Reaction in Norway was pouring in after the latest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, always awarded in Oslo, had her gold Nobel medal framed and then gave it to US President Donald Trump. Maria Corina Machado, leader of the opposition in Venezuela, is now being accused of showing “a total lack of respect” for the Peace Prize itself, while Trump was branded as “a foolish show-off” and even resembling “a mafia boss.”
Professors, top Norwegian politicians from right to left and scores of others weren’t mincing words over how offensive Machado’s “gift” to Trump was, and how “absurd” it was that he accepted it. Calls were also going out to replace the entire five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee for awarding the Peace Prize to Machado in the first place.
While committee members and their leader Jørgen Watne Frydnes remained mum, administrators at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo repeated the rules attached to the Nobel Peace Prize that was established by the late Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel. The rules state that once a Nobel Prize is announced, “it cannot be revoked, shared or transferred to others. The decision is final and stands for all time.”
Trump had nonetheless written during the night that Machado had “presented me with her Nobel Peace Prize (during a meeting at the White House on Thursday) for the work I have done.” Trump even called her framed Nobel medal, on which her name was engraved, a “wonderful gesture of mutual respect.” Trump has earlier made no secret of his own desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize and recently claimed that “Norway was foolish” for not awarding the prize to him.
It’s all set off an uproar among usually stoic Norwegians, who have long been proud that Alfred Nobel wanted a committee of Norwegians (instead of his fellow Swedes) to award his new Peace Prize more than a century ago. Under the terms of Nobel’s will, the committee must represent the political make-up of the Norwegian Parliament at any given time. Members are no longer active politicians themselves but are elected by political parties based on how many seats each party holds in Parliament.
Members of Parliament are also among those now reacting to how Machado gave her Nobel medal to Trump (who has a penchant for gold) even though she’s the new Nobel Peace Prize laureate. “Now a Nobel Peace Prize is hanging in Donald Trump’s office, and that’s unfortunately a predictable consequence of the Nobel Committee’s decision,” Bjørnar Moxnes, foreign policy spokesperson for the far-left Reds Party. It thinks the committee needs to be reformed, even though that could clash with Alfred Nobel’s will.
“We think members of the Nobel Committee should be chosen on the background of professional qualifications,” Moxnes said, not by the actual parties in Parliament. The leader of the Socialist Left party (SV) Kirsti Bergstø, meanwhile, called Machado’s “gift” to Trump “absurd and meaningless.” Machado presumably still holds the Nobel certificate specially produced for her, along with the prize money that goes along with a Nobel, now around USD 1 million depending on exchange rates.
The leftist parties were far from alone in their criticism of Machado’s decision to give her medal to Trump. “Even though Trump now has the medal, that doesn’t mean he has received the Peace Prize,” stressed Ine Eriksen Søreide, the incoming leader of Norway’s Conservative Party. The leader of the conservative Christian Democrats fully agreed: “She (Machado) was awarded the prize, and even though Trump holds it physically, there’s no doubt she won it,” Christian Democrats leader Dag-Inge Ulstein told state broadcaster NRK.
Arild Hermstad, leader of the Greens Party that now cooperates with Norway’s minority Labour government, claimed that Trump was behaving like “a mafia boss … who pressures a Peace Prize out of a winner who’s in a desperate situation.”
Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, leader of the Center Party and former government partner of Labour in the last coalition government, was perhaps the most outspoken of top Norwegian politicians about how Machado gave her medal to Trump: “The fact that Trump accepted the medal says something about what type of person he is: A klassisk jålebukk (classic foolish show-off) who wants to decorate himself with others’ achievements and work.”
Vedum added that only “the person who was awarded the prize, has the prize.” It didn’t go unnoticed in Norway that Trump also contradicted himself once again when he claimed her gift was “a wonderful gesture of mutual respect.” Trump has earlier claimed that she lacks support and respect in her homeland of Venezuela, and has since recognized the country’s vice-president as its new leader after he arranged for the capture of Nicolas Maduro.
Machado declined comment on Trump’s disparaging remarks at the time. After the meeting with Trump in Washington DC on Thursday, where she gave him her framed Nobel medal, she only briefly described it their encounter as “great.”
Other critics in Norway included Professor Janne Haaland Matlary, who specializes in international policy at the University of Oslo. “This is unheard of, it shows a total lack of respect for the Peace Prize,” she told NRK, “and it’s a meaningless gesture, because you can’t give away a prize, so this is utterly pathetic.”
Matlary stressed that the problem wasn’t as much Trump himself, but the principle involved. She also thinks Machado’s decision to give away her Nobel medal showed a lack of respect for the Nobel Committee and the dignity of the prize. “She gives it away like it’s a trading item she can use in negotiations with Trump,” Matlary said, “as if in order to gain something, he should give her something in return.”
Several other professors and researchers said much the same, including Leiv Marsteintredet at the University of Bergen, who thinks Machado simply wanted to get on Trump’s “good side.” He said that Machado and her supporters “have probably thought this was something Trump would like, and would get him to express stronger support for the opposition than he did the day he took Maduro.”
Benedicte Bull, a Latin America specialist at the University of Oslo, agreed. Bull said Machado had been “sidelined by Trump, who’s been cooperating instead with the sitting regime (in Venezuela) through Delcy Rodriguez, and Machado has no role.” She’s thus trying to gain influence if Venezuela is eventually democratized, Bull said.
Raymond Johansen, a former diplomat and leader of Oslo’s city government for the Labour Party who now serves as secretary general of the humanitarian organization Norwegian People’s Aid, thinks Machado’s “gift” to Trump can damage both the prize and the reputation of the Norweigan Nobel Committee.
“This is unbelieveably embarrassing and damaging for one of the world’s most recognized and important prizes,” Johansen wrote on social media Friday. “The awarding of the prize has now become so politicized and potentially dangerous that it can easily legitimize an anti-Peace Prize development.”
He added that it was inconceivable that she would actually give her Peace Prize medal to Trump, but added “what in the world can the Nobel Committee say?” It’s also not the first time Peace Prize medals have been separated from their actual winners, either through auction or sale.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund
