Nobel Peace Prize for visions
AFTER eight years of George Bush's cowboy presidency that created a "tidal wave of hate America" in the rest of the world and diminished American image as a peacemaker through international dialogue and mutual respect, the world finally lands a leader -- a reformer, if you will -- who showed a vision of "hope and change" to advance "diplomacy rather than confrontation around the globe".
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said the award was given in recognition of "America's return to the hearts of the world's peoples," while Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany believes it was given as an "incentive to the president and to us all" to strive harder for peace.
The 2008 Nobel Peace Prize (NPP) winner, former president Martti Ahtisaari of Finland, interpreted the award as an approval of Obama's goal of achieving Middle East peace. The 2002 winner, former president Jimmy Carter called the award to Obama "a bold statement of international support for his vision and commitment." Former vice president and the co-winner of the 2007 award, Al Gore, called Obama's winning "well deserved."
Amid all these laudatory notes from global leaders, the conservative Republicans, neo-cons and the Obama haters went berserk soon after he was declared the 2009 NPP winner.
"This is completely bizarre," said Iain Martin in The Wall Street Journal. "Traditionally, it has been standard procedure that winners of the prize do their peacemaking first." With whom has Obama made peace -- Hillary Clinton?
"Obama isn't the first American president to win the NPP, but he's the first to win it without having accomplished anything," wrote John Miller, of the National Review. "Obama's award is simply the projection of wishful thinking."
Republicans portrayed Obama's winning the award as unworthy. They viewed the award as the committee's repudiation of Bush's unilateralism in dealing with global issues.
In a fundraising letter, Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee -- an African- American himself -- wrote: "The Democrats and their international leftist allies want America made subservient to the agenda of global redistribution and control. And truly patriotic Americans like you and our Republican Party are the only thing standing in their way."
Rebuffing the influx of negative outbursts, NPP Committee Chairman Thorbjoern Jagland argued that Obama's efforts to heal the divide between the West and the Muslim world and scale down a Bush-era plan for an anti-missile shield in Europe have contributed to -- if not a safer world -- a world with less tension. "Alfred Nobel wrote that the prize should go to the person who has contributed most to the development of peace in the previous year." Jagland asked: "Who has done more for that than Barack Obama?" The committee expounded that giving Obama the peace award could be interpreted as an early vote of confidence to build global support for the policies of his young administration, namely nuclear disarmament and his conciliatory approach, based on more on diplomacy and dialogue, towards addressing global issues.
The Committee asserted: "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."
Obama detractors are asking him to decline the award. "To be honest," the president said in the Rose Garden, "I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who have been honoured by this prize, men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace." He, however, plans to travel to Oslo on December 10 to "accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations to confront the challenges of the 21st century." The White House said that Obama will donate the prize money of $1.4 million to charity.
Obama is only the third sitting president to win the NPP. The others were Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 for negotiating an end to a war between Russia and Japan, and Woodrow Wilson in 1919 for the Treaty of Versailles.
President Obama may not have achieved much to show yet, but has, nonetheless, engendered substantial goodwill overseas through a series of speeches with far reaching implications; persistence to pursue a nuclear weapons free world, reaching out to the Muslim world with friendly hands; and making efforts to restart "two state" negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Many of us believe that the last thing Barack Obama needs at this moment in his presidency is a trophy for his visions. The award may inadvertently complicate his dealings with the intricate challenges in Afghanistan and Pakistan; the insurgency in Iraq may have subsided considerably but the situations is still quite fragile; North Korea is still belligerent and staging missile tests every now and then; although Iran joined the negotiating table, it still shows defiance against moratorium on uranium enrichment; Israel is defiant to freeze the illegal settlements in occupied Arab lands.
President Wilson's award came three months before his presidency ended while Obama's award came with 3 years left in his presidency. In his NYT October 11 commentary, Professor John Milton of the University of Wisconsin wrote: "Wilson never had a chance in his post presidential life to shape the multilateral diplomatic world he envisioned. Perhaps in Barack Obama he will get something like a second chance."
Many of us argue that President Obama may have deserved the prestigious award for his visions; but at this early juncture of his presidency, it may be more a liability -- perhaps more burden than glory, if you will. The burden of earning it deservingly is enormously perilous.
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