PrintOctober 10, 2009
Castro Praises Nobel Prize for Obama
When Confucius was once asked about being praised he made sure to qualify his answer by noting that he’d prefer to be admired by the good people and hated by the bad.
News is emerging from Cuba that the communist dictator Fidel Castro has praised the Nobel Committee for its recent decision to award the Peace Prize to Barack Obama:
"I don't always share the positions of [the Nobel Committee] but I'm obligated to recognize that in this instance it was, in my judgment, a positive measure.”
Castro went on to note that the Obama Peace Prize decision was more than anything else a repudiation of “the genocidal policies that not a few presidents of that country have followed.”
In other words, by helping to liberate millions of Iraqis and Afganis from brutal tyrannies George Bush was committing “genocide” according to Castro.
Why does Fidel Castro accuse “not a few” American presidents of “genocide” but praise Barack Obama? The answer can be found in a short but profound section of Machiavelli’s classic leadership manual, The Prince:
“And anyone who becomes lord of a city used to living in liberty and does not destroy it may expect to be destroyed by it, because such a city always has as a refuge, in any rebellion, the spirit of liberty and its ancient institutions, neither of which is never forgotten either because of the passing of time or because of the bestowal of benefits.”
Simply put, Castro’s tyranny is much safer with Obama leading the “free” world than George Bush. Once the “spirit of liberty” germinates in a society a tyrant’s days are numbered.
Machiavelli’s message offers in addition some advice for Barack Obama: unless a leader destroys it completely “the spirit of liberty and its ancient institutions” will never be forgotten, despite “the passing of time and the bestowal of benefits.”
