TONGUE&

CHEEK Nothing noble about Trump

ALFRED Nobel, the famous Swedish industrialist, was someone quite accustomed to explosions in his day – after all, he was the guy who invented dynamite.

But I bet he’s turning in his grave right now after two explosive recent scandals rocked the globally revered Nobel Prize, which he established some 120 years ago to recognise people who’ve brought the greatest benefit to mankind.

The first one came when the Swedish Academy, which decides on the Nobel Prize for Literature every year, was convulsed by allegations of sexual harassment and the leaking of names of prize winners ahead of the official announcement, undermining the award’s credibility.

The second one came this week and involved perhaps the most coveted prize of all – the

Nobel Peace Prize which has been previously awarded to such luminaries as Kofi Anan, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa.

When I heard that an egotistic and scandal-prone war monger like Donald Trump was being touted as a possible candidate for this year’s award, my immediate reaction was to check if this was some sort of belated April Fool’s joke.

As far as I recall, when Alfred Nobel wrote his last will and testament, he had made it clear the peace prize should go to a person deemed to have done the best work for “the fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congress”.

In my book, that renders the embattled US president hopelessly ineligible on several counts.

By unilaterally withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, he’s done nothing to promote fraternity between nations. In fact, his irrational and provocative behaviour will achieve the opposite.

It will embolden the hard-liners in Iran, destroy an agreement that represented a major achievement in international diplomacy, and quite frankly, bring the world closer to war.

I’m fairly sure that’s not what Alfred Nobel had in mind.

When it comes to alienating people, Trump is clearly in a class of his own.

For instance, no self-respecting woman anywhere can have any regard for a misogynist who objectifies women with vulgarities.

No self-respecting man or woman from the African continent can have any respect for a man who thinks we live in shitholes.

Add to this the man’s insatiable obsession with guns, his controversial immigration policy and his outrageously dangerous stand on climate change, and you’ll understand why my blood pressure’s rising.

Please stop the world – I want to get off.

dennis.pather@telkomsa.net