Mona Charen has a great post on the meaning of the Nobel Peace Prize.
She concludes, with good reason I think, that despite some outrageous and idiotic awards, all in all the Peace Prize has done a lot of good. It is a very effective way to instantly focus world attention on extraordinary-- and often very heroic-- work.
The Prize did much to bring deserved recognition to heroes of peace-- Norman Borlaug, Mother Theresa, Lech Walensa, and Liu Xiaobo are good examples.
Yet the Nobel committee erred by commission and omission in ways that are difficult to comprehend. How did they award a Nobel Peace Prize to Yasir Arafat, the inventor of airline hijacking? To Le Duc To, a communist thug who helped build the Vietnamese gulag and drove the boat people to perish at sea? To Al Gore, a dimwit ex-politician who turned junk science in to a personal investment fortune? To Barack Obama, just beginning his first real full-time job?
Where was the prize for Konrad Adenauer, the German Chancellor and courageous anti-Nazi who rebuilt West Germany out of the ruins of WWII? Or for Winston Churchill, who was responsible perhaps more than anyone for the defeat of Nazism? Or Oscar Schindler, the German businessman who saved 1200 Jews from Hitler's gas chambers? Or Douglas McArthur, who was instrumental in the rebuilding of Japan after the devastation of WWII? Or Ira Sendler, a Polish woman who risked her life to save 2500 children from the Warsaw ghetto (she was nominated in 2007 but passed over for.. Al Gore)? Or Mohandas Gandi, whose peaceful thirty-year struggle gained India her independence? Or Ronald Reagan, whose courageous and wise leadership bankrupted the Soviet Empire and led to the radical reduction in risk of nuclear war?
And of course, what about Pope John Paul II, perhaps the 20th century's most courageous and effective man of peace, whose ceaseless non-violent labor for human freedom and dignity finally swept European Communism into the dustbin?
The Nobel Peace Prize is a mixed blessing. Luckily for the heroes of peace who are not formally recognized, there is Another-- the Prince of Peace-- who judges after all is said and done.
She concludes, with good reason I think, that despite some outrageous and idiotic awards, all in all the Peace Prize has done a lot of good. It is a very effective way to instantly focus world attention on extraordinary-- and often very heroic-- work.
The Prize did much to bring deserved recognition to heroes of peace-- Norman Borlaug, Mother Theresa, Lech Walensa, and Liu Xiaobo are good examples.
Yet the Nobel committee erred by commission and omission in ways that are difficult to comprehend. How did they award a Nobel Peace Prize to Yasir Arafat, the inventor of airline hijacking? To Le Duc To, a communist thug who helped build the Vietnamese gulag and drove the boat people to perish at sea? To Al Gore, a dimwit ex-politician who turned junk science in to a personal investment fortune? To Barack Obama, just beginning his first real full-time job?
Where was the prize for Konrad Adenauer, the German Chancellor and courageous anti-Nazi who rebuilt West Germany out of the ruins of WWII? Or for Winston Churchill, who was responsible perhaps more than anyone for the defeat of Nazism? Or Oscar Schindler, the German businessman who saved 1200 Jews from Hitler's gas chambers? Or Douglas McArthur, who was instrumental in the rebuilding of Japan after the devastation of WWII? Or Ira Sendler, a Polish woman who risked her life to save 2500 children from the Warsaw ghetto (she was nominated in 2007 but passed over for.. Al Gore)? Or Mohandas Gandi, whose peaceful thirty-year struggle gained India her independence? Or Ronald Reagan, whose courageous and wise leadership bankrupted the Soviet Empire and led to the radical reduction in risk of nuclear war?
And of course, what about Pope John Paul II, perhaps the 20th century's most courageous and effective man of peace, whose ceaseless non-violent labor for human freedom and dignity finally swept European Communism into the dustbin?
The Nobel Peace Prize is a mixed blessing. Luckily for the heroes of peace who are not formally recognized, there is Another-- the Prince of Peace-- who judges after all is said and done.
...Winston Churchill, who was responsible perhaps more than anyone for the defeat of Nazism?
ReplyDeleteHis famous words Some chicken, some neck still ring LOUD today!
...what about Pope John Paul II...
His famous pardon of the author of his assasination attempt still ring LOUD today!
Thank you, Dr. Egnor, for this "extraordinaire" post.