For all of those doubting his merits worthy of this award, I'd like to know from you an answer to the following question.
Who do you think is more worthy than he for this "peace" prize?
I'm not trying to start a heated debate, but only asking for your opinions about candidates purportedly "more worthy" for consideration for the Nobel Peace Prize than President Obama.
Personally, I'm surprised about the announcement, but when I first heard it on today's show, I reminded myself that this prize is for a person's efforts in global peace not scientific research or discovery. Those efforts are separate Nobel awards.
As far as his efforts in peace, I do think that President Obama has influenced the world in a mostly positive and peaceful manner and in numerous dimensions of impact for consideration for the award including being more thorough in his approach for world peace, having a far-reaching world-effect for peace and the collaboration of disparate peoples for peace, and most notably by breaking cultural, religious, philosophical, and political barriers throughout the world, far beyond the borders of this globally powerful nation, that he is the chief executive.
Yes, most of his "work" has been more or less just the sheer impact from his persona, charisma, and oratory performances, but this alone has changed the minds, opened the hearts, and actually made a difference to one degree or another. Coupled with his actual power, plans and actions for diplomacy, complex and ethically challenging executive decisions, and his efforts to make real the vivid narratives of peace that he has spoken about, I think that his promises for peace and general good will should have been acknowledged on a world forum and none other more satisfactory for this level of acknowledgement than the Nobel Peace Prize.
I'll cite Obama's inauguration speech with the "we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist" remarks, his Cairo speech to the Muslim world (of which 25% of the world's population is Muslim), his "Tough Love" speech toward the African nations, people and continent, and his recent speech to US school children about responsibility and hard work as a few examples of his oratory expositions' simple, but influential impact upon the world with peace and understanding at the core of the ends of his means.
I'm sure not everyone will agree with me, but I do see the logic that the Nobel Prize Committee used for their decision, but unless I hear of someone else that has had a greater impact or greater merits of attempts for peace in the world than President Obama, then I do believe that the committee made the right decision and chose the best candidate for the award.
2 comments:
Yeah, I wrote this trying to rationalize the decision. While I think his efforts were noble up until that point and even so mostly until this present-day, in retrospect I now realize that I really didn't think that he necessarily deserved the Nobel prize for peace over many if not most of the other worthy candidates. There are definitely more people that have done far greater and had much more impact upon promoting peace in this world than he has done before and during his short term of office when they made this rash decision and even to this present-day. It was just an interesting and very strange confluence of events that led me to try to rationalize his winning of the prize.
On the contrary, I do think that he has done a lot to mend fences with many world powers and political opposition, but it has also been overshadowed by an enormous onslaught of angst, contrarianism, public dissent and outcry, political opposition and strategem to undermine his efforts, as well as nation-state military testing and prodding of his foreign policy's gusto and might in various international leverage scenarios from Iran's continued efforts to obtain atomic weaponry, destabilization attempts by individuals acting on behalf of Al Qaeda and other organizations such as Hamas who have tried to cause unnecessary conflict in Israel. In addition, many leaders have pressed Obama on his presidency such as Venezuelan President Chavez and Russian's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on matters of Western domination of the world and how they would like to change that to some degree or another. Finally, the fine line that Obama has had to walk on relations with China since the matter of politics is very complicated in the region with Tibet, Taiwan, and Beijing coupled with our massive debt mostly owed to the Chinese.
It's a very vast, complicated, and intricately woven quilt of world politics that must be walked, and while Obama has given great speeches here and there and has taken interesting measures to shore up tensions amongst domestic political parties, he still has two wars being fought overseas as well as, in my opinion, numerous gaffes of leadership such as the Miranda Rights for the alleged terrorist on the Detroit bound flight amongst other issues. And there are numerous other issues that the Obama presidency haven't even begun to tackle such as the war on drugs and our struggle at the Mexican-American border where violence is continually destabilizing the border day after day, year after year. Oh yeah, we were in a semi-depression, aka a severe recession, and dealt two massive natural disasters, two election crises in Iran and Moldova, and cloudy situations like climate-gate (trivial in comparison, but full of impact for his party's environmental ideals which could weaken the public's support of his party), and a massive mistake to tackle healthcare in the midst of it all.
So, peace? World peace? Regional peace? National peace? Political peace abroad or here within these United States of America? It's hard to say that Obama has generated much unity of any kind that could be considered an act of garnering peace in this world except for maybe his campaign, historic election, transitional period into the Whitehouse, and subsequently his inauguration and high-hopes of the world populace for change of any kind that would usher in peace. I think the Nobel prize committee was myopic, but overlooking his actual résumé for a general sense of hope and instead of choosing a single idea, they chose hope's elected leader. They really chose the person that best manifested the idea of hope and change in the world. It happened to be Obama and his massively successful campaign for the Presidency. In essence though, hope is not a strategy.
More than one person for sure. They should give out regional Nobel peace prizes since the world is so vast in culture and size. One manifestation of peace here and one peaceful negotiation there, they are just too difficult and hard to judge like apples and oranges, region to region, culture to culture, struggle to struggle.
One person that is most impactful is a great candidate for the world stage, but regional stages from continent to continent, conflict to conflict, war to peace, should all be considered in their own right for a Nobel peace prize accommodation of sorts whether be it worldwide acclaim and focus on their individual accomplishments or some sort of way to award them individually or categorically such as best peace achieved in the Middle East, best peaceful accord and work in Africa, best human rights activism, best endeavors for the struggle of women's rights, best educational enlightenment project, best impact for minorities in lands of oppression such as India and the caste system or in Darfur and the state-sponsored rape and murder, and even maybe a category for peaceful accords with nature such as environmentalism.
There's so much more than just the broad statement of "world peace" that could be described by their awarding committee and illuminated for the world to see, but instead they choose to sum all of it into a single award given to nominees that have limited credentials and skeptics abound about their qualification for such a generalized award that the award itself could be likened to the common stereotype of a beauty pageant's shallowness with the statement of "world peace". I think that the world has become more complex than it was when the Nobel peace prizes were first being handed out, such that it should evolve and be redesigned for our brave new world that pervades our cognizant realization of our own human shortcomings against those few who strive to better the world in massive struggles, not for acclaim, but for true peace whether it be part of the world or whole.
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