Nobel Peace Prize Medal. Image is from here.
LENNON PERFECTLY DESCRIBED HIMSELF and me in his “Imagine”: we are dreamers.
My dreams are — oh you’re getting sick of reading this again and again — being a war correspondent and win a Nobel Peace Prize. I know those two seem somewhat contradictory, and they might not sound practical and realistic to many of you. But what can I say? I am a dreamer.
Even so, don’t worry, I’ve got a plan. You know, a dream without a plan is merely a wish, right. So this plan goes specifically for the Nobel Peace Prize ambition.
I’ve screened all Nobel Peace Prize winners from time to time to get a clearer picture of what these incredible people had done to deserve one. Except for the 2009 winner, who was Barack Obama, and few others, I think all receivers had done tremendous works in bringing about peace, equality, and justice for the people at across the universe.
Look at the 14th Dalai Lama, Aung San Suu Kyi, Al Gore, Nelson Mandela, Jose Ramos-Horta, Kofi Annan, Yasser Arafat, Mother Teresa, and Liu Xiaobo. They are the people who made countless efforts helping people and making the world a better place to live. They are the extraordinary people.
With all due respects to all the names I have mentioned above — you all are heroes — I need to say that I should find a way to get one myself. So I think I need to know how to get it.
Without belittling the meaning of the Nobel itself, I think these are the formulas to win a Nobel Peace Prize: you are basically just “nobody” who do the humanitarian-and-related works with all your heart and soul, gain trust from the society, receive a lot of coverages in the media because of your hard work and dedication, win it, keep doing the work. Or, you have an important position in your country [let's say you're a statesman], work and get paid — because that’s basically your job, some coverages in the media, do the work well, get exposed again, win.
After considering a thing and some, I think I’ll take the second order to win, it looks easier. But I know that if I desire to take the second path, I need to become the President of Republic of Indonesia, or at least the Minister of Foreign Affairs or Minister of Manpower. So I might need some years to get elected as a president or appointed as a minister.
Here’s my idea, that I hope neither my President nor Foreign Affairs Minister would steal it to save the Nobel Peace Prize for themselves:
Do you know that there are bunch of things you could do in Indonesia to bring about peace and justice? The nation poverty rate [2010 stat] is 13 percent or around 31 million people. Unemployment reaches 7.41 percent or about 8.59 million people. Tens of thousands people lost their homes and hopes to Lapindo mud ‘disaster’ in Sidoarjo, East Java. And look at the recent stat: 303 Indonesian migrant workers are facing serious charges including death penalty overseas, especially in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia. Indonesian government cited recently that some 22 in Saudi Arabia are waiting to be executed in near future.
Just earlier this week, Indonesian people were in mourn and enraged for Ruyati binti Saputi, a migrant workers from Bekasi, who was beheaded by sword in the western province of Mecca without notifications. The s**p*d Indonesian government did not have any idea that one of its citizen worked in Saudi Arabia was dying alone — they soon blamed Saudi Arabia for not sent them a notification.