The Nobel Committee has awarded this year's Peace Prize to the EU.
This is the same committee that awarded the same prize to:
More on the Peace Prize, below.
So the Prize Committee have a track record of what might be termed odd or eccentric awards.
The 2012 Nobel Prize for Economics has yet to be awarded - given recent events who are the likely candidates? Greece's head of National statistics?, Jean Claude Trichet and Mario Draghi for their work defending the Euro project as the heads of the European Central Bank (flogging a dead horse might not seem a peaceful spectacle but it needs to be done) - but maybe that would make the award too Euro-centric - or, Ben Bernanke and Mervyn King for their work with Quantitative Easing - a policy designed to put money in the hands of banks that caused an economic crisis through their profligate policies , at the expense of future inflation, or maybe Gordon Brown - he touted himself as the 'saviou'r of the World economy back in 2008/9 (okay, so he squandered a golden fiscal inheritance and impoverished the UK along the way but still, you don't make a 'no more boom and bust omelet' without breaking some eggs.
Since institutions are the vogue how about Banking Regulators worldwide? Competence and foresight doesn't seem to be a requirement for the role so no blame for the economic state we are in, can be (or indeed is being) laid at their doors.
Or maybe, global leaders? Those that continue to deny and still add to deficits. I must confess an interest here because then our very own David Cameron and George Osborne could get a share of the prize.
I am not an English scholar and so don't know the word to describe when we move beyond parody but I think we just have!
Back to the Peace Prize. What to do with the 8,000,000 Swedish Krona (£750, 000, US$1,195,000) prize? This wouldn't fund Greece or Spain for many minutes (nor is there much hope that the money would actually reach the suffering people of those countries!). My suggestion, donate it to the families of the victims of Srebrenica. These people suffered directly as a consequence of the peace efforts of the EU. The toothless peacekeepers, from the EU, operating under the auspices of the UN (also a past Peace Prize winner) who stood by and let more than 8,000 mostly men and boys be taken away and massacred. This occurred in July 1995, just two months after 'Europe' and the EU was patting itself on the back and celebrating 50 years of 'peace' since the end of the Second World War.
Yes, give the money to Srebrenica, that is the true memorial to the EU!
This is the same committee that awarded the same prize to:
- Henry Kissinger, then US Secretary of State - while the US was secretly bombing Laos.
- Yasser Arafat - If not the father of modern terrorism, at least the uncle.
- Barack Obama - When he was newly elected and less than a year into his presidency and who has since sat on the international sidelines! (How has that 'open for dialogue with Iran worked out?)
More on the Peace Prize, below.
So the Prize Committee have a track record of what might be termed odd or eccentric awards.
The 2012 Nobel Prize for Economics has yet to be awarded - given recent events who are the likely candidates? Greece's head of National statistics?, Jean Claude Trichet and Mario Draghi for their work defending the Euro project as the heads of the European Central Bank (flogging a dead horse might not seem a peaceful spectacle but it needs to be done) - but maybe that would make the award too Euro-centric - or, Ben Bernanke and Mervyn King for their work with Quantitative Easing - a policy designed to put money in the hands of banks that caused an economic crisis through their profligate policies , at the expense of future inflation, or maybe Gordon Brown - he touted himself as the 'saviou'r of the World economy back in 2008/9 (okay, so he squandered a golden fiscal inheritance and impoverished the UK along the way but still, you don't make a 'no more boom and bust omelet' without breaking some eggs.
Since institutions are the vogue how about Banking Regulators worldwide? Competence and foresight doesn't seem to be a requirement for the role so no blame for the economic state we are in, can be (or indeed is being) laid at their doors.
Or maybe, global leaders? Those that continue to deny and still add to deficits. I must confess an interest here because then our very own David Cameron and George Osborne could get a share of the prize.
I am not an English scholar and so don't know the word to describe when we move beyond parody but I think we just have!
Back to the Peace Prize. What to do with the 8,000,000 Swedish Krona (£750, 000, US$1,195,000) prize? This wouldn't fund Greece or Spain for many minutes (nor is there much hope that the money would actually reach the suffering people of those countries!). My suggestion, donate it to the families of the victims of Srebrenica. These people suffered directly as a consequence of the peace efforts of the EU. The toothless peacekeepers, from the EU, operating under the auspices of the UN (also a past Peace Prize winner) who stood by and let more than 8,000 mostly men and boys be taken away and massacred. This occurred in July 1995, just two months after 'Europe' and the EU was patting itself on the back and celebrating 50 years of 'peace' since the end of the Second World War.
Yes, give the money to Srebrenica, that is the true memorial to the EU!
Yes, the award to Europe as a nation was an interesting choice to say the least. After the worst wars in history, Europeans want a kinder, gentler continent. Let's stop fighting and live better - but on someone else's money.
ReplyDeleteEurope is full of zombies. Everywhere you look you see a parasite. One is regulating the financial sector. Another is getting a subsidised apartment. Still another is retired at 55... enjoying a pension he never paid for.
And now we see rioting in the streets of southern Europe because it's payback time. Let's see in 5 years time if the award was deserved.
Yes, this is a really weird one and what's worse, in my view, devalues the awards that went to much more worthwhile recipients - people like Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams, The Red Cross, Albert Schweitzer, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu - these folks did really great things but the EU?
ReplyDeleteThe strange thing is that the implication is that without the EU, there would have been wars between the Western European powers. Who exactly was Luxembourg or Belgium going to attack? So maybe rather than the EU, the award should have gone to Germany, France and the UK??