are all Nobel laureates and peacekeepers. Alas, a state isn’t an abstract concept; it’s made up of its citizens, including its soldiers. Did the Norwegian Nobel Committee award the prize just to Martin Schulz?
And yet… the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union isn’t an insult to the world’s public, a mockery of common sense and a crazy fantasy of European bureaucrats. Consider what people are saying. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen congratulated the EU on being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2012 and said, “The European Union has played a vital role in healing the wounds of history and promoting peace, reconciliation and cooperation across Europe.”
At the ceremony in Oslo, Jagland said that the prize was awarded to the European Union for uniting Europe and transforming it from a “continent of war to a continent of peace.”
BBCRussian.com said, “The Nobel Peace Prize for 2012 was awarded to the European Union for six decades of efforts to consolidate peace in Europe.” It’s worthwhile spelling out what is meant by E-U-R-O-P-E. Surely, it doesn’t mean “greater” Europe, which is usually considered to stretch to the Urals and sometimes even as far as Vladivostok, but Western Europe and possibly Central Europe — but certainly not Eastern Europe. Opinions about that differ, but the EU’s attitude towards Eastern Europe hasn’t always been peaceful during the six decades of its existence. It’s difficult now to say who was more eager to drop the bombs before perestroika — NATO or the Warsaw Pact. But clearly there was something other than peace in the air.
So, as the BBC put it, a peaceful Europe has given itself an award because the nations that make it up have been able to refrain from slaughtering each other and committing mass violence for 60 whole years.
For 60 years now, the French haven’t been killing Germans with shrapnel, and the Germans haven’t poisoned the French with mustard gas. And the most interesting aspect of it all is that Great Britain hasn’t gone to war with either. However, it hasn’t been long since NATO aircraft were bombing Belgrade, albeit with a great deal of precision and solely for the sake of democracy, human rights and European unity. So should anyone think of mentioning Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, etc. as examples of European bloodlust and get indignant over another manifestation of the West’s hypocrisy, he would be wrong. The West has awarded its own prize to itself for not killing itself. Somehow, considering Europe’s history, that’s a great achievement. The Afghans, Syrians, Iraqis and others are absolutely beside the point.
But there’s one thing we shouldn’t forget.
UK Independence Party Leader Nigel Farage put it this way: “You only have to open your eyes to see the increasing violence and division within the EU… Spain is on the verge of a bailout, with senior military figures warning that the Army may have to intervene in Catalonia. In Greece people are starving and abandoning their children through desperate poverty, and never a week goes by that we don’t see riots and protests…”
Perhaps by awarding a Nobel Peace Prize to the EU its leaders are attempting to remind Europeans that the unity of their nations is what guarantees peace in Western Europe.
Source: New Eastern Outlook