By Andrej Nikolaidis, CdM columnist
Andrija Mandic says he’s wiser than he used to be. And he is, it’s so obvious. Still: everything, including Andrija’s not inconsiderable wisdom, has certain limitations.
By joining the signatories that propose Donald Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Andrija made a clever move of flattering a genius that doesn’t exist but firmly believes he is the one – and flattery is something the American president enjoys.
At least this particular Mandic’s nominee is unlikely to steal a woman’s phone in a supermarket, unlike the one to whom he awarded the Thirteenth of July Prize. What I’m about to say has nothing to do with Andrija, whose motives are honorable and intentions pure as spring water. Generally speaking, the world is full of those who fawn over the leader of the Empire, to the point that poor Trump can no longer tell who or what is poking at him from behind – and it can happen that he fails to reward one of the many bootlickers. Hell, you can’t please everyone, no matter how strongly you desire it.
On the other hand, isn’t this obvious: if your primary political goal is accession to the European Union, it’s hardly wise to nominate for the Nobel Peace Prize a man who threatens Europe with war and territorial seizures, a man who blackmails, insults, and humiliates Europe?
But, whatever… Having in mind that Montenegro’s authorities are great admirers of Trump – so great that they played a song after his election victory – my proposal is that Montenegro truly distinguish itself in its sycophancy toward Trump: let the government do something that sets it apart from other flatterers. Therefore, since Montenegro’s legislative branch has already nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, let the executive power nominate him in math and the judiciary in medicine.
And then, as true descendants of knights who defended freedom with blood, men who refused to kiss chains and bowed to no one – let us proclaim it so the whole world may hear and envy us: Montenegro, the first to nominate Trump for three Nobel Prizes.
Why would we nominate him in math? For this:
Trump is right when he says that no one – he should have added: no one with an elementary knowledge of mathematics – can imagine this: that he would lower drug prices by “1.500 percent.” As Trump says, to achieve such a reduction, he relied on his special talent. That talent deserves a prize. For ordinary people and the math as we know it, those of us who will never be awarded the Nobel Prize, a 100% discount means the product is free. What Trump meant by a 1.500% price cut – who knows? One thing is certain: math, as known from the Ancient Greeks onward, will not be the same after Trump. If a 1.500% price reduction isn’t Nobel-worthy, what is?
As for the Nobel Prize in medicine, everything is perfectly clear. Trump should get it for suggesting the cure for Covid-19 – hydroxychloroquine. Yes, in case anyone forgot: at one point Donald Trump suggested that coronavirus be treated by injecting disinfectants. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52407177
“I’m not a doctor,” Trump said at the time, “but I’ve a very good brain for thinking.”
In “renowned global media,” we could then read statements by doctors who, dead serious, explained that the virus could not be treated the way Trump proposed. If you inject disinfectant, you will die, they said, addressing Trump’s supporters.
As a good friend of mine likes to say: that’s what happens when you have a leader who never fully evolved.
Six million years of evolution, all that blood, all those tears, all the futile suffering and deaths, all big dreams and even greater disappointments, the ashes of fallen empires, the long shadows of wise texts, all the grand buildings, all the harmony of oil on canvas and the mathematical perfection of musical notation – on top of it all, even a Son of God on the cross – all of that, so that the world might be ruled by a man who proposes that the human body, like a toilet bowl, be cleaned with Domestos. And you say there’s progress in this world? Regardless of that: we still don’t know whether a Chinese lab produced the coronavirus. But we do know that American democracy produced Donald Trump.
But forget about me and my misanthropy.
Give the man the Nobel Prizes. Give him Greenland. Give him hotels in Gaza. Give him everything he wants and sing odes to his kindness and genius.
He can always send the Delta Force to attack Oslo and snatch the Nobel Peace Prize.
(The opinions and views of our columnists aren’t necessarily the opinions or views of the CdM news team)
