Jacinda or Greta? B2

Ardern’s empathy and action led to Christchurch Call and gun reform, but Thunberg’s approach alienates people

It would be a travesty if the Norwegian committee plumps for the environmental activist de jour Greta Thunberg as the recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize over Jacinda Ardern or even US President Donald Trump.

You would have to pity the five committee members handpicked by the Norwegian Parliament as they finalise their decision. Government officials are banned from being members of the committee, which is supposed to be fiercely independent.

But it is difficult to believe they can entirely divorce themselves from their domestic environment or the international political currents particularly when it comes to assessing someone as polarising as President Trump, for instance.

Trump is said — by himself @realDonaldTrump — to be particularly deserving of a prize. Barack Obama got one for rhetoric when he had been in the job less than nine months. But Obama conceded it was not in “recognition of his own accomplishments”.

In truth, Obama went on to boost the United States military budget spending by an average of US$653.6 billion ($1046.84 trillion) a year — US$18.7b a year more than George W. Bush. There was a huge expansion of US special force operations during the Obama presidency and unprecedented bombing via drones of targets in Muslim countries.

Trump has been nominated before by 18 members of Congress who said he deserved a prize for “his work to end to the Korean War, denuclearise the Korean Peninsula, and bring peace to the region.” The Congress members’ May 2018 letter cited his work in bringing the “international community” together to “impose one of the most successful international sanctions regimes in history.”

“The sanctions have decimated the North Korean economy and have been largely credited for bringing North Korea to the negotiating table,” the letter said.

Issues in the Middle East where the President’s Iran strategy has yet to bear fruit — together with the current impeachment inquiry — make a Nobel peace prize for Trump in 2019 seem unrealistic. Yet there is method to what many see as his madness.

So too, consideration of Ardern whose response to the Christchurch massacre was exemplary.

The New Zealand Prime Minister’s empathetic response has been praised worldwide.

In an environment where NZ security agencies have been more focused on potential Islamic threats within our own borders, rather than that of foreign white supremacists, Ardern managed to give dignity to the families of the 51 Muslims killed at the two mosques in Christchurch.

It could have been very different. Communities have been brought together and Muslim communities have acknowledged this worldwide. There was not a violent backlash.

This to me gets to the essence of what the Nobel Peace Prize should represent.

Not the vainglorious representation of Ardern as the “antiTrump” — which demeans both political leaders — but as someone who defused a potentially explosive situation by embracing the Muslim community.

Who can forget her compelling rhetoric on the same day of the attack: “We, New Zealand, we were not a target because we are a safe harbour for those who hate. We were not chosen for this act of violence because we condone racism, because we are an enclave for extremism. We were chosen for the very fact that we are none of those things.”

The world’s tallest building. the Burj Khalifa, an 829m-tall skyscraper in Dubai, was later lit up with a giant image of Ardern in hijab embracing a woman at the Kilbirnie mosque.

Ardern’s contribution went much further than mere rhetoric.

It later became clear that a livestream of the Christchurch terrorist attack was viewed about 4000 times before being removed.

The PM was instrumental in the Christchurch Call initiative to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. She was also active in changing NZ’s gun laws.

Against this is the Swedish teenager’s attempt to shame world leaders over climate change.

Thunberg’s confrontational approach simply alienates those she wants to convince.