Nobel Peace Prize: Did it become a tool for US resource grabs?

Regime-change pusher María Corina Machado getting the Nobel Peace Prize should make it clearer than ever that the award is just another tool for Western resource grabs in the Global South. But when did that start? Has it always been this awful?

The Nobel prize may talk a good game about peace, human rights, and democracy. But its dodgy decisions have been undermining that facade since the start of the 20th century. And things have only got worse, with it now openly praising an elitist extremist just as her US sponsors are pushing for another oil-grabbing invasion.

The Nobel Peace Prize is a more vibesy sidekick to US warmongering in Venezuela

The Nobel prize claims Machado has been ‘promoting democratic rights’ and wants a ‘peaceful transition ‘ of power in Venezuela. But in reality, she’s a big fan of Israel’s genocidal settler-colonialism, and once asked wanted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu to ‘apply his strength’ to regime-change her homeland.

Machado hasn’t just consistently called for foreign intervention. She has also praised the Trump regime’s illegal executions in recent months. And she’s been pretty clear that this is not so much about democracy or human rights, but about “a $1.7tn opportunity” for corporations via a “massive privatisation programme” if she gains power.

The ‘Venezuelan Margaret Thatcher‘ is a wealthy neoliberal extremist. And she has deep links to billionaire efforts to reassert corporate control over Venezuela’s massive oil wealth. But because she packages her beliefs in a soft, media-friendly way, that makes her a great candidate for the Nobel prize’s ‘vibesy imperialism’.

Donald Trump has long been obsessing about getting the award himself. But he doesn’t even pretend to care about democracy or respecting the rule of law, as his assassinations and capture of Venezuelan resources have shown. He wears his imperialism proudly and openly. So it would be too much of a risk to give him the prize.

Giving the award to someone most people don’t really know works well. That way, they don’t see the hypocrisy as clearly. And the Nobel prize can keep its role as a subtle servant of Western interests.

Nobel’s long history of serving Western interests

There are cases of unworthy winners of the Nobel Peace Prize going back to the early 20th century. But the Cold War reframed things. And as a book by lawyer and peace activist Fredrik S. Heffermehl has revealed, in recent decades the award has:

come under increasing political, geopolitical, and commercial pressures to make inappropriate awards

The people in charge have increasingly been:

using the prize to promote their own political and personal interests instead of the peace ideas Alfred Nobel had in mind.

Since 1945, Just International points out, the prize:

has shown a clear preference for laureates whose work aligns with Western narratives of democracy, free markets, and liberal interventionism.

Others argue that it has become a joke as a result.

In the 1970s, for example, notorious war criminal Henry Kissinger received the prize. This is the man responsible for orchestrating some of the 20th century’s worst atrocities, which slaughtered millions of people. As peace campaigner Medea Benjamin said in 2016:

I think the Nobel Peace Prize has been very compromised over the years. I think that if you give a peace prize to Henry Kissinger, who is one of the worst war criminals alive today, then how can you feel good about the Nobel Peace Prize itself?

Israeli terrorist Menahem Begin also got the award. As did South African apartheid leader F.W. de Klerk. Then, Barack Obama got it, despite regime-changing Libya, overseeing a massive drone-assassination programme, backing coup regimes, and aiding Israeli war criminals.

The people awarding the prizes always had reasons they could use to defend their choices. But when recipients have also directly harmed people at home or abroad, the justification quickly evaporates.

The smiling face of neoliberal imperialism

Neoliberalism is the extreme capitalist ideology that has brought the world increasing privatisation, austerity, community destruction, and the smashing of rules in favour of wealthy elites. It has brought great suffering to the planet.

However, the Nobel Peace Prize has proved once and for all that virtue-signalling about positive concepts like peace, human rights, and democracy matter more than actually ending human suffering. From Mikhail Gorbachev to Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel prize has carefully chosen recipients that don’t pose a threat to the rich and powerful in the West.

And with its choice of María Corina Machado, Indian journalist Shujaat Ali Quadri says, it has exposed once and for all its mission: