Just Saying | The Nobel Peace Prize was always a joke; now it’s a total circus
Yonden Lhatoo questions the credibility and importance of the Nobel Peace Prize, with China-baiting US politicians nominating three Hong Kong student leaders for the award
If you look past all that hype, the Nobel Peace Prize has long been a laughing stock, but it has now, to all intents and purposes, been reduced to a total political circus, with none of the gravitas still commanded by its sister awards for scientific and academic advancement.
When realpolitik power-broker Henry Kissinger won it in 1973, the celebrated American satirical songwriter Tom Lehrer famously quipped that the award had just about rendered political satire obsolete.
That was because the world beyond the Norwegian Nobel Committee was calling Kissinger a war criminal for his culpability in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the 1960s and ‘70s.
There have been other highly undeserving winners over the years since, and even more ludicrous nominations as well.