Two Peace Prizes: Nobel Legitimizes War While US Peace Prize Honors Resistance
The Nobel Peace Prize was established in 1901. In the decades that followed, Mahatma Gandhi emerged as the international symbol of world peace for resistance to the dominant imperialism of his time – the British Empire. He was never recognized by the Nobel Committee.
The Nobel Committee has honored figures ranging from the admirable Martin Luther King Jr. to the war criminal Henry Kissinger. Barack Obama received the prize after less than nine months in office, a “premature canonization” for not being George W. Bush. He then used his acceptance speech to justify US military invention.