I’ve been trying to work out why the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Obama.
Prima facie, it appears a strange decision.
The citation makes it clear that the award was made in expectation of future achievements –
“democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.”
That is a precedent. Recent laureates – Martti Ahtisaari, Al Gore & the IPCC, Muhammad Yunus & Grameen Bank, the IAEA & Mohammad El Baradei, Wangaari Mathai and Shirin Ebadi – have received the prize after the achievement, following the logic that Al Gore & the IPCC raised knowledge and awareness of climate change. Jimmy Carter received the prize not for his presidency but his work thereafter. However, there are other comparisons to be drawn; Kim Dae Jung received the prize, although North and South Korea remain divided; Rabin, Peres and Arafat received the prize, although the conflict still goes on in the Levant.
The will of Alfred Nobel says that the prize should go
to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.
I suspect that the members of the special committee of the Norwegian Storting, Thorbjørn Jagland, Kaci Kullmann Five, Sissel Marie Rønbeck, Inger-Marie Ytterhorn and Ågot Valle, opted for Obama on the basis that he had done work for building fraternity between nations – the Cairo speech – and the reduction of standing armies – or at least standing nuclear weapons. The President of the USA saying that the USA at least wants a world free of nuclear weapons or that there can be a better relationship between the Western and Muslim worlds probably means by default that he has done good work. Indeed, the citation says
“The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.”
I do not think that the members of the committee wanted to court such controversy, and so conclude that they must not have been aware that it would have riled a section of American society and so possibly made things harder for Obama, as well as raising questions about the prize. Perhaps when he had more concrete achievements under his belt, it would have been appropriate; as it is, the predictable, political fallout means that Obama should have been seen by the Committee as a poor choice – at least for now.
xD.
PS I’m currently in Kyiv at a conference with representatives of forty-two countries. The universal reaction to the news was ‘what the fuck?’