The United States of America President Barrack Obama is this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner. When somebody is declared a marathon winner, common sense rules that they must have ran the race and emerged number one. It is likewise in swimming, weight lifting, jumping, etc. If you take no part in swimming, in fact, you can’t even swim; and you are declared a gold medalist in swimming-and you accept the award, then there is something wrong with you the recipient and the giver of the award. You both live in the self-deluding world.

Firstly, Obama is not making peace (unless you call the arming of racist Zionist regime and the looting and polluting of oil rich regions of the world acts of peace). Secondly, and most importantly, no US president can make peace as things stand. Bestowing a peace prize on a US president is as good as giving Julius Caesar the prize posthumously. Julius Caesar was an empire builder, conquering territory after territory and subjecting its people to the tyrannical Roman rule. The US is a modern day empire and Emperor Obama, the Commander-in-Chief of the occupation forces in several countries, is fanning the flames of war rather than making peace.

Just hours before he received the peace prize, Obama authorised the deployment of 30 000 more US soldiers in Afghanistan. They are there and elsewhere on the globe, to defend American interests. Didn’t Julius Caesar defend Roman interests in Africa? Roman interests in Rome can and must be defended. Globally, the US interests revolve around the orbit of unfair trade, access to raw material and the exploitation of cheap labour in the satellite states. In essence, the US interests are inimical to peace and harmony among nations of the world.

The Nobel Peace Prize Committee has, once again, vulgarised the meaning of peace. It is high time we had Justice Prize where seekers of a just world can be acknowledged and immortalised. Peace is unachievable in an unjust society. As the maxim goes, peace is not a mere absence of war. Peace entails equitable and eco- friendly distribution of the world resources. Peace presupposes mutual respect among the peoples and cultures of the world. There’ll be no peace when one culture is bent on imposing itself on the rest of the world under the guise of democracy. There’ll be no lasting peace when the conmen in Oslo strip naked the concept of peace, and the warmonger in the White House rapes the noble idea of peace. There’ll be no peace when humanity turns a blind eye to the injustices of capitalism and shies away from a revolution to change the world for the better.

Away from a sham peace prize, a breeze of invigorating air is sweeping Azanian (South African) political landscape. Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO) leader Mosibudi Mangena announced recently that he’ll be stepping down as party leader come March next year. His is a profound lesson in selfless leadership. The PAC salutes Mangena and we hope that his contributions to the well being of the nation will carry on beyond his party leadership.