Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Zorro

(15,751 posts)
Mon Feb 1, 2021, 04:41 PM Feb 2021

You, too, can become a Nobel Peace Prize nominee

To the average reader, the news seems weighty. Former White House adviser (and presidential son-in-law) Jared Kushner was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in helping to shepherd peace deals between Israel and several Arab nations. The Peace Prize holds an outsize role in the public imagination, the ultimate indicator of the positive role a human being can play in the world. And here, it seems, the award might be on its way to Kushner — among the more polarizing figures in American politics over the past four years.

Except that he almost certainly won’t win it, any more than his father-in-law was likely to after his own nominations last year. As it turns out, while a Nobel Peace Prize nomination is a bit trickier than simply sending a guy in Norway a postcard with someone’s name on it, it’s not much trickier than that. A nomination is, in essence, as serious as the person doing the submitting — who is a member of a not particularly rarefied group of people.

Before we explain how you, too, can earn a Nobel Peace Prize nomination, it's worth letting a bit of air out of the award itself. Yes, it is an important designator of efforts to shape the world for the better. But it is not itself a guarantee either of the moral purity of its recipients or of the security of their accomplishments. As Reuters broke the news about Kushner's nomination, the news organization was elsewhere reporting on a coup in Myanmar, during which the country's elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was imprisoned by the military.

Suu Kyi is herself a Peace Prize recipient — and later faced trial for an alleged role in a genocide perpetrated against an ethnic minority in the country.

Should you seek to join such august company, you must first join the august company of Kushner by receiving a nomination to the prize. And for that, you're going to need to follow an exhaustive process, listed in order below:

1. Be nominated by a qualified individual.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/01/you-too-can-become-nobel-peace-prize-nominee/

Latest Discussions»Issue Forums»Editorials & Other Articles»You, too, can become a No...