As Cuban, I regret that no compatriot of mine has ever received the award that carries the last name of the prominent Swedish inventor.
Havana.- The granting of The Nobel Awards It is usually announced on the initial days of each December. The process culminates with the peace award on the 10th. This date was chosen to commemorate the death of its creator, which occurred in San Remo, Italy, in 1896, on December 10. Although a couple of months are missing for the formal announcement to be made, and this year’s prize is giving to talk … but I think it is convenient to address this issue later and start by some generalities.
The prominent Swedish engineer and inventor obtained, throughout his life, hundreds of patents for his diverse ideations. But it was the dynamite, an explosive for safe use, which produced the greatest economic benefits. His testamentary decision to allocate the bulk of his large fortune to provide a foundation responsible for rewarding the most outstanding people in different fields of human activity assured him immortality.
The remarkable antiquity of the Nobel Awards has assured that these remain recognized as the most coveted awards in the world. For example, the Prize Sájarov of human rights, which grants the European Parliament, has the endorsement of that democratic body that represents the entire old continent, but the fame of the award -winning with him pales before those who obtain the Nobel Peace Prize, which awarded a commission designated by the legislative of a single country: Norway.
As Cuban, I regret that no compatriot of mine has ever received the award that carries the last name of the prominent Swedish inventor. Personally, I am convinced that this has not been due to lack of merits. And it is recorded that I am not referring to my countrymen who have stood out in the fight against Castrocommunist totalitarianism or for the citizen rights of Cubans. About those I will write later.
No. I mean, first place, doctor Carlos J. Finlay. At the birth of the Nobel awards along with the twentieth century, the theory of the eminent Camagüeyan scientist about the role of the mosquito Aedes aegypti In the transmission of terrible yellow fever had been proven fully. With that discovery, our illustrious compatriot not only determined the ways to contain and eradicate that serious disease, but for the first time in the history of medicine established the concept of biological vector: a living organism that, without suffering from evil, is able to transmit it.
However, and despite having lived until 1915, Swedish academics never granted him the most deserved award. And it should not be because they did not know the scientist, because this was proposed seven times … I suppose the determining, for that unfair omission, it has been the exotic character of the evil in question, that it was a scourge of distant tropical countries and was unknown in the cold and cultured Europe …
Another tremendous omission of a Cuban – I think – was that of the great novelist Alejo Carpentier. And of course I mean his literary excellence and not his express collaboration with the abominable Castro regime (first as “organic intellectual” and later as a diplomat). That complicity – as logical – does not awaken in me the slightest sympathy. But those blame paid before their wonderful novels. I have read somewhere that the Nobel Prize for Literature of 1980 (year of his death) was destined for him. But that seems to me a poor comfort …
With regard to the awards conferred on prodemocratic and human rights activists, the differences between the Sájarov And the Nobel Peace Nobel are overwhelming. The first has been conferred to our compatriots three times: engineer Oswaldo Payá (2002), the worthy White Ladies (2005) and Mr. Guillermo (Coconut) Fariñas (2010). The second, ever.
At least in the case of Latin America, Norwegian legislators have shown predilection for activists of leftist ideas: these are the cases of Argentine Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (1980); the Guatemalan Rigoberta Menchú (1992), of whom a posteriori It has been documented that his “autobiography” (which promoted his candidacy) is full of lies and misrepresentations; and the Colombian Juan Manuel Santos (2016), who did not know the will of his compatriots expressed in a popular consultation, and orchestrated a “peace” characterized by legislators not elected by the people and former guerrillas (also accused of drug trafficking) who enjoy virtual impunity.
The Costa Rican Óscar Arias Sánchez (1987), whom I had the honor of knowing in person when the Castrocommunist regime still allowed me to travel abroad; Don Oscar is a social democrat, and also a decent person, who elaborated an end to the cruel civil wars that devastated Central America something similar can be said of Alfonso García Robles (1982), who served as Secretary of Foreign Affairs under the “perfect dictatorship” of the PRI ( Institutional Revolutionary Party). He was awarded for his work in the Treaty of Tlatelolcowhich established Latin America and the Caribbean as a nuclear weapons free zone. Unlike the previous three, these last two have been awarded for non -internal activities.
But it is time to return to the theme of the Nobel Peace Prize, whose winner must be announced on December 10. A strong candidate is the president of the United States, Donald Trump. The current tenant of the Washingtonian Casa Blanca has been very active in the search for roads to achieve peace in various conflicting areas of the world.
As expected, the achievements achieved by him in that hard effort have been heterogeneous. For example, its purpose of achieving the cessation of hostilities in Ukraine invaded by the imperial desire of the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has not been successful.
But there is another important conflict (the one that develops between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization), in which a very different result is glimpsed. The 20 -point plan presented by Donald Trump for the Gaza Strip has achieved something that seemed impossible: he has been accepted both the Israel government and Hamas!
In particular, this last organization has accepted the condition of freeing Israeli civilian hostages that he kidnapped during his brutal incursion of October 7, 2023, which led to the current war confrontation. For its part, the Hebrew State has agreed to cease the offensive that had already begun against the city of Gaza. It is – I think – of achievements of undeniable historical importance, and that are indissoluble linked to the current US president.
We will see what the spokesman of Norwegian legislators will announce within a couple of months. We already know that Donald Trump is not subject to devotion among some sectors, but I think it would be scandalous that in Norway they denied him the recognition he deserves.
