Chinese element in Nobel committee’s self-stirred brew

More than the Nobel Prize, it was the Nobel Committee that grabbed headlines this year.

In the weekend preceding the Prize ceremony, when Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai were getting ready for the arclights in Oslo, when public and media interest in the prize was peaking, the Nobel Committee’s Director, Geir Lundestad, dropped a bombshell.

In a stinging newspaper interview, Lundestad took potshots at the committee’s chairman and at the Norwegian Parliament. The controversy may be a Norwegian affair, but the Chinese angle to it has evoked wider interest. Thus, in a year when India and Pakistan expected to hog the limelight, China cast its long shadow over the prize event.

In his interview, Lundestad — who is retiring as Director of the Nobel Institute after 25 years — raised three points, besides taunting committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland for his poor grasp of English.

He said that politicians, especially former prime ministers and foreign ministers, should not be in the committee, to which only Norwegians should be nominated and foreigners should be kept out.

Labour Party’s Jagland is a former prime minister and foreign minister. His lack of proficiency in English has been criticised by others, too, in the past. Giving the prize to Satyarthi and Malala might be Jagland’s last public act as Chairman.

The five-member committee appointed by Norway’s Parliament has two from the Labour Party, two from the Conservatives and one from the Progress Party. At present, it reflects the composition of the Parliament and the ruling Centre-Right coalition.

The controversy has revived the debate over whether the Nobel committee is independent of the Norwegian government and whether the Committee mirrors the prejudices of Norwegian politicians as reflected in its Parliament and ruling dispensation. While leading political figures have lashed out at Lundestad for his remarks, particularly against Jagland, there are those who defend the “issues raised by him”.

“Lundestad has not done the right thing by giving this interview and targeting Jagland. The timing of his interview — just before the Prize ceremony and before his retirement — makes his utterances suspect. Yet there is some merit in the questions he has raised”, said a prominent ex-MP of the Labor Party. An important minister, who belongs to the Conservative party, is loath to defend Lundestad and disapproves of him going public, admits that “there are points in his interview which, in the public interest, cannot be ignored”. Not many agree with him though.

Berit Reiss-Andersen, a legal luminary and well-regarded committee member says, “It should be appreciated that the committee has a mixed representation of people with a political background and from civil society, and it has to function as a cohesive entity. The Nobel Peace Prize is the world’s most prestigious prize, made so by all preceding committees. That means the Norwegian parliament has not done a bad job in the people they have chosen”.

The storm of the Nobel committee is viewed as “continuation of the backlash” for awarding the Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in 2010. China flayed the decision as a blatant political act which showed Norway’s contempt for its judiciary and froze trade and diplomatic relations. With China shutting all doors against it, Norway was in a funk. Its foreign ministry moved an internal note on whether Oslo should apologise to Beijing to make amends for the choice of Liu. The note was never pursued, but there is suspicion in informed political circles that China’s grievance is at the root of the current controversy, and it is being stoked by sections eager to placate China.

The author had travelled to Norway on the invitation of the Norwegian government