20101124 Nobel prize strikes at the heart of tyranny

Nobel prize strikes at the heart of tyranny

By Chin Heng-wei 金恆煒

Although this year’s Nobel Peace Prize was given to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波), who was thrown behind bars by the Chinese authorities and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), I really think the award was not aimed at rewarding Liu so much as it was aimed against Hu and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP.)

Have you ever heard of Carl von Ossietzky? Who was he? He was also a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and he had something else in common with Liu. He was a prisoner of war and was locked up by Adolf Hitler. He was a reporter and his ideas opposing German military expansion angered the Nazis, in a way very similar to how Liu’s Charter 08 struck at the heart of tyrannical rule in China.

In 1936, when the Nobel Peace Prize was given to Ossietzky, the precedent for the prize representing an interest in and even “meddling” in the internal affairs of nation states was set, and the prize became associated with the protection of human rights and standing against -tyranny. In 1971, when then-German chancellor Willy Brandt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, he said that Ossietzky’s receiving the prize was a moral victory over barbarism.

The only difference this time around is that the barbarians the prize is aimed at defeating are Hu and China. Therefore, the crux of the matter is that the prize is like a “temple” and while the “god” the prize represents is not always something everyone can agree on, the “temple” always exists. This is why after Liu was awarded the prize, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Thorbjorn Jagland, said the following in an article in the New York Times: “The authorities assert that no one has the right to interfere in China’s internal affairs, but they are wrong.”

Jagland also said that the Norwegian Nobel Committee uses the prize to encourage people who have fought for human rights over long periods of time, citing people like Andrei Sakharov and the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr as examples. This shows how all the threats and fear tactics that China employs have been dented by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.

The award will be presented on Dec. 15 and China will find itself in a very delicate situation indeed because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will be damaged whether it keeps Liu in jail or lets him out. Will they let Liu or his wife attend the award ceremony? The CCP, of course, will not dare allow this and the fact that Liu’s wife, Liu Xia (劉霞), has been placed under house arrest proves the truth of Jagland’s comments even more.

However, the issue China really has to face is whether Liu’s receiving the prize will be the last straw in bringing down the CCP.

In Jagland’s words: “China has every reason to be proud of what it has achieved in the last 20 years. We want to see that progress continue, and that is why we awarded the Peace Prize to Mr Liu.”

French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville predicted a long time ago in his work The Old Regime and the Revolution that revolutions do not always happen because people’s circumstances are getting worse and that the most dangerous time for bad governments is normally the start of revolutions. Before it was announced that Liu would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) said in an interview with CNN that he would promote political reforms as much as he could for as long as he could despite social criticism and resistance. Will this be the case? I guess we will all have to wait until Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平) takes over the reins to learn the answer.

Chin Heng-wei is the editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine.