The Oslo Syndrome
Peace, They Say: A History of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Most Famous and Controversial Prize in the World
by Jay Nordlinger
Encounter Books, 2012
(459 pages, $27.99, hardcover)
reviewed by Bradley W. Anderson
The Nobel Peace Prize is perhaps the most sought-after award on the planet. Nobel laureates, by dint of being invited to Oslo to receive the laying on of hands by the prize's committee members, become gurus on the international scene, treated as though endowed with biblically proportioned gifts of prophecy and moral authority.
Jay Nordlinger's Peace, They Say is not just a history of the Nobel Peace Prize. It is also a chronicle of the modern peace movement, which has been characterized by both well-intentioned idealism and well-documented follies. In his account, Nordlinger details what the international community has found fashionable at any given time—who's up, who's down, what's in, what's out.
By including at least a short account of every laureate from the founding of the prize to the present time, he also puts the achievement of this award into a certain mildly skeptical context, since some laureates are clearly more worthy of being called peacemakers than others. There have been laureates who have worked effectively because they have seen the world and mankind as they actually are. On the other hand, there have been all too many utopian dreamers who were convinced, as Nordlinger puts it, that the world is in "a great transition phase," the end of which will see a world government, perfect order, and peace without end.
Memories of Christendom
In Nordlinger's narrative, we also catch glimpses of an earlier time when many still had cultural memories and ideals of a civilization then still known as Christendom. When John Mott, the American founder of the YMCA, won the Prize in 1946, the committee lauded him as "a tireless fighter in the service of Christ." In later years, one doesn't again hear such language from the committee, but one does occasionally hear uncomfortable words from the laureates themselves.
There was, for instance, Albert John Lutuli, Zulu leader of the African National Congress, who was the winner in 1960 for his nonviolent approach to attempting to end apartheid in South Africa. Standing in tribal dress (perhaps the only way to get away with saying such things even in those days), Lutuli said in his acceptance address that "as a Christian and patriot," he
could not look on while systematic attempts were made, almost in every department of life, to debase the God-factor in man or to set a limit beyond which the human being in his black form might not strive to serve his Creator to the best of his ability.
There was also Mother Teresa, the 1979 winner for her lifetime of work in the slums of Calcutta, who doubtless caused many a listener's toes to curl with embarrassment when she stated that the "greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion."
Bradley W. Anderson writes from South Lake Tahoe, California. His feature article, "Kramer's Criteria," was the cover piece for the July/August 2013 issue of Touchstone.
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