The binary polemics about Venezuelan opposition candidate's Maria Corina Machado's Nobel Peace Prize obscure many shades of gray. On balance, it was far from the perfect choice, but it was not completely irrational. On the upside, the award did thwart Trump's infantile demands to cheat and bully his way into his global golf trophy.
The Committee's choice suggests an element of caution bordering on cowardice, designed to avert possible ungracious and infantile petulance from Trump. Not giving it to him risked serious damage to the Norwegian economy and a diplomatic rupture. Hence the "safe" choice.
Machado is, after all, an unrepentant Trump fan and her acknowledgement of his role in winning the prize is sincere and factual. Without the shameless lobbying from the White House, the Committee would probably not have picked her but, they had to throw something to the MAGA crowd to aver the tariff tantrums and possibly worse. Imagine the White House Reaction if the committee had en-Nobeled Lula, or Carney!
On the positive side the award undermines Maduro's authoritarian claims to legitimacy, which is why some shrill pseudo- Leftist groups - Code Pink springs to mind - have been so vociferous in condemning Machado's win.
There has been a strong statistical correlation between their support for Maduro, and for Milosevic, Putin, Al-Assad, Xi and similar thugs whose primary factor of unity is stated opposition to the West, even though they all do extensive business there, where they park their loot. Their opposition is really against the Western government lip service to human rights. And could they impose tariffs on Oslo?
Also on the positive side of the ledger, Trump's infantile eagerness for the award might finally have led him to pressure Netanyahu into a deal that Hamas had offered two years before. But did 60,000 really have to die to give Trump a chance of basking in feigned Nobelity?
As Trump wanted but failed to get, Henry Kissinger was awarded the prize for seeming to negotiate the end of a war that he had prosecuted ferociously, perhaps even genocidally! Kissinger's nomination betokened the death of satire according to uber-satirist Tom Lehrer. But it was an early sign that the committee looks at immediacy and headlines rather than reality. In fact, a special additional posthumous Nobel should be given to Kissinger's co-awardee Le Duc Tho, who refused the award because in reality there was no peace, not least because Kissinger and the US carried on prosecuting the war regardless.
Reputation plays a part as well. Mandela deservedly came out of prison smelling of roses and was so lionized by the liberal center and left that we all managed to overlook his continuing expressions of loyal and grateful support to Gaddafi, Al Assad, the Syrians, Moscow and similar regimes that had supported the struggle against an Apartheid regime that had been backed so firmly by Israel, the UK and USA.
Obama won his prize, not for what he had done on the world stage, but for what the naive Norwegians thought he was going to do, based on his speeches and demeanor and his historic victory. As the first Black US President he also seemed to augur a new politics freed of the historic prejudice which permeated the American body politic. The prize was a mistake, as, we now see, was the illusion of the end of racism.
It is, after all, the Peace Prize, and while there is a case for Machado getting it on behalf of the embattled and persecuted opposition, her rhetoric smacks less of Mahatma Gandhi and more of Ahmed Shalabi (look him up!)
Nor would the avowed devotee of Trump and Donald Milei get the so-called Economics Nobel even though it has tended to go those who engineered the growing global income disparity.
But if we assume that the award is on behalf of a brave and indefatigable opposition to the Venezuelan opposition, many of whom unite in wanting to vote out Maduro even if many of them deplore Trump's policies, economic and military, there is a strong case for the award, heartening the opposition and to some extent protecting them agains the dictatorship.
So, there is a case both for and against the Award. In the case of Kissinger two of the committee resigned in protest. Resurrect them! That type of berserker Viking steadfastness is called for in the face of the overwhelming pressures of expediency and bullying.
On balance, for Norway, the Nobel Prize, and Venezuelan democracy it was not a perfect decision but it was understandable and defensible.
No comments:
Post a Comment