Three women won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize: Tawakkul Karman of Yemen, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee, both of Liberia. People have been saying that the Peace Prize is a joke, mainly because people like Jimmy Carter and Al Gore were getting the award. The only reason naysayers were saying “nay” was because those are two of the most active liberal politicians in America. Say what you want about Carter and Gore; they still did exactly what they planned to do, and after their roles in office, they lived out their views as much as they could in their private lives. Carter has been a diplomat, he helped found Habitat for Humanity, and he never pulled his punches when he wrote or spoke. Gore brought attention to the plight of the planet by getting nearly as big as the world and f***ing up cherished parts of his life, mush like what we are doing to our earth right now…he also made a movie or something. You notice he’s a lot funnier and more charismatic now than he was when he was vice president? Regardless, if you hate liberals, OF COURSE you’re going to hate the Nobel committee’s choices!
The thing is that I almost believed that the Prize was a Joke when Barack Obama got it in 2009. The official reason for the choice in awarding him was, “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”. Let’s be honest, though: Barack Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize for not being George W. Bush. He was in the infancy of his first term! There are people who are standing up to hopelessly oppressive governments, putting their lives on the line non-violently in the face of threats of torture, rape and murder. But you give the prize to Obama??? I haven’t been George Bush for over 30 years. Where the hell is my prize? Obama didn’t even do anything yet. Since he got the prize, Barack Obama has dropped more bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq than the Phantom Sh***er at my job does on 2 for 1 Taco Day. He ordered a hit on a Somali pirate, numerous al-Qaeda targets, and had Osama bin Laden’s head exploded. It’s so funny, because the right keeps trying to paint him as a lefty-pinko p***y (when they’re not comparing him to Hitler), but if you look at the numbers, Obama makes GW Bush look like a flower-powering hippie! It’s like he received the NWA’s famous Aw Hell Piece Prize. If you get that, you have to murk as many mark-a** motherf***ers as you can within a year, but you have to turn your weapon sideways while doing so. Just imagine 30 Predator drones coming at you rotated 90˚. That’s when you know s***’s about to get real.
This year’s awardees are true peace advocates. Tawakkul Karman founded Women Journalists without Chains to fight for political, social, and press freedom in Yemen. Throughout the years, she’s led peaceful sit-ins in Yemen to further her cause. She’s been arrested numerous times for her “crimes” of free thought and expression. This year during the Arab Spring, Karman mobilised students to rally in the ironically-named Freedom Square in Sana’a. The best thing: SHE’S ONLY 32! Yeah…what the hell have YOU been doing with your life, huh?
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the first and ONLY female elected head of state in Africa! She was born poor, daughter of a miner, but persevered and eventually got her advanced degrees in America, then returned to Liberia to get involved in politics amidst a LOT of turmoil…I wonder if people taunted her with fake American birth certificates? She is so dedicated to getting her country on track that when the presidential house was victim to an accidental fire, she stated that the damage to the house was a low priority compared to the tasks ahead as president.
Leymah Gbowee once quipped, “If any changes were to be made in society it had to be by the mothers”. She stated this after having moved to Monrovia at the age of 17 and trained to be a trauma counsellor in the first civil war and worked with the wounded of Charles Taylor’s child army. She acted on her words and organised a nonviolent peace protest that ended Liberia’s Second Civil War. It also led to the first female African President. How badass is that? Again, I say, “What the hell have YOU been doing with your life?”
I hope that last year’s winner (Liu Xiaobo) and this year’s winners means that the Nobel Committee will stop playing politics with such a prestigious award and award it to people who truly deserve it, not just because they like someone because he/she is not George Bush. Kudos to them on their choices and to the women who helped changed this world…although if they DO start giving out the award for BS reasons, I want one for not being Snookie.
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