VIEWS OF PEOPLE NOT HAPPY WITH OBAMA'S SELECTION FOR NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
ARVIND K.PANDEY
I am of the opinion that Obama is already basking in the glory of success. This award should be used to bring in limelight the deserving souls who need genuine attention for their tremendous contribution. It’s a meaningless and absurd gesture to award this to someone who is at the helm of global politics!
Zimbabwe’s Morgan Tsvangirai, Chinese dissident Hu Jia, Colombian senator Piedad Cordoba who has campaigned for a peaceful solution to the almost 50-year-old conflict in her country, and Afghan doctor and women’s rights activist Sima Samar, Vietnamese Buddhist monk and democracy advocate Thich Quang Do, Chechen human rights lawyer Lidiya Yusupova, and Russian activist Svetlana Gannushkina and the Cluster Munitions Coalition or the humanitarian organization Handicap International could have been honured.
Only because just think of the consequences had Obama been not awarded Nobel.According to many he would have then run short of enthusiasm to accomplish his dreams !!This award,by many,is being treated as ”catalyst” but my question is that why Obama needs an award to pursue his goal ?
He is the head of a ”superpower” and enjoys great resources to pursue his dreams.He should ,being in league with his conscience, discharge all his duties responsibly and that includes peaceful solutions in contentious issues plaguing the middle east.He should do all this naturally with or without award.Why should he be awarded for something that falls genuinely within his realm?
No need to tell that whether it’s middle east or any other part of world U.S. has definite role to play.Only because most of the problems have been directly or indirectly created by United states.Today he talks about limiting the presence of nuclear weapons.One need to ask Obama which country has inspired the minnows to flirt with nuclear weapons?
I think it’s not Mr Obama but some another soul that truly deserved Nobel.Because that person would have gone out of way to set new parameters and that too in absence of resources. Sadly,that’s not at all the case with Obama.He is Mr influential !!
Are now Nobel prizes given to serve some political interests?
I am really surprised that he has been chosen!! If he could be awarded Noble for inconsequential and insignificant international diplomacy, why was Gandhi not awarded Noble for his tremendous contributions that added new dimensions in the word humanity?
Like others I am also not hesitant in asking ”He won! For what?”
One gentleman has stated that he has won for his ”unshakable commitment to diplomacy, mutual respect and dialogue as the best means of resolving conflicts.”
Like to tell that gentleman that this are empty words and nothing else...Big words devoid of meaning in our times !!
I hope there are many names in the list who are unknown figure for many of us.Shouldn’t have they been given chance to bask in the glory of success?
Let’s have a look at what others have said in this regard.I am presenting the other side of coin-the people who are terribly upset.
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Peter Beinart, no stranger to good analysis, deftly captures the gestalt of problems with Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize:
I like Barack Obama as much as the next liberal, but this is a farce. He’s done nothing to deserve the prize. Sure, he’s given some lovely speeches and launched some initiatives on Iran, Israeli-Palestinian peace, climate change and nuclear disarmament — that might, if he’s really lucky and really good, make the world a more safe, more just, more peaceful world. But there’s absolutely no way to know if he’ll succeed, and by giving him the Nobel Prize as a kind of “atta boy,” the Nobel Committee is actually just highlighting the gap that conservatives have long highlighted: between Obamamania as global hype and Obama’s actual accomplishments
Obama will survive this award. The damage to the Nobel Committee itself will be greater. They’ve clearly fallen in love with celebrity, and with the idea of shaping the course of history in other words, they’ve fallen in love with an absurdly grandiose conception of their role. The Nobel Prize Committee should be in the business of conferring celebrity on unknown human rights and peace activists toiling in the most god-forsaken parts of the world; the people who really need the attention (and even the money).
It should be in the business of angering powerful tyrants by giving their victims a moment in the sun. Choosing Barack Obama, who practically orbits the sun already, accomplishes the exact opposite of that. Let’s hope Obama eventually deserves this award. And let’s hope the Nobel Committee’s decision meets with such a deafening chorus of chortles and jeers that it never does something this stupid again.
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Financial Times: What Did Obama Do to Win the Nobel Peace Prize?
I am a genuine admirer of Obama. And I am very pleased that George W Bush is no longer president. But I doubt that I am alone in wondering whether this award is slightly premature. It is hard to point to a single place where Obama’s efforts have actually brought about peace - Gaza, Iran, Sri Lanka? The peace prize committee say that he is being rewarded for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy.” But while it is OK to give school children prizes for “effort” - my kids get them all the time - I think international statesmen should probably be held to a higher standard.
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London Times: Absurd Decision on Obama Makes a Mockery of the Nobel Peace Prize
Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world.
Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace.
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The Guardian: Barack Obama’s Nobel Prize: Why Now?
Indeed, the reasoning behind the awarding of the prize to previous American presidents has been easier to discern. Teddy Roosevelt opened the court of arbitration in the Hague and helped mediate a peace treaty between Russia and Japan; Woodrow Wilson was the founder of the League of Nations. Jimmy Carter won his prize for his “untiring efforts to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts”.
Which is what makes the awarding of this year’s prize to a president who has been in office for a mere nine months an odd departure. It is as if the prize committee had been persuaded to give the award on the future delivery of promises.
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And A Very Interesting Remark:
But next year let’s give it to Miss World. Every year Miss World comes on and says I want world peace and the world free of nuclear weapons.It’s a hope, an aspiration. This is a Nobel Peace Prize for not being George Bush.
Sky News foreign affairs editor Tim Marshall
