Peace Award
It's a bit premature to award Rabin, Peres, and Arafat the highly reputable Nobel Peace Prize, if not a sour joke. The world is still not sure if the peace agreement will really work out and, surely a deserving prizewinner is one without the slightest trace of past violence either as a perpetrator or a supporter. Each of the winners this year is certainly not qualified for the "sacred" honor due to their past links, whether active or passive, with murders, tortures, and arms struggles.
Among the best examples of worthy winners are the Dalai Lama and Mother Theresa, to name just two. Their true commitment to the non-violent struggle for world peace has been proven for a long time, not a matter of months or years. All their lives they dedicated themselves to peace; it springs from their hearts rather than their political motivations.
It's a shame that political weight seems to have influenced the Nobel committee's decision. Their disregard for the purity of the Prize's background, namely the freedom from political and economic considerations, has tarnished its once pristine reputation as an accolade awarded only to genuine humanitarians. Not all the 132 nominees this year for the peace laureate have been coerced into shaking hands in front of the world's cameras, but there were surely those who were more eligible than the three winners; those who with their limited power had remained loyal to their faith in making a better world with no violence, intimidation, and terrorism.
If Rabin and Arafat deserved the honor, I can't resist asking why Saddam Hussein and Khomeini didn't get the same treatment when they decided to terminate their seven-year war? How could they casually bestow the title Peaceful Man of the Year on someone who constantly carries a gun at his hip? Perhaps an Oscar would have been more appropriate. Has the committee also forgotten Bill Clinton, the man who stood behind the famous handshake, the "Defender of the Gulf," "Savior of Haiti," and hapless seducer of the American voters?
It seems that a precedent has been set and the Nobel Peace Prize will never again carry the same prestige or inspire the same feeling of pride. It is a real setback, but then those who are truly deserving are unlikely to be concerned with just another ornament for the mantelpiece.
RAHAYU RATNANINGSIH
Jakarta