A Nobel Peace Prize鈥檚 universal aim
This year鈥檚 Nobel Peace Prize went to two civil society groups and one democracy activist, all of them champions of what the Nobel committee calls 鈥渇undamental rights.鈥� Yet the prize鈥檚 more telling message may lie in the location of the three winners: Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.
In an article last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the 鈥減eople鈥� of these three neighboring countries are a united civilization, a 鈥淩ussian world鈥� distinct from the West with its assertion of universal values (such as fundamental rights).
Just days after the article was published in July 2021, Belarus鈥� dictator rounded up many pro-democracy activists 鈥� including Ales Bialiatski, one winner of the 2022 peace prize. Seven months later, Russia invaded Ukraine.聽
Then last month, after an effort to annex eastern Ukraine to Russia, Mr. Putin again challenged the 鈥淲est鈥檚 dogmatic conviction that its civilization ... is an indisputable model for the entire world to follow.鈥�
The 2022 Nobel Prize could be a refutation of Mr. Putin鈥檚 notion that humanity is divvied up by civilizations, each entitled to its own facts with no binding, universal truths.
From his prison cell in Belarus, Mr. Bialiatski is perhaps subjected daily to Mr. Putin鈥檚 theories. One of his fellow prisoners and human rights activists, Valiantsin Stefanovich, sent out a letter last month citing constant state TV broadcasts 鈥渢rying to convince us that human rights and democracy are an invention of the 鈥榗ollective West鈥� that is 鈥榓lien to our traditional values.鈥欌��
Democracy, he wrote, 鈥渃annot be 鈥榳estern,鈥� 鈥榚astern,鈥� or 鈥榮outhern.鈥� The country鈥檚 either a democracy or not.鈥� The autocracies of Russia and Belarus, he warned, 鈥渟trive to impose their 鈥榮eparate civilization鈥� on other peoples, even by waging wars.鈥� Rights are universal and inalienable, and cannot be taken away from us, he added.
The Nobel committee has thrown a lifeline to those fighting for individual rights in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. This year鈥檚 award aims to honor those who see values such as liberty as inherent to all. Free in their own conscience, these activists see others as also free to embrace fundamental rights. As Mr. Stefanovich wrote, such work is one of peace, not war.
