Does Barack Obama Deserve The Nobel Peace Prize?
Article Tools
-
1
Liked it 
Subscribe to RSS
My feelings on President Obama’s award. I’d love to hear your views.
I have every respect for Barack Obama, he is a man of integrity and vision. But, less than eight months after taking office, does he deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?
My personal feeling is no. This award is being given in anticipation of what he might achieve in his time as American President, not in acknowledgement of his accomplishments. These, so far, are few but only the naive would expect landmark decisions about nuclear disarmament and global warming to take place overnight.There a few of us who assume that President Obama will achieve all his goals in a mere four years!
While President Obama has offered the hand of friendship and peace to so many, he recently snubbed Tibet’s spiritual and exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, who won the award in 1989. This has caused a political storm in the USA, where many see it as a calculated political move to maintain good diplomatic relations with China.
Ironically, several Chinese dissidents were among the candidates, one of whom is imprisoned, another in exile in America. Surely they, and others among the record 205 candidates, who have risked personal suffering in the name of peace, deserve the Peace Prize more.
Image via Wikipedia
I have no desire to denigrate Barack Obama. Although, not an American, I shed emotional tears when he was elected. I still hope that he will be remembered as a good president to his people and the world as a whole. But, please, let the Nobel Peace Prize be awarded for that which has been achieved and not be renamed the Let’s Hope Prize!
2 Comments
Great article, I am an American and I have to agree he did not deserve it. Even his most ardent supporters agree this was more politics than keeping with the will of Nobel. The Peace Prize is supposed to be based on a person’s actions not their potential to act. It is sad that someone more deserving was passed over to simply make this statement or show of support for one man. I am afraid it will diminish the meaning of the prize in the future.
Nice article Catherine. I am an American as well and am experiencing conflicting emotions about this. I am proud that our country’s leader received the prize. I am dismayed that receiving the prize so early in his presidency makes it more difficult for him here in his own country and allows this very question to even be asked. I am irritated that the prize has become a political tool. Surely, the awards to Jimmy Carter in 2002 and Al Gore in 2007 could be seen as political statements against then President George W. Bush. I’d also say that this is not the first time that the prize has been given with a huge amount of *hope* embedded in it for example, Yassar Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin shared the prize in 1994 “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East,” well, we all know that has not happened and let us hope that President Barack Obama is much, much more successful.
Personally, I would have chosen Denis Mukwege.