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Dubious award cheapens peace prize By Michael C. Guilmette Jr. Originally published on Oct. 15, 2009, in the Connersville News-Examiner. Back in my college newspaper days, I remember how elated we would feel when we came up with ideas for new features for our weekly publication.
Occasionally, we would decide on something that sounded great at the time — like a clever witticism from the staff on each week’s front page — but would end up being quite laborious a few issues down the road. We discovered, to our dismay, that our clever ideas didn’t seem so clever at 3 a.m. with a press deadline looming mere hours away. Therefore, with our minds addled by a lack of sleep, we would resort to less-than-clever quips to fill space, such as ‘Nothing clever to see here,’ and would then curse ourselves for locking us into something that had become a chore. When I heard last week that President Barack Obama was the choice for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, that was the first thing that came to mind. ‘Was the field of nominees this year so void,’ I thought, ‘that the Nobel Committee picked the default candidate?’ Others thought the same way. “It would be wonderful if I could think why he won,” Claire Sprague, 82, a retired English professor in New York, told Reuters. “They wanted to give him an honor I guess but I can’t think what for.” It also reminded me of Time magazine’s choice for Person of the Year for 2006 — ‘You.’ We received this prestigious honor because we play on Facebook and watch YouTube videos at work and download movies at home. I wondered then if the staff at Time had been scratching their heads trying to pick someone the night before they announced their selection. Three years later, I’m wondering the same thing about the Nobel committee. Was it a case of they had to pick somebody, so they picked Obama? If only that were true. The Nobel Peace Prize sounds outwardly like a noble award which bestows great honor on the individuals selected for their contribution to furthering world peace, regardless of who they may be and what positions they may or may not hold. The qualifiers for selection, in the average person’s mind, rests on what an individual has actually accomplished. Which brings the Obama selection into serious question. On the world stage, the only achievements the president has chalked up are a few speeches and a respectful bow to the Saudi king. Furthermore, Obama, the president who was soundly dissed by the International Olympic Committee a week before the selection announcement, has seen relations with longtime allies like Britain, France and Israel become strained, suggesting the rest of the world is not taking the president seriously. In the case of Israel, Obama’s attempts to restrain the Jewish state’s efforts to defend herself while trying to engage Iran diplomatically may push the Israelis to go it alone to lessen the Iranian threats — a move that would certainly lead to a reduction in peace, at least in the short term. The fraternity of selectees already has some questionable members — and absences. In 1994, former Palestine Liberation Organization chairman and avowed terrorist Yasser Arafat received the Peace Prize despite his campaign of violence against Israel and his support for creating an Islamo-fascist Palestinian regime, while Mahatma Gandhi, the man who practically invented non-violent resistance in the 20th century, has been overlooked. The ideal of peace held by the Nobel Committee appears to be one steeped in the political orientation of the awardee and not an actual commitment to peace. Rasmussen polling from last Sunday showed that 58 percent of U.S. adults believe politics plays a heavy role in the selection process, a finding that is up 18 points from last year. The Nobel committee has engaged in political interference with its choices in the past, most recently with the selection of President Jimmy Carter. Carter was selected in 2002 just prior to the authorization for use of force to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. Gunnar Berge, head of the Nobel committee, told CNN in October 2002 that “[w]ith the position Carter has taken on this, it can and must also be seen as criticism of the line the current U.S. administration has taken on Iraq.” While this Norwegian meddling in U.S. interests is irritating, it is not surprising when Alfred Nobel’s original words are taken into account. His 1895 will called for the peace prize to be given to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” Clearly, Nobel subscribed to the ideology that no fighting equals peace and international bodies can best produce that peace. However, with the ineffectiveness of first the League of Nations and now the United Nations at brokering true peace between combatants bent on destruction and world domination, this notion of peace is proving to be a fallacy. Obama said he was “surprised” and “deeply humbled” by his selection last Friday, but that humility has not given him the presence of mind to see the award for what it is — a call for him to pursue a path to peace that ultimately may not be very peaceful. • Guilmette is managing editor of the News-Examiner. He may be contacted at mguilmette@newsexaminer.com. |
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Copyright © 2009, Michael C. Guilmette Jr. |
Oftentimes, we would look at other newspapers from around the state to cull ideas, seeing what we could adapt for our pages that would improve the paper and hopefully our readership.
