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Barroso with a Nobel?
by Thanos Kalamidas
2012-10-14 10:14:17 |
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Don’t they say that the first reaction is the correct reaction? Well, my first reaction to the news from the Norwegian capital this morning was to laugh! After verifying the news I got a telephone call from a friend asking if I had heard and what I thought. He was laughing! And when it comes to the Peace Nobel Prizes, laughing is not the appropriate reaction, is it?
It was the same days in 2009 when we all read that the new elected American president was the winner of the Peace Nobel Prize and despite all the controversy, trying hard to understand the arguments and living in the middle of the high expectations his coming had built we accepted it. Nobody laughed. Some didn’t like it, some got angry but laughter was not included in the reactions. But after twelve hours from the announcement that the European Union was the winner of the 2012 Peace Nobel Prize I have to admit I still have a smile on my face every time I’m thinking of it.
I don’t want to be misunderstood; I’m pro-European all the way. I believe that the future of this continent is found in the unity and the reasoning is far beyond the common market and the common currency. What connect the over than thirty countries that consist this continent including even Russia are millennia of culture that mix and connect with each other. Europe is the place of the schizophrenic contradictions. The place democracy born and the place fascism thrived. The birthplace of Pericles, Aristotle, Sartre and the birthplace of Mussolini, Franco and Hitler. The place that started the bloodiest wars in history, global wars from the Peloponnesian war to the WWII and the place that gave settler to the most provocative and challenging personas in history. Is the place where the holocaust happened and it is the place of the French revolution that has inspired generations. Is the place that founded, rooted and evoluted arts and science. And in one way or another all the all the European countries have participated in the good and the bad times.
In the mid twentieth century the creation of a European institution that was aiming the unification of all the European states was the essence of this path through history. The European Convention on Human Rights is a monument in human history and guarantees freedom and equality not only for Europe but for the whole globe. The last half of the twentieth century Europe has become the champion of human rights. The land of Willy Brandt, of Francois Mitterrand, the land of Andreas Papandreou and Olof Palme; the land of Giscard d'Estaing and the land of Winston Churchill. And the last fifteen years the land of Solana, of Barroso, of Van Rompuy and Ashton; and this is the part you start laughing.
The very same Europe the last one and a half decade has been the place of the continuing mistakes. The Norwegian Nobel committee mentioned the role of the EU in the Yugoslavian civil war forgetting to mention that EU failed to predict the war that cost thousands of lives to the limit of genocide inside Europe; that European states members of the EU might have helped the mess and that when the time came to do something was too little too late. Like too little too late was when despite all the screams for help Lady Ashton and Barroso realized that something was happening in Lebanon a few years ago. Like they failed to predict the economic catastrophe that was coming and give any kind of political solution while the drama was unveiling and don't let me start with what's going on this minute in Greece, Spain, Portugal. That’s why I laughed. That’s why everybody laughed nervously and looked surprised.
And yes this gang and their actions - that unfortunately continue – should never shadow the sixty years history of an institution like the European Union and the dream behind it but unfortunately their continuously mistakes and personal agendas veil everything.
Lets hope that the Nobel Prize will motivate – I have the feeling this was one of the reasons for the awarding – the European leadership to put aside the Barrosos of this continent and return to the path that has been drawn centuries ago.
As far the Norwegian Nobel committee, I have a suggestion for next year. Let’s give the Peace Nobel Prize to the people, the people of this world who have to deal and live with the mistakes the Barrosos and Mekrels of this world make; the people who are the only ones who appreciate and value peace and they are the only ones who die in wars. The common people!
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