Top 5 Nobel Fails

Some people might be thinking, “Why did Barak Obama get a Nobel Peace Prize? He hasn’t even done anything yet! ” Valid though this may be, there are a number of other people who deserve it even less than he does. Counting down, my top five are:

5. Wangari Maathai, 2004

Maathai won her Prize for “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace,” presumably from her work with the Green Belt Movement she founded. Basically, they plant trees. While planting trees in Africa likely does improve the economy, replenish fuel sources and stop erosion, which may lead to reduced poverty, which in turn might reduce conflict, it’s not like she ended a war or stopped Saddam from getting The Bomb. Furthermore, she might be a crazy conspiracy nut. It is alleged she has said AIDS is a Western plot to kill Africans. Maathai denies she ever said this, but clarified by pointing out everyone knows where AIDS comes from and “it did not come from the monkeys.” She is right, though. It was those damn dirty apes!

4. Cordell Hull, 1945

Mr. Hull was FDR’s Secretary of State and got his Nobel Prize for his work helping to establish the UN, amongst other things. However, his record as a diplomat has one serious black mark. In 1939 the SS St. Louis left Germany with nearly a thousand Jewish refugees. Roosevelt considered taking in some of them, but Hull and a group of Dixiecrats were so opposed they threatened to not support his 1940 presidential run. The Americans tried to get Cuba to take the refugees, but talks failed. They returned to Europe and over a quarter of those on board died in the Holocaust. But we shouldn’t be too quick to point fingers; Canada turned them away, too.

3. Theodore Roosevelt, 1905

In a rare moment of not spreading violence around the world, Teddy took some time out in 1905 to negotiate peace between Japan and Russia earning himself the Nobel Prize in the process. Pretty much the rest of his career involved spreading war, rather than peace. Ted first came to national attention after he resigned his desk job in the Department of the Navy to lead a group of volunteers who came to be known as “Roosevelt’s Rough Riders” in the invasion of Cuba. Despite their name, only Teddy had a horse, and even he got off and walked when the horse got tired before he did. And they still won! After he became president he still walked around armed and was a champion boxer. When not killing people himself he had the American Army violently suppress a rebellion in the Philippines, including the use of concentration camps.

2. Yasser Arafat, 1994

Sharing his Prize in 1994 with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin for their Oslo negotiations, Arafat’s appearance on this list shouldn’t be a surprise given that he was a terrorist. Unlike that wuss Hull, he was willing to kill Jews himself, not pass it off on the Nazis. Comparisons to Nelson Mandela, who was also labelled a terrorist, are not fair. Mandela at least tried to be peaceful, called for democracy and was at least a little more subtle if he ever called for killing all the white men. Arafat started as a guerrilla and his stated goal was the destruction of Israel. Also, Mandela achieved his goal without starting a war or ethnic cleansing, whereas the Palestinians are more fenced off and divided than ever. History likes a winner.

1. Henry Kissinger, 1973

Kissinger “won” his award for his work on the Vietnam Peace Accords. The irony of this might be best shown through analogy. Suppose you inherited a house that was on fire. Then you spread the fire to all the neighbouring houses. When the fire is too difficult to control, you then put it out leaving the neighbourhood more or less destroyed. Meanwhile, you encourage your friends to drop Argentinean left-wing dividends out of helicopters into the ocean. Wait, that last part wasn’t a metaphor. In any case would you be a hero? Is Kissinger? Apparently several people on the Nobel committee didn’t think so either, because his Prize made them resign in disgust.

In summation, Mother Theresa got lucky I only counted to five.

Jesse Wilson is a volunteer writer for The Baron.