A Giant Step Up At the Nobel
Wasn’t all that long ago that Nobel Peace Prizes were handed out to the likes of Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter and Nelson Mandela. At least two out of those three are deserving men who have done much to advance the causes of peace throughout the world.
But they were easy choices, perhaps too easy. Already famous, already known worldwide, and one wondered if the prize was yet one more accolade or was founded to mean more, to be a catalyst rather than a mantle. Surprisingly, in that context, Ghandi never won one. There were some strange choices as well. In 1994, Yasser Arafat shared the prize with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, a selection that may have been based more on optimism than experience. Few people in this world have backed away from peace more consistently than Yasser Arafat.
Year by year, the parade went by. Mother Teresa? Who could possibly quarrel with that? Kofi Annan? Yep. So, like many such awards, the Nobel has been up and down as it made the obvious and not-so-obvious …