Afrida Ahmed

The winner of one of the world’s most prestigious awards is often controversial. No less than 318 people and organizations are nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.The nominations are supposed to be secret, but the White Helmets search-and-rescuers in Syria, Pope Francis, and US President Donald Trump are expected to be on the list. Previous winners have been controversial, including Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, Vietnam war figure Henry Kissinger, and now Myamar’s Aung San Suu Kyi.Who are the other questionable winners from the past are all shown in “Inside Story” featured by Al Jazeera. The guests in the show were Fredrik Heffermehl- author of “Nobel Peace Prize: What Nobel Really Wanted”.Rohan Jayasekera – journalist and editor at Vivarta digital media news organisation.
Adrian Finighan, host of the show asked Rohan Jayasekera if Aung San Suu Kyi was a deserving recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. To this he replied that he thinks that she deserved when she received these prizes 26 years ago but also a lot could happen in a week in politics. In 26 years the country has transformed and its political situation is different but that’s no excuse of her lack of response on the Rohingya issue. He thinks that she should definitely step up not only on the behalf of Rohingyas but for the people of Myanmar as a whole.
Adrian then asked Fredrik Heffermehl if he thinks Peace Prize recipients who later violates principles for which they were recognized should have their awards revoked. He replied that he thinks that the committee is completely right in not going into the later miss chief of recipients that would be an impossible situation. He agreed that many should have their prizes revoked. He said that whether the recipient is worthy of the price that depends because this is a legal instrument and it also has to be treated like that. It has to be interpreted in a way that the idea of interpretation is to find the intention of the testator. What Fredrik tried to say was that the Nobel committee is not accurately honoring the Nobles. Later Adrian asked if the Nobel committee overlooked many people whose actions appeared to fit without Alfred Nobel’s true intentions why that was and could they do anything about it? Rohan Jayasekera replied that people should go back to the idea of the process being much more transparent. It might also help to revisit the rule that prohibits the giving of the award. He thinks that there were many people who goes back to the idea of the award being an endowment that if anybody took the memory of anyone and looked at the work of somebody who passed away and use that endowment to continue that person’s work then it would be constructive use of the award. It would also reduce the amount of chances of a person, changing for a freedom fighter 26 years later into somebody perhaps quite much less deserving. Adrian then asks Fredrick if he agreed with this.
To this he replied that he has a solution to this which he will launch in his upcoming book. Adrian tells him to at least give him a hint of what it might be but to this Fredrick replied that he will reveal it in his book.