Nobel Committee jumps the gun
The Nobel Committee's award of the 2009 Peace Prize to Barack Obama has not been greeted with universal enthusiasm. Obama has less than 10 months in the presidential office and yet the Committee refers to his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."
This will certainly bolster Obama's popularity and profile in the U.S., where he has faced an uphill battle with his plans for health insurance reform to provide greater access to medical services for the poor. Obama has faced a divided Democratic Party in Congress.
The announcement apparently caught most by surprise. Most analysts considered Obama's presidency too new to make him a candidate. The deadline for nominations was a mere 10 days after Obama assumed office.
It is entirely possible that someone nominated Obama even before he was sworn in as president. In those heady days, the world was in love with Obama and saw his electoral victory as a sign of hope against racism and discrimination.
But having just finished reading Three Cups of Tea, which details Greg Mortenson's extraordinary work building schools in the Pakistan/Afghanistan region where the Taliban was birthed, I am only too aware that there are men and women around the world who have laboured for years under difficult circumstances to bring peace.
What has Obama done for world peace in his months in office? He has reduced the American presence in Iraq. He has increased the number of American troops in Afghanistan. One can argue about whether this is a step towards peace.
Obama is also the first American president to chair the United Nations Security Council. This session dealt with nuclear proliferation and ways to combat that. Presumably, the council would have addressed these issues even if someone else had chaired.
The Committee refers to Obama's ability to "capture the world's attention and give it hope for the future." This is clearly something that relates to the beginning of Obama's presidency. And at least some of that enthusiasm was simply because of his skin colour.
I do not want to be unduly negative about this award. When Obama won the election, I commented that the expectations were high for his presidency and wished him well. But expectations should not form the basis for such a prestigious award.
Those who have won the Nobel Peace Prize in the past have either won for specific events or long track records of peace-building. Canada's own Lester B. Pearson, for example, won the prize in 1957. Before becoming prime minister, Pearson served in the Department of External Affairs. He had been instrumental in resolving the Suez crisis of 1956.
There are other notable examples of those who have been awarded the Peace Prize for specific acts. Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho won in 1973 for negotiating the Vietnam peace accord. Mohamed Anwar Al-Sadat and Menachem Begin won in 1978 for negotiating peace between Egypt and Israel. Martin Luther King Jr. won in 1964 for his civil rights campaign. Mikhail Gorbachev won in 1990 for his work in ending the Cold War.
Then there are many who won for decades or a lifetime of work. Mother Teresa won in 1979 for her work in the slums of India. Archbishop Desmond Tutu won in 1984 for his work against apartheid.
Jimmy Carter, U.S. president from 1977 to 1981 was awarded the prize in 2002, many years after his presidency. Mind you, much of his peace advocacy was after his presidency.
But these examples illuminate how unusual it is for a sitting politician to be given the award during his or her time in office unless it is for a specific event.
Perhaps the Committee was swept away in the moment. Time will tell. But that is the point exactly. It is too early yet to say what Obama will do in office. Certainly it is too early to say whether the hope he has instilled in the world will bear fruit for peace.
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