When freaks and minnows rule the roost

What a historic moment of mental bankruptcy the world has just witnessed! The beaming faces of Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and US President Donald Trump have flashed on TV screens and pages of newspapers all across the globe as this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner Machado hands over the prestigious medal to Donald Trump. This has never happened in the past. What is known that some stalwarts known for their excellence in their respective fields refused to accept the Nobel Prize for some reasons. But after accepting the prize, no one ever thought of sharing it with anyone else much less present it to another person as a gift.
When the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced her name as the recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, she was in hiding and then secretly left Venezuela. It was her daughter who received the prize on her behalf. Donald Trump, who campaigned for the prize, was critical of Machado for winning the peace prize. Machado at that time expressed her willingness to share the prize with Trump. The Nobel Committee made it amply clear that once the prize is won, the recipient has no right to share it with any other person. If the Nobel Committee announced the names of two different individuals, both would be Nobel Laureates. But presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize medal by the original recipient to another person does in no way recognise the latter as a Nobel Laureate.
This, however, did not deter either Machado or Trump from going ahead with their plan of making a caricature of the gift. Well, Machado may be too innocent to appreciate the implication or has more at stake and uses the occasion for political gain, particularly when Maduro and her wife have been kidnapped and interned in an infamous prison in America. This is worse than childish on the part of Trump to accept the medal which will never be his because the name of Machado is engraved on the edge of the medal. Both the receiver and the giver have trivialised the Nobel Prize.
Maybe, dark politics is behind this game and Machado will be seen to connive with Trump in playing to the gallery, especially when this circus follows Muduro's abduction and imprisonment. Trump has made illogical statements about ruling Venezuela. He said the US would run Venezuela 'until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition'. Running the state affairs of another country means Trump's own administration would do so. But who gave him the mandate of running Venezuela? Certainly not the people of Venezuela.
This is state bullying at its worst. The main objective of the attack on Venezuela is to establish US hegemony on that country's oil reserves and infrastructure. When Trump declares that US oil companies would move into that country and to ensure that the oil trade is under those companies' control, he insists another attack would be carried out if necessary. Venezuela's Vice-President Delcy Rodrigiez has responded to the effect that her government was 'ready to defend'.
This is exactly why the much publicised presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize medal to Trump at the White House may have significance well beyond the ceremony at a personal level. There may be trade-off between the two who made a mockery of the Nobel Prize. One cannot be blamed for smelling rat in the whole episode. The world is no longer led by political heavyweights but pygmies and minnows. How they behave and act are far from the established norms and rules. Does this also indicate that the peoples get the kind of leaders they deserve?
Indeed, this world is turning stranger with some freakish characters ruling the roost. To the freaks, international rules, customs and creeds are there only to be violated. That they are behaving naively and presenting them before the world as jokers is none of their concerns. But the audiences across the globe can clearly see that calling such world leaders capricious is a mere understatement. They betray a sense of insanity through their acts.
Evidently, the offices or positions they hold are so trivialised that they would have been ashamed of their craziness but instead they actually survive their megalomaniac obsession and prosper defying the universal values. Their obsession is so pervasive that it holds the world in contempt. Then there are sycophants who would go to any length for appeasing their masters. It is time for the civilians to protest and make good use of their wisdom to save the present civilisation from further decline and ultimate demise.

nilratanhalder2000@yahoo.com