Stephen Harper, Nobel, and Me

When I first heard about Stephen Harper’s “nomination” for the Nobel Peace Prize I laughed.  Actually I did a quick Google search about it.  Other than the B’nai Brith announcement, there was only one other hit.  A RWNJ blog about how the Lefties’ heads were going to collectively explode over this.

“Yeah,” I thought’ “explode with laughter.”

Well it looks like he was partly right.  A bunch of people really do have their knickers in a knot over this.  There are petitions and blogs and Twitter Wars and all sorts of ranting and raving about this.

What I’m going to do is to ask you to step back a bit and look at this without kneejerk reactions and vehemence.

What does this “nomination” mean? 

Nothing much, really.

Other than the fact that some guy (Frank Dimant) is putting up Stephen Harper for the award.  There isn’t a lot here to talk about.

When I checked the Nobel site, there are a record 278 nominations this year.   47 of these are organizations and the rest, I assume, are people.  What this says to me is that there are going to be a lot of losers.  If you are interested in the list of 2014 nominations, the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO) has a partial list.

This year’s short list, according to PRIO, includes Pope Francis, Malala Yousafzai, the Afghan girl shot by the Taliban for going to school, and others. 

Another nominee for the 2014 award is Vladimir Putin.  But he’s not on the short list, at least not according to PRIO anyway.

A Nobel nomination is usually for disarmament, or for peacemaking but can also include things like multicultural understanding or food security.

Being a cheerleader for Israel’s retaliation on Palestine or shouting at 2014 Nobel Prize nominee Putin doesn’t really seem to make the cut.  Even if Steve wore a short skirt and ferociously waved his blue pompoms, I don’t think he’s going to be a Nobel Laureate.

I’m sure that Harper sees it much differently than I do, but a Nobel nomination is not a huge deal.  There have been a few people besides Harper and Putin that most people wouldn’t want to have over for dinner.  Past nominees include Hitler, Mussolini who was nominated twice and Stalin who was likewise nominated twice.

So how do you nominate someone?  The Nobel Prize Organization’s website gives the rules.  Basically, if you or your group want to submit a name, there is a list there of who you need to submit it for you.  Your MP is one, a judge or a University Professor (like Frank Dimant) would be another. 

So if you want to nominate me for the $1 Million paycheque… kidding, just give it some real thought and don’t go rushing trying to nominate anyone simply because they aren’t Harper.  Deal?

Laters!

BC

On second thought, if you want to sign a petition or send an angry email then fire away.  Someone needs to take Steve down a peg or two.