When the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2025 Peace Prize to the US-sponsored Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, Western newspapers chorused their approval. They called her a “beacon of democracy,” a “symbol of peaceful resistance.”
But beneath the chorus of moral self-congratulation lies a century-long truth: the Nobel Peace Prize has never been a neutral honor. It has functioned as an ideological weapon — a ceremonial tool for legitimizing imperialism, sanctifying its agents, and discrediting those who resist it.