MCT CampusAll freshmen at San Diego State should immediately be awarded undergraduate degrees. Sure, they haven’t actually completed any units, but I hope this recognition inspires them to do great things in the future.
Does this sound ridiculous to anyone? Well, this is essentially the logic employed by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in awarding President Barack Obama this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. And it is this methodology that has driven the once-prestigious award into irrelevancy, which is now nothing more than a means of advancing a particular political ideology.
According to Alfred Nobel’s will, the peace prize winner, selected by a five-member panel appointed by the Norwegian government, should go “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses,” according to www.nobelprize.org.
In the past, Nobel prize winners were people who, we could universally agree, had done something extraordinary 8212; people such as George Marshall, who helped rebuild Europe after World War II and Mother Teresa, who dedicated her life to fighting sickness, hunger and poverty.
But in recent years, the bestowing of the Nobel Peace Prize has simply been a way to reward people of a certain ideology. It goes to people such as Yasser Arafat, a known terrorist who stole millions from his own people and perpetuated the conflict in Israel, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, who has been accused of withholding information on Iran’s nuclear program and Al Gore, who continues to make millions of dollars off an unverified and highly contested scientific theory of man-made climate change.
Obama has certainly articulated and begun implementing his vision for peace, a vision which meshes perfectly with what the committee was looking for: Conciliation.
Obama fits right in to this dubious group of people, perhaps even more so than most. After all, his actions and future intentions have created peace around the world, right? He’s creating peace in Israel through a unilateral disarmament and contraction of the Jewish state without asking anything in return of the Palestinians. He’s creating peace in Iran by dragging out the negotiating process until it has nuclear weapons and we cannot attack.
And he’s creating peace with Russia by removing our missile defenses in Eastern Europe.
When people blame America for the world’s problems, assume all conflicts can be solved by dialogue and detest American dominance, then all recent recipients are beyond deserving. But for those of us who see America as a force for good, that understand there is evil in this world that needs to be confronted, and know an American-dominated world based on freedom and liberty is infinitely better than the alternative, we should start to question the honor we give recipients of this award.
“Fraternity between nations” does not mean submitting to the will of tyrants and despots. Creating peace does not mean legitimizing and making concessions to those threatening your way of life. Unfortunately for the rest of us, the panel doesn’t see it this way.
So until the selection committee detaches itself from its political meddling, it should be left to fade into irrelevancy.
8212;Tucker Wincele is a political science and economics junior.
8212;This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Daily Aztec. Send e-mail to opinion@thedailyaztec.com. Anonymous letters will not be printed 8212; include your full name, major and year in school.
