The other contentious Nobel Prize

Der Spiegel, which had no fewer than three articles about the Peace Prize yesterday, one of which wagged an admonitory though sad finger at David Cameron who, apparently, could not find it in him to say something nice about the EU "even now". If that is so, Mr Cameron gets this blog's full support for a change and very temporarily.

The newspaper did some finger-wagging of  its own about the other contentious Nobel Prize, the literature one. Personally, I think that is an even bigger joke than the Peace Prize, though it is awarded to people who have produced something by way of work. Mind you, nobody ever remembers who they are and, in any case, we all know that it is a matter of "buggins's turn", with the Swedish (this time) committee working out which country and which part of the world has not had one of those for a long time. They tend not to give it to a North American, especially not one from the United States despite a plethora of good and widely read writers there, as Philip Roth, for one, has pointed out. Americans do tend to win a very large proportion of the real Nobel Prizes in science but that is because political opinion is less important there and only scientific achievement matters. Unsurprisingly, some young hack at the Grauniad is unable to grasp that.

What Jason Farago does not mention in his headlong desire to prove that he is too sophisticated to read Philip Roth or Alison Munro but knows all about Mo Yan, this year's winner, is that this, too, is a political decision and aimed at being nice to the Chinese government.

As Der Spiegel writes:

After the Swedish Academy announced on Thursday that prolific novelist Mo Yan had become the first Chinese citizen to be awarded the prestigious prize, Beijing was quick to celebrate it as a national triumph. In a letter to the China Writers' Association, to which Mo belongs, the Communist Party's propaganda chief Li Changchun wrote that the award "reflects the prosperity and progress of Chinese literature, as well as the increasing influence of China." 

The historic news was also splashed across Chinese newspapers on Friday in a flurry of national pride -- unlike two years ago when imprisoned democratic activist Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Back then, Beijing spurned the accolade, calling it an affront to the award's tradition. In 2000, Beijing also disowned exiled writer and critic Gao Xingjian, now a French citizen, when he became the only other Chinese winner of the Nobel Prize for literature.

What does this remind me of? Ah yes. In 1958 the great Russian poet and author of Dr Zhivago, not published in the Soviet Union, Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Literature Prize. This signalled the start of a terrifying campaign of vilification against the man in his country. This included "spontaneous" demonstrations that demanded his exile (and it could have been much worse). Pasternak tried refusing the prize and even wrote a letter to Khrushchev explaining what he had done. It did not help. He was submitted to the ordeal of a "trial" by the Writers's Union. The prize remained his though he never collected it.

Seven years later the Committee decided to pacify the Soviet government and awarded the Literature prize to Mikhail Sholokhov, a Soviet hack and ferocious commissar in the literary world, whose one good novel is widely held to have been written by someone else. To be fair, Solzhenitsyn was awarded it in 1970 but the story of Sholokhov was never forgotten. Well, now we have another Sholokhov.

Prizes

First off, there is the Nobel Prize for Literature. It must have been Latin America's turn as Mario Vargas Llosa won it. Although the Washington Post is a bit sniffy about the man, he is, in fact, extremely well known. Whether either he or the impeccably left-wing Gabriel Garcia Marquez are widely read remains questionable but that is not quite why literature prizes are awarded. (Come to think of it, nobody quite knows why they are awarded.)

The surprising thing about Vargas Llosa is that he is well known to be a liberal (in the real sense of the word) in politics and economics. In other words, he is the precise opposite of the sort of person who usually gets the non-scientific prizes though there have been break-throughs here and there.

As the BBC reports

The Swedish Academy hailed "his cartography of structures of power" and "trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat."

Looks like none of them have read his novels either. I did try once but got nowhere but then I did not like Marquez either. There is, I note, very little mention of Mr Vargas Llosa's political stance.

Reason Magazine is far more informative:

The author of over 30 books - and very nearly the president of Peru - Vargas Llosa is one of the preeminent public intellectuals of the post-war era and one of the great libertarian heroes of the age at least since his highly public criticism of the Castro regime starting in the early 1970s. An outspoken critic of authoritarian regimes on the right and the left, who else but Vargas Llosa would have called for the legalization of drugs while addressing the American Enterprise Institute's annual dinner a few years back? He has been a consistent voice against repression wherever he finds it and an eloquent champion of freedom in all its manifestations. His insistence that all aspects of liberty - political, economic, and cultural - are inextricably linked is as powerful as it is rare among writers of his stature.

