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Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

nobelprize.org

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Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#14

Post by thimabi »

pyrale wrote: post #9

I have no issue with this laureate, but it is sad that the comittee could not find someone deserving that is working on a more current conflict. I guess this is not a positive outlook for the current state international conflicts.

At a time when Russia threatens the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Israel and Iran escalate tensions, North Korea tests missiles and warheads… it is hard not to relate the award to these circumstances.

Perhaps the committee thought it was best to express its opinion on current conflicts indirectly, as it has done so in the past.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#17

Post by mppm »

This is indeed a very timely award. I sometimes feel like the world has forgotten that nuclear weapons still exist and are still on hair-trigger alert to obliterate major cities. Maybe the end of atmospheric testing and the success of (now defunct) weapons reduction treaties has blunted public perception to the ongoing threat that they represent, and to the need to tread carefully where nuclear powers are involved.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#18

Post by Cthulhu_ »

pyrale wrote: post #9

I have no issue with this laureate, but it is sad that the comittee could not find someone deserving that is working on a more current conflict. I guess this is not a positive outlook for the current state international conflicts.

I'm just glad it looks like a legitimately given out award this time, instead of giving it to e.g. Peres, Arafat, Obama, Aung San Suu Kyi, etc.

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#19

Post by contrarian1234 »

It's a bit unclear to me why you need an organization that advocates against nuclear weapons. I'd argue the “nuclear taboo” is just the product of.. I don't just seeing one nuclear test video? It doesn't take the cataloging of witness testimony to see it's terror (though that may be important in its own right)

I'm not intimately familiar with Japanese self-perceptions - but from the outside it seems like post-WW2 the country really leaned into a view that "nuclear weapons are terrible" to the point of distraction - instead of a more self-reflective "nationalism is terrible" or something along those lines. There seems to be much less anxiety about preventing getting into a similar situations that triggered WW2: neo-colonial military bullying and domination of neighbors, xenaphobic oppression of ethnic groups, sycophantic following of cultural leaders etc. and an intense worry about the more tangeable use of nuclear weapons - which I'd argue is something that even if it were to come to pass would almost certainly never involve the Japanese people.

I wonder how this seeming diversion of public attention is perceived in Japan itself.

As I understand it, the anti-nationalist narrative was repressed due to anti-communist agendas of the occupation forces (ex: freeing of nationalist war criminals)

Would be curious to hear from anyone Japanese on the topic

Re: Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 awarded to Nihon Hidankyo

#20

Post by Dalewyn »

ignoramous wrote: post #6

[flagged]

Japan's national security policy is hypocritical given that it relies solely on the US nuclear umbrella for security despite disavowing anything to do with nuclear weapons, but unfortunately reality is not ideality.

Ukraine is the perfect example of what actually happens when a country discards its nuclear arsenal.

So yes, Japan is absolutely hypocritical and the Nobel Peace Prize has been the most vapid of all the Nobel Prizes, but for once this Peace Prize is actually trying to say something meaningful in an ever violent human world.

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