“Looking out…”
There’s something very cathartic about washing windows. You begin with a view that’s not too clear, a condition that changes with some elbow grease. You see things more clearly through a clean window. If we see our personal environment better through a clean window, then what of the world’s window on America?
A view of America is not hard to put into words. It is, quite simply, freedom for all. Not a bad description, is it? The caveat here is that freedom is NOT free. America — through the blood and sacrifice of her brave fighting men and women — has freed more people from tyranny and oppression than any other nation on the globe. Peace is not achieved passively, but by constant vigilance and defense.
Recently, with the unexpected awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to our president, some commentators have analogized that the award has lost its true status and become simply a rubber stamp to European thinking. Yet, there is — as Paul Harvey would have quipped — the rest of the story.
How old is this prize and what is its genesis? The Nobel Foundation states that since 1901, the prize has honored men and women from all corners of the globe for outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and for work in peace. The foundations for the prize were laid in 1895 when a famous Swedish scientist wrote his last will and testament, leaving much of his wealth to the establishment of the prize. For those of you who do not know his identity, he invented dynamite.
By the time Alfred Nobel was 17 years old, he had mastered Swedish, Russian, French, English and German. The son of a very successful Russian mechanical engineer who devised naval mines for the Tsar and his generals, Alfred not only loved English literature and poetry, but he also possessed curiosity about chemistry and physics. Later, inspired by the Frenchman who invented nitroglycerine, young Alfred mused about how to use the volatile chemical in construction. In the wake of his father’s mid-1800s bankruptcy, Alfred and brother Emil managed to salvage the remains of their father’s business and begin an oil business in southern Russia.
In 1863, the duo returned home to Sweden rich men. Alfred began experimenting on how to use nitroglycerine as a practical tool in construction. Safety was the prime issue for Alfred and, to his great anguish, both his brother Emil and several other workers died in early explosions. After that, Stockholm banned any further experiments within the city. Working elsewhere, Alfred came up with the idea to make the product into paste and form it into rods sized to insert into conventional drilling holes. At last, he achieved his dream — a product that would change history. Dynamite drastically cut the time-consuming work on canals, in tunnels, and any job requiring rock blasting.
According to the Nobel website, Alfred Nobel died in San Remo, Italy, on December 10, 1896. The contents of his will came as a surprise. His fortune was to be used for Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace.
The executors of Nobel’s will, two young engineers named Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist set about forming the Nobel Foundation to take care of the financial assets and to coordinate the work of the Prize-Awarding Institutions. This didn’t come easy, because relatives contested the will.
However, understand that the Peace Prize is not awarded by the same kind of committees that award the other prizes. Instead, it is made up of five members of the current ruling Swedish political party. This accounts for its awarding to the likes of Yassar Arafat, who has more Jewish blood on his hands than most of us can comprehend.
Some claim that Nobel sought to assuage his guilt for all the deaths caused by his invention when used in warfare, but there is no clear evidence of him ever have made such a statement and it may be more assumption than fact. His reasoning and inspiration were lost with his last breath, so we will never know precisely why he left his estate as he did. Yet, questions still haunt researchers.
Did Nobel intend for the prize to be awarded for deeds or rhetoric? For deeds or intentions? A question without any clear answer, but it should prompt one to think. To me, when wishful thinking and utopian dreams of what might be — or could be — outstrip solid accomplishment; we are in the deep weeds.
Should we care how Europe views America? Well, its peoples certainly have changed their tune over seven decades. It’s too bad this current batch of Europeans don’t remember how their grandparents saw America when Hitler marauded over their continent. As for me, it hasn’t escaped my notice that it was the Swedes that suggested multiple choices children facing for punishment and mandated not keeping score in children’s athletic games. To them, evidently, losing is not a good thing. However, to us as Americans, losing was, is — continues to be — a character-builder.
Sadly, the background of Nobel and his prize does nothing to restore the Peace Prize’s formerly held high prestige. I, for one, do not know why the committee chose our president — and that’s more the pity. Once upon a time, the Nobel Peace Prize really meant something, and the deeds that inspired it were clear and undeniable.
Isn’t it about time we washed our window to the world? Clearly, it is more important that we see the world for what it is, and not what it could be. Look through it. What do YOU see? Think about it.