There is only one Peace Prize and it is noble.
The Peace Prize. Just these three words: the Peace Prize. Everyone knows you are talking about the Nobel Peace Prize. And everyone knows who you are if you are a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
“I suddenly became an oracle”, Archbishop Tutu said about the announcement of him receiving the prize: “Before the Peace Prize, we could just forget about getting accepted for an audience to the Oval Office. But after the Peace Prize, we soon got an invitation to the Oval Office from President Reagan himself”.
And Muhammad Yunus said: “Before the Peace Prize, I would call out loud and no one would listen. After the Peace Prize, I just needed to whisper.”
So with hundreds of peace prizes given out internationally, what’s so special about the Nobel Peace Prize? Why is it so that international media broadly covers specifically this prize? That the whole world turns its attention to Oslo for the announcement on a Friday in October? After all, there are all plenty of awards with higher prize money, more glorious ceremonies, and a wider media reach. Yet, the world knows only one peace prize and it is often described as the world’s most prestigious award.
No one really knows for certain why Alfred Nobel wanted the Peace Prize, in particular, to be awarded by a Norwegian committee — or what prompted him to include Norway in the Nobel Prize proceedings at all. There was a union between Sweden and Norway at the time and he may have thought that it was proper to have one prize given out in Norway. He may also have been influenced by the fact that Norway didn’t have such a long military tradition as Sweden or that Norwegians were more involved in the international peace movement. The Norwegian Parliament had for example become closely involved in the Inter-Parliamentary Union and its efforts to resolve conflicts through mediation and arbitration. Nobel may also have been influenced by Norwegian literature and more specifically the Norwegian author and peace campaigner Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, whom Nobel greatly admired. We may never know for certain why he thought the peace prize should be given out here in Oslo. But what we do know is that this is a great pride for most Norwegians.
There are several reasons behind the prestige of the Nobel Peace Prize. First, it is one of the oldest peace prizes: it has been given out now since 1901.The prize also benefits from belonging to a family of prizes with four other Nobel prizes awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, in the fields of medicine, physics, literature and chemistry. Furthermore, the Nobel Peace Prize has a relatively popular, legitimate and successful list of laureates. Despite some shortages and possible mistakes through the years, it has been given out to many people who are generally regarded as truly deserving. The committee has also had the strength and courage to interpret peace challenges in their own time. So in spite of regular criticism, it has been the ability to reinterpret Nobel’s will, according to the time we are living in, which makes the prize relevant, more than 100 years after its creation. The prize is also held in high regard by many as an expression of popular democratic will and a common view on conflict-resolution and nation-building, rather than as the expression of academic experts. Whereas the other prizes are awarded by specialist committees based in Sweden, the Peace Prize is awarded by a committee appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. Moreover, the prize is given out in Norway, a country which for years has invested large resources and efforts in peace-building internationally.
The Nobel Peace Prize may also have become the most prestigious one because we need it to be. Because we are all searching for new ways to peace and conflict resolution in a world desperate for tools and methods. The world around us is marked by conflicts getting more and more complex, and the largest refugee crisis we’ve known in many decades. More and more, the world around us looks like a multi-layered centrifuge of new unpredictable conflicts and powerful actors fighting to promote their own interests. But while international institutions are struggling with finding ways forward because of lack of consistency, agreement, and responsibility among all their member states, the Nobel Prize is an institution, an archive and a knowledge bank with high relevance for our times and our future.
The 126 laureates represent a mine of information, experience and wisdom showing us what works and what does not work in peace-building: from the movements that tried to bridge the political cleavages of Europe some decades back to the negotiation skills of Martti Ahtisaari and Theodore Roosevelt. From the laureates who were involved in nation-building like Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and José Ramos-Horta to those who saw the importance of economic reconstruction like George Marshall. From those understanding the correlation between climate change and peace like Al Gore and Wangari Maathai to those fighting for human rights like Amnesty International, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and Aung San Suu Kyi. From those advocating for women’s participation in securing peace like Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkol Karman to the example of Malala Yousafzai campaigning for education as a building block for peace. This bank of knowledge built upon all the Nobel Peace Prizes is just as relevant today as when they were awarded. Innovation usually starts with analysing and testing out available information into new settings and twisting and turning the methodology and adapting it to new surroundings. That is also the case when it comes to peace-building.
So, while we are happy and proud about the 126 laureates already in our knowledge bank, we are waiting eagerly for the 127th. Only hours to go!
