Peace Prize

Big wars. Small wars. Medium-sized wars. Intermediate medium-sized wars. World wars. Regional wars. Interplanetary wars. Civil wars. Uncivil wars. Intercity wars. Intracity wars. Wars involving two countries. Wars involving three countries. Wars involving five countries at first, but then two dropped out and three more joined in. The Marsian language had 1746 words for war. But none for peace.

The country of Marsia was situated on a planet light years from earth. Let there be no mistake about that. The non-Marsian languages on that planet had one word apiece for "war" and "peace." The other countries weren't always at peace, especially in the vicinity of Marsia, but at least, they had the concept.

Not only did those countries have an idea of what peace was, but they believed that it was better than war. Unfortunately, war, in any of its 1700+ permutations, had an annoying habit of breaking out anywhere and everywhere it was least desired, and at inconvenient times, too. Therefore, the peoples of this far-away planet decided to do something to encourage peace and discourage war. They established a global prize for peace to be awarded annually to a person who had done a lot to promote peace and prevent war and appointed a committee to evaluate candidates and select a winner. How much this helped is open to debate, but their intentions were good, and the practice became a tradition. Of course, no one from Marsia was ever even considered for the global peace prize.

The leader of Marsia was not called "leader." Nor was he called president, king, dictator, caliph, shah, chairman, or any of the other usual titles for the person who is the supreme leader of a nation. He was called the only thing that made sense in Marsia: Commander-in-Chief.

One day, a new Marsian Commander-in-Chief came to power in an igglewook (a war of succession). The new Commander-in-Chief announced in a bikbiddle (a war of words) that he was thinking about making some fongdip (policy war) changes.

"I will not abandon," said the Commander-in-Chief, "any of the on-going blibbics, dongfoops, figgins, motzigs, or hixmungs we're already involved in, but I might think about it. And I might talk to our adversary-designates before taking on any more."

The global peace prize committee immediately awarded the new Marsian Commander-in-Chief the global prize for peace. World leaders, pundits, and other observers were shocked.

"What are you doing?" they gasped collectively. "That guy hasn't done anything for peace! He doesn't even have a word for it!"

"Ah," explained the committee, "but he so isn't the guy before him."