Confuse-us Peace Prize

China, the land of knock-offs and largest foreign owner of U.S. debt, rolled out its answer to the Nobel Peace Prize, the Confucius Peace Prize, in a ceremony yesterday.

Some guy in Taiwan won it, but swore he didn’t know anything about it except what he had learned in media reports.

The Chinese are furious that the Nobel prize committee awarded this year’s prize to Liu Xiaobo, a human rights activist who is serving an 11 year jail sentence for speaking his mind. He asked that his award be dedicated to those murdered in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann read his address at the ceremony, an excerpt of which is here, courtesy of FT.com:

“Hatred can rot away at a person’s intelligence and conscience. Enemy mentality will poison the spirit of a nation, incite cruel mortal struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and hinder a nation’s progress towards freedom and democracy. That is why I hope to be able to transcend my personal experiences as I look upon our nation’s development and social change, to counter the regime’s hostility with utmost goodwill, and to dispel hatred with love.”

wish you were here: empty chair for Nobel winner Liu Xiaobo at today's ceremony (source: WashingtonTimes.com, AP/John McConnico 12/10/10)

Human rights standard-bearers Russia, Cuba, and Kazakhstan complied with China’s request to boycott the ceremony. The last time a winner missed receiving the award in person was in 1935, when Count Carl von Ossietzky was imprisoned in one of Hitler’s concentration camps.

So the Chinese are in good company on this one.

China: home of the original no-fat melamine latte and the Confucius Peace Prize (source: mirror.co.uk)

Category : humor, Politics
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