One of the most ludicrous things, which happened at the outset of the Obama presidency, was the Nobel Committee awarding a fresh President who had accomplished NOTHING with the Nobel Peace Prize.
The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to United States President Barack Obama for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the award on October 9, 2009, citing Obama’s promotion of nuclear nonproliferation[2] and a “new climate” in international relations fostered by Obama, especially in reaching out to the Muslim world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Nobel_Peace_Prize
This was a benchmark from which Europeans could celebrate the coming of a President, which the Financial Times spoke of with affection as “the anthropologist in chief.”
https://www.ft.com/content/fa665f2a-7ac6-11e6-b837-eb4b4333ee43
But it’s in Obama’s diplomacy that the organic anthropologist shows clearest. After talks last year with the Afghan president and anthropologist Ashraf Ghani, Obama quoted the anthropologist Ruth Benedict: “The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.”`
Credit: Europeans for Trump
Anthropologists accept that different people see the world differently: Indonesian blacksmiths don’t think like Californian accountants. The anthropologist attempts to communicate with the other tribe, understand it, and bridge those differences rather than try to erase them.
Now the “the anthropologist in chief” is warning Trump through a European pulpit of what he should and should not do.
Europeans who have a view of Trump through a completely distorted main stream media are doing what General “Stonewall” Jackson warned against, namely don’t take counsel from your fears.
What we are seeing is an American President whose legacy is in the cross hairs to put it mildly touring Europe to augment concerns in Europe about the new President and his not yet appointed team.
There are too many examples to cite here, but this comes from his press conference in Berlin.
Mr. Obama also warned Mr. Trump of the need to take the job of the presidency seriously and to be tough on Russia.
“The extraordinary demands that are placed on the United States not just by its own people, but by people around the world, that forces you to focus,” Mr. Obama said of Mr. Trump’s ascent to the presidency. “That demands seriousness.”
“And if you’re not serious about the job, then you probably won’t be there very long,” the president added.
And then warned Trump against doing what for many of us makes a great deal of sense.
“And I don’t expect that the president-elect will follow exactly our blueprint or our approach, but my hope is that he does not simply take a realpolitik approach.”
Frankly, many of us welcome a shift from an anthropologist in chief to a commander in chief who would shape a 21st century realpolitik perspective.
Leave a Reply