2002 / march / 06
a protest
Received a mail calling for direct action. Looked like a petition at first, the kind i'm always very portial about - but on second look, it has both its heart and thoughts in the right place. and i like this opening line:
They say that satire died when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but if a Right-wing Norwegian MP has his way, the Nobel committee will be spitting on its grave.
it's a call to protest the nomination of Bush and Blair for the
Nobel Peace Prize. which i instinctively think would be a very bad idea,
precisely for the Henry Kissinger line. yet there is something about
the peace prize that is not to be forgotten: it is not there to just
praise the people who were peacefully all along, like the mandela's
of this world (and i use plural because there are more of them. not
many, but more than a few). but also for the people who, maybe after
a life spent in dirty politics, took the risk to reach out - which can
require huge courage.
that, oh irony, is how arafat got his prize. and it is a shame that
things have turned out the way they have now, in which he played
a major role, though it wasn't just him. and there are calls to
revoke the prize. but that's not the point. the prize was for his
courage at the time, to negotiate with his 'enemny', risking the
wrath of his allies, and even his people.
So - do B & B have this courage? i don't think so. the very least,
it's too early to tell. their virtue is that they haven't nuked
afghanistan - it could have been nixon in the office.
in other words, a little constraint. more than at least i feared.
but no way of putting their lives in the line.
in my eyes, that does not warrant a nobel prize.
but whether it warrants a protest to the committee - i'm not sure
about that, either.
