The grandiose politics of the Nobel Peace Prize

As the Nobel Prize week unfurled, I was only concerned about the Literature and Economics prizes, for those are areas which are closer to my heart than many others. The other areas on which the prize is awarded does not usually pique so much of interest but I do track the winners and their contributions. Over the past several years, many distinguished men and women have graced the prize for their impeccable contributions to the disciplines of Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace and Economics. I had a hunch the deliverance of the Literature and Economics prizes this year would be surprising affairs. My hunch came true but it turned out that for the first time in quite a few years, I would pay a great deal of attention to the Peace prize.

Last Friday, as the news of the Peace prize winners trickled in, I was in high spirits that children’s rights activists had won albeit I had never taken notice of Kailash Satyarthi before. Malala Yousufzai was a more prominent name thanks to the antics of Pakistan and Taliban.  During the course of that day and later during the night, I comprehended several notes, news items and anecdotes on Satyarthi and his Bachpan Bachao Andolan which was doing a first-class effort in trying to nullify child labor, a derisive evil. Apparently, Satyarthi and his team have saved more than 80,000 children from the bonds of slavery so far, which is very creditable.

There is no doubt Satyarthi and Yousufzai are worthy winners of the prize, not just together but even standalone. Nevertheless, the fact that they won the prize together raises a few eyebrows. In the lead up to the announcement of the prize, the relationship between India and Pakistan was following a tumultuous course and probably entwined towards an ugly war. The Nobel Peace prize committee members were very sentient of this and by deciding to award the prize to an Indian and a Pakistani, they have doubtless conjured antagonism among the fundamentalist/terrorist groups who do not fancy a seamless India – Pakistan relationship. It is highly improbable that the religious undertone in the award would be disregarded by these fundamentalist groups. Satyarthi’s aspiration to work with Malala in the future is also prone to add to the pressure in the region.

Yet another intriguing facet is the presence of Islamic fundamentalist groups such as ISIS in Norway and Sweden. It is extensively whispered that two Norwegians occupy leadership positions in ISIS and report directly to its supreme leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Curiously, a group calling itself Ansar Al Sunna, which could be an offshoot of ISIS for all we know, threatened in August 2014 that if a section of Oslo was not converted into a Sharia compliant nation, they would launch an attack on Norway far more barbaric than the 9/11 attacks. Their eyes are towards the area of Gronland, which is extremely close to the heart of the Norwegian Government. Gronland is only a tip of the iceberg and there certainly is an ostentatious vision behind all this.

It would also be interesting to pay attention to Anders Behring Breivik’s dastardly attack on Oslo on 22^nd July, 2011, which consumed the lives of 77 people. Remarkably, it is believed that Breivik is anti-Islam but nothing could be far from the truth. The Breivik Manifesto talks about collaboration with Islamic terrorists and it would appear that ISIS /Ansar Al Sunna are merely following in the footsteps of Breivik!

When this year’s Nobel Peace prize jury, some of whom I suspect are clandestinely ISIS/Ansar Al Sunna members, awarded the prize to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousufzai, they were really arousing the Pakistani community in Norway and particularly Oslo (they are one of the largest migrant communities in this Scandinavian nation). For a staunch Pakistani extremist, there is nothing that resents him/her than the mention of India. This instigation of anger among the Oslo Pakistanis, some of whom may already be members of Ansar Al Sunna, is a cunning ploy to lure them to attack Indians in Norway (only about a third of Pakistanis but greatly increasing in number) and thereby try to upset the apple-cart of the Indo-Pak dialogue and veer it into a more overwrought relationship. Such an attack would also bring the Indian and Pakistani governments into the picture, thereby creating a huge awareness on the ISIS/Ansar Al Sunna Islamic state propaganda in Scandinavia and perhaps other regions of the world. The Taliban, Al Qaeda, the Hisbul Mujahideen and the likes of Breivik would only be too pleased to sponsor and further this cause for a larger Islamic occupation of the world.

This is the grandiose vision of ISIS/Ansar Al Sunna. There are news reports about a merger between Taliban and ISIS as I write this. All this could connote only one thing – an imposing Islam Fundamentalists Axis (IFA) vs. the rest of the world led by the US, UK, India, Japan and Australia. The Nobel Peace prize committee may have just implanted the seeds for this. Only the wheels of time will reveal to us what is in store for humankind.