Certainly not Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whose views on Castro's Cuba are very different from those of Mario Vargas Llosa.

Meanwhile, a scandal is brewing about one of the scientific Nobel Prizes. The Physics Prize was awarded to two Russian-born scientists, now at the University of Manchester, Andre Geim, who has also won the IgNobel Prize in the past and Konstantin Novoselov. Incidentally, it ought to be pointed out that if the Cleggeron Coalition's plans to cap the only kind of immigration they can deal with, people like Novoselov will not be allowed into this country. Geim seems to be a Dutch national now. (Others have noticed this strange anomaly as well.)

However, there is a most absurd scandal brewing as another Russian scientist who is in Moscow has announced that the wrong people got the prize. He, Victor Petrik, should have been awarded and not these johnny-come-latelies. This could be fun.

Enough of all this. The really interesting prize was awarded yesterday in London at the Frontline Club. The Anna Politkovskaya prize, created in honour of the fearless Russian journalist, murdered four years ago, whose friend Natalya Estemirova, also a recipient, was subsequently murdered, was awarded to Halima Bashir, a Sudanese doctor who had written about atrocities committed in Darfur by the Sudanese militias in her book Tears of the Desert.

Muddled heads

On various occasions I have articulated my belief that left-wing feminists are seriously muddleheaded. Either that or completely dishonest. Of course, one does not preclude the other.

Let us look at a couple of stories that demonstrate the above contentions. Via Instapundit we hear that Code Pink, the most vociferous women's anti-war movement is reconsidering its attitude about withdrawal from Afghanistan.

An article in The Christian Science Monitor describes meetings between representatives of Code Pink and various women in Afghanistan with the latter falling over themselves to assure their American "sisters" that they do not wish to see American troops pull out as yet. The consequences of such an action in the country and especially as far as women are concerned would be catastrophic.

The surprised Code Pink representatives are reconsidering their position. The only problem is that, as far as women in Afghanistan are concerned, this is not exactly new. We have been hearing this for several years and Code Pink have been criticized for not paying sufficient attention to the plight of women in that country. What has made them change their minds? Could it be the fact that George W. Bush is no longer President? That Barack H. Obama is entitled to their support (assuming he does decide to stay in Afghanistan)? Could it be that the movement was not really about peace or American "imperialism" but about undermining a Republican President? Surely not.

Let us now look at something else. It is one of the cornerstones of left-wing feminism that opposition to Israel is the correct attitude; that feminists must support the Palestinian struggle, regardless of how that affects women.

Noah Pollak points to an interesting contrast on Commentary Magazine, linking back to relevant articles.

As the LA Times reports, this year's Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been shared between three people, two Americans and one Israeli. The latter is not only the first winner so far who is not American, either born or naturalized, but is also a woman, the first to win a science Nobel Prize since 1964. (One of the winners of the Medicine Prize was also a woman, this time an American.)

So that's Israel, where women can rise in their chosen profession as far as their abilities will take them and can win distinguished prizes for their work.

What of the Palestinians, the chosen cause of left-wing feminism? Fortunately, Noah Pollok provides another link. The Jerusalem Post tells us that in Gaza (where there are no Israeli troops so they cannot pull out any more) Hamas has banned women from riding on motorcycles as this is not in keeping with traditional Islamic ideas. (I don't suppose there were motorcycles in the days those ideas were developed.)

The decision to ban women from riding motorcycles was published by the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the movement's security forces in the Gaza Strip.

The decision is seen in the context of Hamas's efforts to enforce strict Islamic teachings in the area.

Two months ago, a Hamas judge issued an order requiring all women who appear in court to wear the hijab.

Men and women who are seen together are regularly stopped by Hamas policemen or militiamen who question them about the nature of their relationship.

Let us remember this the next time we hear feminist organizations proclaiming their support for Palestinians against Israeli oppression. Who exactly is being oppressed and by whom?