western part of the globe challenge, probably one of the most politically-shamed, nakedly-intentional and morally-tainted 2010 Nobel Peace Prize was given to Mr. Liu for his so-called “courageous role of democratic movement leadership in the Communist China.” At the moment, there are very much hilarious or jubilant moods among most of the Western and American media, by praising him as a “political dissident” who “dared to challenge the rule of Communist Party of China.”
However, those same media as a whole both in the West and the US are amazingly silent, as if they’ve agreed to do so, on the well-known and publicized fact that Mr. Liu has repeatedly made ill-willed, (extraordinarily!) mentally-abnormal, and notoriously-claimed statements such as in the following:
“As well-known, Mr. Liu, as a social activist, has openly argued and called for China to go through another 300 years of colonial rule by the West. In November, 1988, he had an interview with a reporter Jin Zhong(金钟) in Hong Kong. The reporter asked him: “Under which circumstances, do you believe China can accomplish a historically genuine transformation?”
Mr. Liu answered as in the following: “A 300 years of colonial rule! Hong Kong was able to change itself like today from a hundred years of colonial rule. However, the humongous China should experience at least 300 years of colonial rule. I even don’t think that period enough.
More importantly, his 1988 statement regarding his worshiping of colonial rule was not a happening or a mistake he unintentionally made. He has continued to keep this view as his basic political conviction. In December, 2006, he once again emphasized, in an interview with a Hong Kong magazine, called “Kaifangzazhi”(开放杂志), his view that China could barely be able to accomplish its modernization through another 300 years of colonization has not been changed.
Then he even said he was very happy having another opportunity to continue talking about his thought.” (From English translation of a Letter of Public Protest which was drafted by a group of ordinary Chinese citizens before the Nobel Peace Award Committee)
What the Nobel Peace Award Committee did in 2010 in the making of its winner could be seen as if the West/the US endorse and support, as Mr. Liu claims in the above-quoted excerpts, the “Western colonial rule over the China at least next 300 years.” Therefore, in the beginning of this article, I argued the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize decision by the Award Committee is like a “self-inflicting insult and disgrace” to its name.
It seems it has made the once-respected award not only lose its objectivity, impartiality, credibility, and trust from the non-Western part of the world but also made itself like a naked tool of American hegemonic power which hasn’t given up to further demonize China as part of American “imperial ambitions” (Noam Chomsky).
However, many argue and are deeply suspicious the real player who is behind the Nobel Peace Award Committee’s surprising decision which made anti-China activist Liu Xiaobo the 2010 Nobel Peace Laureate is the US government, not necessarily former Czech Republic Vaclav Havel and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, even if they indeed recommended Mr. Liu for the 2010 Award.
As globally well-known, the US government recently has further intensified its political pressures against China on global scale for it to increase its currency values more than what Chinese government had already done so in recent months.
The decision both US and the Nobel Peace Award Committee, however, seems to have made a critical mistake which cannot be easily remedied in near future. However, its naked, hypocritical and politically-tainted decision to make China further embarrassed and demonized seems not going to easily forgotten or forgiven by the people whose senses of national dignity, sovereignty and justice have been badly hurt more than any other time in its 60 years of national history.
Before ending this note, let me throw another challenging comment on the most typical notion, portrayal and description by the West of people like Mr. Liu as “political dissident” as Western and US media have, in unison, praised his “courage to fight for freedom and democracy in the communist China.” But it’s really another laughable thing like a joke US and the West made again as they’ve habitually done in the past whenever they’ve intended to carry out their hidden political, economic and military agendas/interests by raising issues of so-called “freedom, democracy, human rights, free election, free press and so on” as strategic cards.
In the world, for centuries, there are tens of thousands of “political dissidents” around the globe, particularly in third world nations where American/Western “imperial ambitions” and their culturally, ideologically and religiously colonial dominance have been deeply imbedded for centuries. But, the US and its allies in the West have never paid any genuine attentions, concerns, or serious cares of those “real political dissidents” in those nations.
Instead they have done everything possible, with all sorts of “state-sponsored terror tactics,” to silence those real “political dissidents” who fight for their nations’ independence, self-determination, and liberation. However, in the independently-minded and self-determined nations with the “anti-imperialist and socialist policies, therefore not-being-submissive-to-outside forces at all,” all of a sudden, the globally-publicized, -popular and -favored “political dissidents/figures,” like movie starts, such as Mr. Liu Xiaobo and Dalai Lama in China are “produced.”
It’s done so mainly through American and its Western allies’ global media such as CNN, BBC, Wall Street Journal, Fox TV, and so on, including Hollywood movies. Then they soon become like new Hollywood stars all over on the global media. Of course, again, it is carried out and continuously propelled by US and Western governments and their global media outlets in their demonization campaigns against countries like China, Russia or any other anti-imperialist countries like DPRK (North Korea), Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and so on.
Dr. Kiyul Chung who is a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua School of Journalism and Communication in Beijing is Editor-in-chief at the 4th Media.