The only plausible answer to the Obama Peace Prize is that it is, in fact, just one of many to be
distributed this time around, making his just one segment of a larger distribution process. Since just about everyone, including liberals and Obama himself, has openly acknowledged that this bestowal is either manipulative, unwarranted, or disgraceful, I shall propose the other recipients of each Nobel ‘piece’ Prize. The requirements are simple: demonstrate no significant accomplishments towards world peace (deadline today). Here are today’s laureates:
Iranian Cleric Mojtaba Zolnour – for his aggressive stance and undying love for the hate of the state of Israel. Most recently, Zolnour, the Ayatollah’s right-hand man of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, said that Iran will “blow up the heart of Israel if the Jewish state or the United States attacked Iran.” In case this didn’t get the message across clearly enough, he was kind enough to provide a visual as the icing on the cake, adding: “Iranian missiles will hit Israel before the dust settles.” Last time I checked Obama was not planning on bombing Iran – and with his new Nobel status, this is even more unlikely. Sorry, Motjaba, your hatred will have to remain bottled up for another day. I guess this explains why the table reserved for ‘Mojtaba Zolnour’ at Hillel’s Jewish speed dating night at Trillium was empty. Mr. Zolnour, I put you first on my list today because not only do you bring nothing to the table of world peace, you also take much off of it.
Those in charge of the anti-Columbus Day rally – for their public display of revisionist history and anti-American sentiments. According to today’s article in the Sun, it seems as if the demonstration followed this syllabus: discuss why Columbus was evil, discuss why America is evil, discuss Program Houses. Where did the program house guy come from? The program house advocates always somehow manage to stick their nose in at any demonstration, meeting, student assembly, or Skorton announcement they can squirm into. The correlation? Some analogy about how Cornell is the United States and program houses are American Indians. Just a wee bit of a stretch. This has nothing to do with world peace, so it deserves to be a laureate.
Professor Eric Cheyfitz (at Columbus rally) – for the apparent deficiency of subjectivity in his English classrooms. The professor said in a quote to the Sun that he “teach[es] Columbus’s journals as examples of the beginning of genocide in the Americas.” Interesting – I actually took a fantastic Freshman Writing Seminar where we read the journals of Columbus, Cortes, and Cabeza de Vaca. The only difference it seems is that my instructor allowed us to READ and ANALYZE the books instead of directly imposing his opinion on us and teaching with an objective. Teaching Cheyfitz’s way would be like having students read the Bible in order to be appreciative of the great acts of Jesus Christ. Do we have classes like that? No, because that’s not how you read a book. You read it and discuss it and analyze it with minimal preconceptions. Biased teaching helps nobody; here’s your Piece Prize, Eric.
Professor Jolene Rickard (also at rally) – for revisionist history that almost had me convinced! Here is Rickard’s direct quote: “My ancestors buried their weapons of war under the tree of peace, the white pine…I exist as a Haudenosaunee woman because [they] gave their lives so that I can carry on the message of freedom to the next generation.” Professor Rickard is referencing her nationality of the indigenous “People of the Longhouse” or Iroquois Indian Nation. While these Native Americans brought five different tribes under one association through the Iroquois League, they have less than clean hands in the realm of violence. Yes, they may have buried their WMDs under the tree to keep themselves focused while assembling a wampum belt, but for a lot of the time, they were burying their weapons into the heads of Frenchman, Europeans, other Indians, and each other. Why? Because there used to be a lot of beavers roaming the Finger Lakes area and everybody wanted them. Yes, including the Haudenosaunee, and they attacked and took over lands of other Natives to…gain capital. Revisionist history is bad, and especially in this case, distorts historical efforts towards peace. For Rickard’s one sidedness, she gets the final fifth of my Piece Prize.
Colleagues over at the Stanford Review seem to agree: http://blog.stanfordreview.org/2009/10/09/dont-politicize-the-prize-any-further/
With all due respect, I think it’s kind of a stretch to go to the extent that you do regarding Cheyfitz’s comments. It’s kind of like saying that a historian teaching about the evils of the nazi party should instead let people read what Hitler wrote and decide for themselves. Obviously Christopher Columbus wasn’t Hitler, but the policies he implemented in Latin America were incredibly malicious in the way they attempted to exterminate the native population. I doubt that Cheyfitz’s intention as a professor is to indoctrinate students into his way of thinking, especially considering the quote given in your article doesn’t seem to have any bias other than a bias toward factuality. To a great amount of historians, the policies that Christopher Columbus implemented amount to genocide.
However, I’m not saying that Columbus day should not be celebrated, for without that history we would not be where we are today. But to learn from that history is important and, in defense of Cheyfitz (whose views I feel you exploited in your article), it seems that all he wants to do is ensure that his students learn what is to be learned from his class.
Welcome back, JPMITB – thanks for the comment.
I would suggest to read the article (or re-read) in the Sun and look at the rest of Cheyfitz’s comments:
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“Spaniards documented these practices like Congress today documents atrocities as if it’s natural,” Cheyfitz said.
Cheyfitz provided a series of statistics to illuminate some of these current “atrocities”: the top 1 percent of Americans have 35 percent of accumulated wealth; 36.5 million to 37 million people live in poverty; the United States boasts the highest incarceration rates in the world; the World Health Organization ranked the U.S. 37th in regard to international health; and the U.S. owns 70 percent of the arms trade, making it the biggest seller of weapons of mass destruction.
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It’s quite evident that Cheyfitz has a very skewed interpretation of what America is and the impact of Columbus and European explorers had on the country. He obviously holds very polarizing views, makes statements publicly such as those above, and says he teaches his class with an objective. Although I suppose it is minutely possible, I highly doubt there is not at very least a hint of attempted indoctrination in his classroom.
If you read Columbus’s diary, you will find that there is a wealth of information: some that indeed enumerates gratuitous Spanish violence, and some that exposes the existing brutality and barbarity of native tribes. Not that this in a sense justifies the Europeans, but it is certainly a fact that is too often conveniently missing.