ALFRED Nobel, the famous Swedish industrialist, was someone quite accustomed to explosions in his day - after all, he was the guy who invented dynamite.
But I bet he’s turning in his grave right now after two explosive scandals rocked the globally revered Nobel Prize, which he established some 120 years ago to recognise people who’ve brought the greatest benefit to humankind.
The first scandal came when the Swedish Academy, which decides on the Nobel Prize for Literature every year, was recently convulsed by allegations of sexual harassment and the leaking of names of prize winners ahead of the official announcement, seriously undermining the award’s credibility.
The second explosion came this week and involved perhaps the most coveted prize of all - the Nobel Peace Prize, which has been previously awarded to such luminaries as Kofi Annan, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa, to name just a handful.
When I heard that an egotistic and scandal-prone warmonger like Donald Trump was being touted as a possible candidate for this year’s award, my immediate reaction was to check if this was some sort of belated April Fool’s joke.
As far as I recall, when Alfred Nobel sat down to write his last will and testament, he made it very clear the Nobel Peace prize should go to a person deemed to have done the best work for “the fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congress".
By unilaterally withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, Trump has done nothing to promote fraternity between nations. In fact, his irrational and provocative behaviour will embolden the hardliners in Iran, destroy an agreement that represented a major achievement in international diplomacy and, quite frankly, bring the world closer to war. I’m fairly sure that’s not what Alfred Nobel had in mind.
Add to this the man’s obsession with guns, his controversial immigration policy towards Muslim nations and his outrageously dangerous stand on climate change, and you’ll understand why my blood pressure is rising. Please stop the world - I want to get off.