never judge a book…
Imagine for one second being the White House aide that drew the short-straw and had to wake-up El Presidente last week to tell him he hadn’t won this year’s Nobel peace prize? Man alive what a job!
Notwithstanding Trump’s loss, winning a Nobel prize obvs isn’t easy but the awarding of one, at the rarefied ceremony in Sweden, usually brings fame and fortune in equal measure to the lucky recipients. The date of the ‘feast of all feasts’ awards ceremony, 10th December, marks the death of Alfred Nobel, the industrialist who instituted five prizes in the fields of chemistry, physics, medicine, literature and the pursuit of peace. Much later, one was added for economics to celebrate the 300th birthday of the Swedish central bank.
So who was this vastly successful chemist, engineer, businessman and philanthropist, the modern-day amalgam of Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama, Alfred Nobel?
Born into poverty in Stockholm in 1833, Nobel worked with his brother, Emil, to develop a safe version of the powerful, newly invented yet highly unstable explosive, nitroglycerine. Unfortunately, just prior to their discovery that the addition of an inert sand made it controllable and safe to handle, an explosion saw off the brother. Ironically, Emil Nobel, along with several other workers, became the first people killed by this new explosive, eventually patented as dynamite. Quick to see the potential of this product he introduced an effective blasting-cap, other explosives such as gelignite and established a number of armaments factories including Bofors, which exists to this day.
Now rich beyond his wildest dreams, the story goes that he was horrified to read a French obituary of himself, published in error when his other brother Ludvig (credited with creating the whole of Russia’s oil industry) died, with the headline: ‘The Merchant of Death is Dead’. Would this supposed quiet, introspective, literature-loving pacifist be remembered in such a manner? Not if he could help it and his hand-written will ensured that after his death in 1896, he would rewrite history and leave a profoundly different legacy, bequeathing 31 million Swedish kronor, more than 90% of his vast fortune, to set up the Nobel Foundation and administer these baubles. First awarded in 1901, to great excitement around the globe, the prize money and lavish festivities soon made them the world’s most prestigious awards and quickly eradicated any memory of arms-dealing and unfortunate associated fatalities. Money talks.
The peace prize has long been controversial and its failure to recognise Gandhi still raises eyebrows. Rewarding Nixon’s Foreign Minister, Henry Kissinger, and North Vietnam’s Le Duc (Ho Chi Minh’s right hand man) while their nations were still very much at war seemed at odds with the awards’ guiding statement ‘to those who shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind’. As it transpired, the communist refused to accept it in any event, as the US violated the truce and continued to bomb Hanoi. Ethiopia’s Abiv Ahmed was a recent recipient though his country was raging a particularly violent civil war. Particularly galling to Tiny Hands is the fact that in 2009 it was awarded to Barack Obama for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”. A little vague I agree but don’t worry Donald, there’s always next year.
