on October 9, 2009 @ 11:22 am
'I wonder what the reaction to this news will be in Pakistan' Or what the Iranians might think. Im sure they are having a wry chuckle while they bin the latest threatening notice from the State Department.
"Hope" is SO in right now. And we can swing the view of Afghanistan into being "a war for peace" because of those nasty Taliban and naughty Al Queda. Those of us in the "reality based community" need to stop being so cynical, else our bad thoughts and negative emotions bring down the consensus and the Republicans win again.
on October 9, 2009 @ 12:02 pm
I have to admit I was surprised by the prize too.
However what I think it really says (and I think this is something that still only gets lip service in American international policy) is that before you can begin any bridge-building work that will be effective, you have to approach the engagement with respectful consideration of the other side's perspective.
For this reason I would focus more on the word "potential" over "hope". There is actionable promise in the way Obama seems to approach international debate.
on October 9, 2009 @ 1:35 pm
I think you are right. I think that judging by the President's own remarks this morning, he is aware of the difficulties with the award. I thought he did an excellent job of broadening the issues and was glad to see allusions to the Iran election and Aung San Suu Kyi, who after all recieved the same honour in 1991. Perhaps this will make it harder for those who seek to frustrate his progress towards peace.
on October 9, 2009 @ 2:12 pm
When I first saw the text alert on my I-phone early this a.m. I thought I was reading something from The Onion instead of the New York Times. These two publications are getting more and more similar I admit but this was too much! I think President Obama himself was embarrassed by the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize based upon zero accomplishments and a whole lot of hope. He too must realize that this places expectations on him that will be difficult if not impossible to match or exceed. In the longer term it may certainly lessen the credibility of the Nobel Committee and provoke cynicism in many parts of the world. The law of unintended consequences is still in operation.
on October 9, 2009 @ 3:12 pm
It was a very courageous decision on the part of the Nobel Committee. Preventing another reincarnation of Bush in the form of John McCain from becoming president of the United States was nothing short of a Herculean task indeed, a fortiori for someone with Obama’s credentials – a black man born to a Muslim father raised by a single mom in a country that still harbors a great deal of prejudice against Islam, if not against blacks. I believe he deserves it but to those who are unhappy about it, I have the following comforting thought: take a pragmatic rather than an idealistic view on this - It puts a mountain of pressure on Obama to deserve it and that could only be good for our conflict ridden world given that he is the most powerful man in the world and the decisions that he takes affect the current and the future generations, not only in the US. but around the globe- I believe the Nobel Committee deserves a Nobel prize for making a decision that they knew would be highly polarizing and could call their very judgment into question.
on October 10, 2009 @ 12:04 am
I think the Noble prize committee showed poor judgment in awarding this years peace prize to our unproven and untested President. What makes this decision even more surreal is that President Obama was short listed in February of this year, when he was in office for less than a month. It saddens me to read comments such as the one made by Angela above where she praises the Nobel prize committee on awarding the prize based on the President being: "...a black man born to a Muslim father raised by a single mom in a country that still harbors a great deal of prejudice against Islam, if not against blacks...". First, the premise is wrong and prejudiced. This country does not harbor prejudice against either blacks or muslims.
Perhaps Angela feels superiority over blacks and muslims, feeling that she and others like her need to protect 'lesser people' from the imagined prejudices of their fellow citizens. That is the height of racism and nativism on display by the left both in this country and in Europe, whereby they treat anyone who is non-white as a child in need of overt praise and support. I guess Obama is the latest person in need of cuddling from the European and American left's elites. A few years ago, the fashionable thing for the same crowd was giving awards to Iranian film makers. Frankly, as a former Iranian, who happens to speak Farsi, I found the movies that these awards were going to extremely childish and of poor quality in both acting and writing.
on October 10, 2009 @ 2:27 pm
Nick,
Rather than focusing your gimlet eye on whether Obama meets the standards of the Nobel Peace Prize or not, it might be more productive to look at the President and the United States as the target of Norwegian public diplomacy efforts.
Surely, the prize is used to influence global politics in the direction of the values espoused by the committee. It is hardly awarded on the basis of any kind of objective criteria. They are "marketing morality" (see Clifford Bob) in every bit the same way as the committee to Save Darfur or the International Campaign For Tibet. They are political actors trying to nudge global politics in a direction they favor. Nothing wrong with that but we should be clear that their awards reflect their politics, attitudes and values. Their perceptions and sentiments are interesting but are hardly holy writ.
Those of us practicing/studying public diplomacy know that understanding the target culture comes before being able to influence it. What do the Norwegians think they understand about the United States if they think this PD effort will effectively influence American political behavior on the global stage?
As the work of political scientist Ronald Krebs has shown, a backlash is always possible when the Nobel Peace Prize is bestowed. The objective conditions in Tibet and in Burma worsened after their charismatic human rights leaders were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Perhaps, in the circumstance, Obama's proper response to being targeted by the Nobel Committee might be uff da!*
*Norwegian for “ouch!”
on October 10, 2009 @ 5:45 pm
Thinking of the Nobel Peace Prize as Norwegian PD is an excellent frame. It was certainly quite an intervention into the public sphere!
on October 12, 2009 @ 7:06 am
Well it sounds like Nick had exactly the same day and reaction that I did. My reaction, also on hearing the news on NPR, was: how strange and premature. But then on reflection, like yourself, I had much the same response -- this was as much as indication of how dismally disappointed the world was to the Bush presidency as it was an expression of gratitude for Obama's contributions to peace to date.
It seemed less strange to me when I thought of past presidents who had won the prize -- Woodrow Wilson, dragged the US into a disastrous war and then failed to achieve his noblest aspirations; Theodore Roosevelt, who openly advocated warfare time and again and who thought war was a contest for national greatness; Henry Kissinger, who escalated the Vietnam War so it could end on essentially the same terms as when he began the negotiations. It was Jimmy Carter, oddly enough, who made a truly tangible contribution to peace -- by presiding over the Camp David Accords.
