Crazy, right? Now I appreciate that some would see a politician who lead his nation at war as a less than ideal candidate for a peace prize, but in doing so, they would have to argue that there was no moral or ethical difference between the two sides in WWII, and really IS crazy!
There has been a weird moral calculus related to this prize for some time, as your reference makes clear, but it seems to be getting worse. At least they found some way to acknowledge Mr. Chuchill!
I hear you, but I actually think that what they are doing is worse than mindless self-congratulation and dilution of a meaningful award. I think that they are polticizing the award in potentially dangerous and ugly ways.
The comittee's statments are clearly agressively post-nationalist, and are more concerned about the existance of national identity in Europe, than they are about the fact that the EU may fail for economic, not cultural or politcal reasons.
On top of that, the Chair of the group went to so far as to blame Europe's economic failures entirely on the United States in general, and on Lehman Bros. in particular!
Your trivia question was anticipated by our first commenter, and the answer is Winston Churchill for Literature. As I pointed out, that decision simply underscores that the process has been damaged for some time.
To say that not starting a world war for 50 years merits the highest profile award for peace, especially in the case of Europe, is like saying that a former child abuser deserves Parent-of-the-Year for no longer beating his/her kids. When you add to that the EU's response to the Balkan crisis, crises with various immigrant populations, and a host of other issues, not to mention the rising tide of violence in Greece, Spain and other locations, the whole things smacks of ugly fakery at worst, and naive silliness at best.
You are so correct -- both in your general observation about the EU, and your concrete example re Cyprus, whatever that solution might come to look like.
Of course, your comment surfaces the real shame of all this. There is no new thinking in Europe. Instead, we are witnessing a rising wave of old-fashioned ultra-nationalism bordering on fascism on the one hand, and morally ambiguous, post-nationalism on the other. Neither is new, and both are dangerous.
The prize committee land squarely in the latter camp and the prize is now almost always about reward that approach.
Well, especially since you mentioned Mr. Nobel, who made a living creating explosives and then endowed a peace prize, you can at least endow the continuity of irony represetned by the EU getting the prize!
On a more serious not, blaming Europe alone for the economic crise facing the world, is as overly narrow as as Mr. Jagland blaming it all on the US. In a global economy, we share responsibility. While people can debate the proportion that different parties should bare, it seems safe to say that all could do better.
Although the Middle East Peace process is a mess, and it personally pained me to see Arafat get the prize (along with Israeli leader Shimon Peres), that the two of them could come together, and that a mass-murdering terrorist could come to see the necessity of peace, is no small thing.
If peace ever comes to the Middle East, I actually think that the choice of Arafat and Peres will be seen as wise, if morally ambiguous.
Great question. My 3 word answer: not one bit! If anything, I think this will stimulate more anger from the typically nationalist/isolationist elements in places such as Spain and Greece, who will see it for what it was -- a sop meant to molify them offered by those who truly oppose any real national identity for any country in Europe. It will make them dig in harder and behave even more foolishly. Everyone loses.
It will not, I think have that effect at all. For starter, the "humanitarian endevours" of the EU are selective and even dubious. They sit by when any conflict actually looms on their own doorsteps, and support action mostly when it is far away, costs them little, and allows them to avoid any real moral responsibility.
If anything, I think this will harden negative sentiment against the EU by those already most hostile. They see a prize committee that rewards trans- or post-natinalism at the expense of national identity and local need. Whether that is a fair characterization of the EU, it the prize givers have made that their own approach and want it to be the EU's as well.
Agaon, NO! And while I don't know if you are the creator of the term "Euroskepticism" or not, thank you for bringing it to our discussion! Love it.
No, I think this was a politcal play by those who hate nationalism as much as ultra-nationalists hate the EU, and will only harden those differences.
I am open to people getting the prize in advance of the peace they work for being achieved. In fact, the awarding of the prize can be quite useful in helping them to do so. But let them at least be active peace pursuers!
In this case, as with past awards that were entirely politcal, awards including those to President Obama when he was barely in office, the International Atomic Energy Comission, and Al Gore, it's about the committee's desire to make a politcal statement, not reward successful peace-makers, or peace-pursuers.
I certainly appreciate your idealism, and agree that a Europe at peace for 60 years is quite an accomplishment. That said, one could just as easily imagine celebrating that milestone by giving the prize to the United States for re-bulding post-war Europe, or more grotesquely, to Germany for starting WWII which lead to the devastation of Europe and the the awareness that war ultimately costs far more than one imagines.
When you add that analysis to the positively weird time of this, it's hard to take the award seriously, and easy to see how it was nothing more than a play for a particular politics, and totally unrelated to the EU's history which you describe so eloquently.
And it's hard not to share it. The EU has consistently taken stands based on how clean it can keep it's own hands, and how disengaged from tough moral questions it can remain -- especially when they fall closer to home. That doesn't mean they do no good however -- not by a long shot -- but giving them this particular prize, at this moment, degrades the prize itself.
And to be clear, the idea that the prize can legitimately be awarded as the reflection of an aspiration, not only for a completed task, should not be dismissed. But here, the committee claimed it was for attainments, and that is just not right. If they want the prize to be aspirational, and it can be that way some years and not others, they need to be honest about that. Instead, they avoid that issue and end up rewarding -- at least this year -- neither the pursuit of peace, nor it's attainment, but the pursuit of the committee's own politcal vision.
You are 1005 correct that organizations can, have, and sometimes should, win this prize. And you are correct about the past 60 years being peaceful. Of course most of that time of peace was maintained by the presence of a cold war, so the whole thing is abit more complicated than the picture you paint. It was as much about the enemy of my enemy being my friend, and mutally assured (nuclear) destruction, than it was about some grand vision of peace.
When those fact are added to the my question about what Europe living in peace and prosperity you are looking at, I wonder how wise this really was, and that it puting it mildly. Europe at peace? Ultra-nationalism, neo-fascisim and hatred of immigrants is rising faster in Europe than it has in all of those past 60 years put together. Prosperity? They are rioting in the streets in at least half a dozen countries!
Can we learn from the Europeans in many way? For sure! But let's not lose perspective on what Europe is, and where it could be headed.
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