Is the Nobel Committee Playing Politics?

Today’s announcement that President Sirleaf of Liberia has won the Nobel Peace certainly must have come as great news to the head of the Unity Party’s reelection committee in Monrovia. What a gift to have your candidate win the Nobel Prize just days before a hotly contested election.

I think it is fair to question the Nobel’s Committee judgement in awarding this prize in a situation where its announcement might be construed as a full-throated endorsement of President Sirleaf’s reelection on the part of the international community. The situation on the ground in Monrovia is much more nuanced than Madame Sirleaf’s coterie of uncritical foreign fans would have us believe. Many of the gains she takes credit for are real but they are still only benefiting a very small group of Liberian citizens.

What I find odd about this particular award is that the real heroic work of peacebuilding in Liberia occurred much earlier than Madame Sirleaf’s return to Liberia and election in 2005. As the film “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” revealed it was actually Leymah Gbowee, a co-recipient of this year’s Peace Prize, who did all the heavy lifting of peacebuilding while Charles Taylor was still in power. Madame Sirleaf is still defending herself against allegations that she was one of those responsible for the rise of Taylor in the first place. Granted she has explained herself on this issue but the fact that she has stuffed the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s recommendations under the rug makes one wonder what the game is here. On the second thought, the answer is simple: it’s celebrity politics.

In accepting the award the President stated that it:”belongs to the Liberian people.” Never have truer words been spoken.