Maria Corina Machado Parisca of Venezuela won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. No doubt that President Trump is very disappointed as he and his people appear to have tirelessly campaigned for the honor.
That goes to show that no matter how much one wants something and how political one gets in trying to achieve it, there are honors that reflect objective truths to jurors that do not include alternative realities and narratives in their thinking. Ironically, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Trump loyalist, was among those that recommended Machado for the Prize.
Along these lines is the work of Nikola Jokic who helped to make the Denver Nuggets worthy of world championships without seemingly concerned about his winning three Most Valuable Player NBA awards in the process. He has reached so much for something beyond himself that anything personal is secondary.
I first became very interested in the meaning of the Nobel Prize recognition when one of my three favorite intellectuals, Octavio Paz, received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990. The others are Carlos Fuentes who also was nominated several times for the honor and Gabriel Garcia Marquez who received the Nobel award for Literature in 1982.
I had the honor of spending time with Paz and Fuentes. Paz and his devastating dissection of the Mexican soul left an imprint in my own being and sense of self.
Fuentes’ work as a premier novelist of Mexico illuminated the human side of a dark pre-Colombian past that is today becoming the foundation of the Mexican new and emerging identity. He came to Denver several times and with every talk he gave and every conversation we had, confirmed a literary treasure, sometimes hidden in plain sight.
Also, who can forget Garcia Marquez and his great novel One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), the seven generations of the Buendia family and the village of Macondo he created. His magical realism reinvented the lives of that family and their community several times.
The Nobel Prize is awarded in Chemistry, Physics, Literature, Economics, Medicine and Peace. Although the awards have an equal status, Peace has garnered the most attention because it is awarded for international work in the most sensitive of areas.
The first American to receive this award was Theodore Roosevelt for mediating the Russo-Japanese War in 1906. This was followed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 for his role as a founder of the League of Nations, Secretary of State Frank Kellogg in 1929 for the Kellogg-Brian pact that renounced war as a national policy, Secretary of State George Marshall in 1953 for the Marshall Plan to reconstruct Europe, Martin Luther King in 1964 for civil rights advocacy, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1973 for his effort to end the Vietnam War, Vice President Al Gore for his advocacy on the environment and President Barack Obama for his contributions to international diplomacy.
The Nobel awards in other categories include Milton Friedman and Paul Krugman in Economics in 1976 and 2008 respectively and Toni Morrison, the Black writer for her work in Literature in 1992. It is clear that the efforts of all the Nobel Prize awardees, Americans and others around the world have historic significance.
It is also clear that constructing an elaborate campaign and using political power to garner a successful outcome in this regard does not guarantee that the institution will bend to that power. For the nominee, the Nobel process is an exercise in achievement and much luck.
The views expressed by David Conde are not necessarily the views of LaVozColorado. Comments and responses may be directed to News@lavozcolorado.com.
