Did President Barack Obama deserve the Nobel Peace Prize? We have the views of four well-known newspapers and at least two columnists, to start with. What have they said? First, of course they like many others, expressed their surprise. “It is hard to understand why the Prize went to Obama” The Indian Express (October 12) noted. The paper said that “there is a grain of truth” in the view of a German editor’s comment that the Award to Obama “is Europe’s revenge on George Bush” and the Prize was “surely more anti-Bush than pro-Obama”. It pointed out that Obama “is the very image of the Mediator as opposed to Bush’s Terminator”. It drew attention to the fact that “he has set himself the goal of nuclear disarmament” and signaled “that the US is ready to take the lead on Climate Change” and further more “has been able to set a new tone throughout the world to create a readiness for dialogue”. If he proves in the end to be indeed the Great Conciliator, the paper said “the Nobel Committee’s decision will be seen as pre-scient”. The announcement of the Award to Obama, said Deccan Herald (October 12) “was ironically like a bomb-shell that surprised the whole world”. The Award to Obama, said the paper, “honours a person for what he plans to do rather than for what he has done”. It added: “It had some romance and rhetoric built into it, but has started fraying. The Committee could have waited for Obama to realise (his ambitions) through his actions at least partially before rushing to honour him”.
However, the paper continued “the Award casts on Obama” a fresh responsibility to live an image which in the case of a head of State can prove to be a burden and a constraint”. The Times of India (October 12) quoting Shakespeare wondered whether “having recognised Obama’s potential, could the Award be the Nobel Committee’s way of thrusting greatness upon him?” The paper said that while the Nobel Committee “has provoked unusual controversy, giving Obama the Award “could be a brilliant move”. Said the paper: “The future of the world binges on men like Obama. By awarding the Peace Prize to him, the Nobel Committee is in effect telling Obama that the world has certain expectations of him”.
Using some far-fetched and involved logic the paper compared Obama with Shiva who drank poison to save the world, saying “the US President is a bit like Shiva. What if poison Obama is drinking to save the world is anybody’s guess, unless accepting the Peace Award is a poison of sorts which it could very well be. The Hindu (October 12) said the reward “reflects the tremendous hope that has underlined the emergence of Obama as a world figure in whom is placed the burden of enormous expectations”, adding that “the Peace Prize is not just about recognising achievement (but) it is also meant to be a catalyst for possible change”. However, said the paper, “the Norwegians could have waited until 2010 when his selection would have looked less arbitrary and premature”. It expressed the hope that “this high level assertion of faith in Mr Obama’s sincerity and capability should make it easier for him to take hold strides in diplomatic initiation in West Asia and on the disarmament front”.
Columnist M J Akbar was extremely-and perhaps justificably-cynical in his comments in Deccan Herald (October 12) He said: “The only substantial decision that Obama has taken in terms of war and peace is to ramp the war in Afghanistan far above George Bush’s scale of intervention” and that “he is on the point of sending upward of 50,000 more American troops, so that ….his bevy of Pentagon Generals can fight for another decade on the killing rocks of a battlefield”. “Is it possible?” asked Akbar, ‘that the Oslo peace mafia has run out of people to hand the Prize to?” Referring to the Norwegian Peace Committee, he added: “We all know, of course, that Mahatma Gandhi was never found worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize but then they would have probably considered Jesus Christ too good to be true as well”. Akbar said Obama’s “signal contribution to world peace” is his throwing out Bush Republicans, the biggest band of war-mongers in recent American history”.
Writing in The Indian Express (October 12) S Gurumurthy wondered, basing his reaction to US media comment, whether the Award given was “intended to embarrass the US”. He said: “Can Obama, the Nobel Prize winner, bomb Teheran or Pyongyang’s nuclear facility even if it is in the US or global interest? Can he continue the US involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq? Can he continue to raid the tribal areas of Pakistan… If he does… the Award may lose credibility. If he does, he will”. American newspapers seem to be almost embarrassed with the Award to Obama. The Los Angeles Times wondered whether Obama deserved the Prize and said “the Nobel Committee didn’t just embarrass Obama, it diminished the credibility of the Prize itself”. Time magazine said that “the last thing Barack Obama needed at this moment in his Presidency and our politics is a prize for a promise”. The Washington Post said “it is an odd Nobel Peace Prize that almost makes you embarrassed for the honoree” As Gurumurthy noted, “never before in the history of Nobel Peace Prize the country of the honoree had acted with such contempt for the Award as well as the awardee”. In his context, two articles on Obama are of immediate relevance. One is in Mainstream (October 3) in which Muchkund Dubey, a former Foreign Secretary has praised Obama’s announcement on September 17, 2009, concerning the withdrawal of National Missile Defence (NMD) from some parts of Europe as coming “as a great relief to the whole world”. The article, obviously, was written before the announcement of the Nobel Peace Award. The second article appeared in Newsweek (August 17). The United States owed a lot of money to the United Nations since 1999. The US Congress voted in June 2009 to pay all the dues. The weekly said that “America is learning to love the United Nations all over again. “and that polls indicate that now 61 percent of the American people hold a favourable view of the organisation. “Why the spike?” asked Newsweek adding: “The first, obvious answer; Barack Obama”. So, if under President Obama’s rule the United Nations “is born again”, then, perhaps, people may wish to admire Obama though, it may be added, that at the height of US support to the UN, the United States was responsible for the war in Korea and Vietnam. US support is double-edged. And Obama has to be watched carefully.
