Yesterday, I received one peculiar email from someone going with the name Michael Steele purportedly affiliated with the Republican National Congress [RNC.com] bringing attention to Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize and ended with a plea for monetary donation to support their cause. After cursory viewing their web site, I immediately unsubscribed without explaining that I am not an American citizen, hoping that with their elaborate machinery they would not bother sending me more e-mails of such nature which I do not have anything to do with. Probably, they have gotten hold of my email address through bulk email address aggregators. My Yahoo email account was originally given for free by GeoCities.com after I signed-up with the latter for a free web site.
The news of a Nobel Peace Prize for Barack Obama caught me by surprise. A simple term using Google Search led me to a list of people blogging, aside from the news articles reporting about this event. Apparently, I was not alone. Here are some of them:
An Ordinary Citizen queries:
“We appreciate his effort for peace which he just initiates and we have to wait for the result. Isn’t it a bit premature for him to get the prize? We are not sure how it will affect his mindset.”
Churumuri, an Indian blogger, asks:
“Does Obama deserve The Prize? Has he done anything to warrant it? Does giving it to so young a man, in the infancy of his Presidency, devalue all those who worked long and hard to earn it? Or does it not matter at all, because the Nobel is such a political prize anyway (as anybody who has read Irving Wallace’s The Prize will know), given to Yasser Arafat and Menachem Begin?
”
In Swampland, Joe Klein’s No Peace, No Prize states:
“There is a slight whiff of condescension attending the announcement that Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize. There is the sense that he has won simply by not being George W. Bush. Effete Europe is congratulating rowdy America for cleaning up its act and not bringing guns to the dinner table.”
In Salon.com, Glenn Greenwald’s article Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize writes:
“It’s certainly true that Obama inherited, not started, these conflicts. And it’s possible that he could bring about their end, along with an overall change in how America interacts with the world in terms of actions, not just words. If he does that, he would deserve immense credit — perhaps even a Nobel Peace Prize. But he hasn’t done any of that. And it’s at least as possible that he’ll do the opposite: that he’ll continue to escalate the 8-year occupation of Afghanistan, preside over more conflict in Iraq, end up in a dangerous confrontation with Iran, and continue to preserve many of the core Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies that created such a stain on America’s image and character around the world.”
Last January, I posted here The Audacity of Obama, which was sort of a critique of his inaugural address. I am but a part of a detached audience for or against Barack Obama.
In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.” (Ritter & Moore, 2009)
The Peace Prize meant that Obama have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations. But, the Nobel Committee said he won it for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples”. So, Obama won not for having done the most work, but his extraordinary efforts were equated as the best work, to say the least? Or could it be that enunciating “a vision of a nuclear-free world, laid out in a speech in Prague in April; and at the United Nations in September” is worthy of calling it a Nobel Peace Prize achievement. When is a vision, an achievement? I thought the Nobel Prize for Literature, not the Nobel Peace Prize, was about visions. Are we having this collective dream that the vision of a nuclear-free world already exist in our midst? Wake me up, please!
When is talk, work? Politicians do their work, talking! When is premature not too early? Pundits and bloggers alike answer in unison: Twelve days after his presidential inauguration! When is the prize too late? “Well, I’d say then that it could be too late to respond three years from now,” Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told the AP. “It is now that we have the opportunity to respond — all of us.”
The statement from the Nobel Committee said Mr Obama had “created a new climate in international politics”. But as it had happened in the past: political climate changes, and it changes the politics as well as the rhetoric of diplomacy with it. When this change happens three years from now, it would be unlikely to take the prize back as Obama intends to donate it to charity. Obama still has seven or so years to go, would really be too late to respond then? Maybe the Nobel Committee is saying, it is better giving the Prize now, i.e., this early, then the world could wait for the best work to be realized?
According to BBC, a record 205 people were nominated for this year’s peace prize. Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Chinese dissident Hu Jia had been among the favorites. My guess, Obama was the most popular among the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee, or as the email I received stated, it had to do with star power.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be awarded a gold medal, a diploma and 10m Swedish kronor ($1.4m)!
Notes:
Ritter, Karl & Moore, Matt (2009). Gasps as Obama awarded Nobel Peace Prize. Associated Press, Yahoo! News. 09 October 2009. back to text.
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Comments are moderated to keep the discussion relevant and civil. Readers are responsible for their own statements.
Barack Obama, The Peacemaker?
Tags: Vision, Geocities, Blogging, Inauguration, Barack Obama, Peace, Politician, American, Email, News, Politics, Yahoo, Terrorism, Diplomacy, Zimbabwe, United Nations, Citizen, BBC, Michael Steele, Republican National Congress, Nobel Peace Prize, Google Search, Ordinary Citizen, The Prize, Yasser Arafat, Menachem Begin, Swampland, Joe Klein, George W. Bush, Salon, Glenn Greenwald, Audacity, Alfred Nobel, Best Work, Fraternity, Nobel Committee, Co-operation, Nuclear-Free, Achievement, Collective Dream, Premature, Thorbjoern Jagland, Political Climate, Charity, Morgan Tsvangirai, Dissident, Hu Jia, Popular, Star Power, Peacemakers, Gold Medal
The news of a Nobel Peace Prize for Barack Obama caught me by surprise. A simple term using Google Search led me to a list of people blogging, aside from the news articles reporting about this event. Apparently, I was not alone. Here are some of them:
An Ordinary Citizen queries:
Churumuri, an Indian blogger, asks:
In Swampland, Joe Klein’s No Peace, No Prize states:
In Salon.com, Glenn Greenwald’s article Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize writes:
Last January, I posted here The Audacity of Obama, which was sort of a critique of his inaugural address. I am but a part of a detached audience for or against Barack Obama.
In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.” (Ritter & Moore, 2009)
The Peace Prize meant that Obama have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations. But, the Nobel Committee said he won it for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples”. So, Obama won not for having done the most work, but his extraordinary efforts were equated as the best work, to say the least? Or could it be that enunciating “a vision of a nuclear-free world, laid out in a speech in Prague in April; and at the United Nations in September” is worthy of calling it a Nobel Peace Prize achievement. When is a vision, an achievement? I thought the Nobel Prize for Literature, not the Nobel Peace Prize, was about visions. Are we having this collective dream that the vision of a nuclear-free world already exist in our midst? Wake me up, please!
When is talk, work? Politicians do their work, talking! When is premature not too early? Pundits and bloggers alike answer in unison: Twelve days after his presidential inauguration! When is the prize too late? “Well, I’d say then that it could be too late to respond three years from now,” Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told the AP. “It is now that we have the opportunity to respond — all of us.”
The statement from the Nobel Committee said Mr Obama had “created a new climate in international politics”. But as it had happened in the past: political climate changes, and it changes the politics as well as the rhetoric of diplomacy with it. When this change happens three years from now, it would be unlikely to take the prize back as Obama intends to donate it to charity. Obama still has seven or so years to go, would really be too late to respond then? Maybe the Nobel Committee is saying, it is better giving the Prize now, i.e., this early, then the world could wait for the best work to be realized?
According to BBC, a record 205 people were nominated for this year’s peace prize. Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Chinese dissident Hu Jia had been among the favorites. My guess, Obama was the most popular among the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee, or as the email I received stated, it had to do with star power.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be awarded a gold medal, a diploma and 10m Swedish kronor ($1.4m)!
Notes:
Ritter, Karl & Moore, Matt (2009). Gasps as Obama awarded Nobel Peace Prize. Associated Press, Yahoo! News. 09 October 2009. back to text.
Comments are moderated to keep the discussion relevant and civil. Readers are responsible for their own statements.