I am not going to complain about awarding of Nobel Peace Prize to Obama. So if you are looking to read for some jokes or stupid schedules of Mr.Obama look somewhere else...
A Nobel Prize is awarded for achievements in Chemistry, Physics, Medicine, Literature and Economics. I am not including Peace prize in this category because it was not meant to be looked as an achievement by some group or person. No single person can change the world-- Mahatma was not one person, he was a voice of all the Indians who could not speak for their freedom, a motivator to lead a path of non-violence, an action of courage to stand up to fight against the then ruling government, for freedom. I feel he should have been awarded and I think he was honored by not awarding a Peace prize as 'there was no suitable living candidate' in 1948.
It is not my intention to compare Obama to Gandhi here, but since there are Facebook messages saying the Nobel prize has become a JOKE because Gandhi was not awarded but Obama was awarded and so on.. I am trying to bring some perspective here. September was when the invitations to nominate were sent out by the Nobel committee to a qualified group for listing deserving candidates. Mr.Obama was one of the 205 candidates nominated. He may have been a Senator Obama or a President Obama depending on when he was nominated. Was he deserving a nomination in the first place? Did he do something extraordinary? or in typical words Did he ACHIEVE something?? He was courage to stand up to run for Office despite of his race and the perceived interest in black community. The words 'Yes we can!' resounded in the entire world, a motivation to change the way it is. He was only campaigning for the office. And it paid off, may be because everyone were so fed up with the unpopularity of Bush and his mishaps or may be because of a HOPE, Obama was proposing to the Americans across the nation. He won, despite being Black, and granted US her first Black president.
Lets move to his office as President Obama and his job and responsibilities. Look at this article about his first 12 days schedule if you are so interested. I don't know what is the point of these 12 days. This time gap between Obama taking oath to his office and the last day to submit the invitation may not have any correlation on why he was awarded Peace prize. He may not have been judged for these 12 days people. He may not have been nominated after he became President Obama.
During his office, President Obama did something an American president would not dare to do (at least post 9/11). He outreached to the Muslim world to speak the words of apology and addressing the crowd 'As-Salam-Alaykum' meaning 'let Peace be upon you', won over a majority of the US hating crowd. There are still Anti-US groups who thinks peace is a joke to their land and who thinks US is the cause of all violence in the middle-east. Wouldn't you call this an effort to bring peace upon nations? A call to stop terrorism was very much required and he gave it to the world. Brought back standing army troops from Iraq slowly bringing stability to the cities with in. However as many would agree, Is that all you need to do to WIN the Peace Prize? Pardon me it is not a WIN, Nobel peace prize is Awarded.
With US in such a miserable state of recession, conservatives and Republicans behind his back picking, and major industries begging for financial support, health care imbalanced and many more in the first few months he addressed a few or may be none of these issues but made a point to talk to Muslim world. Friends, what I am trying to say is that a Nobel Peace prize is just not awarded when you do or achieve extra ordinary results. It is a motivation to keep working in the same way to bring peace between nations, between Religions; an understanding between cultures. However I do not think Nobel prize has become a joke. It is given to a deserved candidate for his work towards peace, unity and togetherness. If parties and speeches could bring Nobel prize, hollywood would be better place for many good looking candidates. As Obama himself was surprised and humbled, he told that this award is a reminder for his responsibility; It is "A CALL FOR ACTION" and thats the word...
A note from an interview from a website...
I think most of them are for something very concrete, more of a Camp David-like peace accord, when you know, Begin and Sadat won, for example. That would be classic. Other time, organizations like UNICEF wins. One year, the Quakers won. So it really depends on the year.
But I think Obama's is unusual in how young he is. He's a 48-year-old man. And I thought about it some today, and I think you have to really think about it more in the terms of Martin Luther King. He won a Nobel Peace Prize at 35 years old, right in 1964, before the historic Civil Rights legislation of '65. And King was at that point 35. He had his whole career ahead of him. So it was kind of an award to encourage King to continue fighting for Civil Rights.
And I think Barack Obama's is to encourage him pushing, particularly as the Nobel committee mentioned, to abolish classifications of nuclear weapons and to continue the Cairo speech, where he's seeming to put an olive branch out between Christians and Israel and the Muslim world.
