Nine months after becoming the 44th President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, has been awarded the Nobel speech prize. Oops, make that the Nobel Peace Prize.
The announcement is so startling that his own countrymen, like the good folk at the Wall Street Journal, are asking, like, why?
“Traditionally it has been standard procedure that winners of the prize do their peacemaking first and are only given the prize after they have achieved something… a leader can now win the peace prize for saying that he hopes to bring about peace at some point in the future,” Iain Martin writes.
Reuters reports that Obama bagged the award for giving the world the “hope for a better future”. The Norwegian Nobel committee has spoken of Obama’s “extraordinary efforts” to strengthen international diplomacy and of capturing the world’s attention, attributes designed to impress the right wing loonies.
Simple question: Does Obama deserve The Prize? Has he done anything to warrant it? Does giving it to so young a man, in the infancy of his Presidency, devalue all those who worked long and hard to earn it? Or does it not matter at all, because the Nobel is such a political prize anway (as anybody who has read Irving Wallace‘s The Prize will know), given to Yasser Arafat and Menachem Begin?
Also read: Could the media end up killing Barack Obama?
churumuri 
Ten thousand times better than His Holiness Guruji type!
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Unlike Indian media, which doesn’t / can’t stop praising any international award winner from India or remotely connected to India, European and American media already started questioning Obama’s peace prize.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100013074/obamas-won-the-nobel-peace-wtf/
– Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace prize and I’m still reeling at the shock. Most of us are, I should think.
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Wonder if Obama accepts the award… I think the prize if perhaps 4 / 8 years too early…
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It looks like pop-culture mania has gripped the Nobel committee. Obama has not done anything substantial except talk and hold out a promise of peace which, may not even materialize. Somehow, Obama’s forceful talk has convinced the Nobel committee that he is indeed The Messiah we are all waiting for. Will the prize be revoked if he bombs anyone in the future?
Even Angelina Jolie is a better choice than Obama!!
What next – a college kid who enrolls into economics honors – will be awarded the economics prize?
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Dear Churumuri-
Could you please add another poll!.
Why did Obama get the Nobel Prize?
1> He has killed more civilians in the SWAT valley than any terrorist ever has
2> He is committed to let Halliburton run Iraq
3> He made sure that Palestine would withdraw the Goldstone Report
4> The Nobel Peace Prize Committee was on drugs.
Anand
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I think, he got it , because he was the first Black President….
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i asked same to same question once here at churumuri. one postor(truth matters?) threw the entire search engine at me, servers ond biTTu. to add to it, to my comment that raayar kudre barta barta katte aagtide, he threw another set of comments about how the kudure is not katte, and how the previous kudure was the actual katte.
i said vokay. in anycase, award kottru anta no peace is actually going to manifest. biLiyara sante ee nobel gibel. yaarg beku koDli. nsy?
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in one word – NO.
Ironic! Gandhi doesn’t win it inspite of a life time of Non-Violence and a first term, first year US president, without any real achievement to speak of wins it!!
They might as well say, all US presidents will get a Peace prize!
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It does not surprise me at all. Nobel peace prize has become like our Padmabhushan, padmashri, bharat ratna awards, given out by a company that manufactured dynamites originally and even to this day manufactures explosives for armies around the world. This itself is a irony.
On top of that this award has been given to questionable people like Yasser Arafat who indulged in and promoted terrorism. So, by that standards Obama getting it is OK I guess :)
You cannot beat the “Audacity of Hoax” of Barak H Obama.
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Its strange that the prize is given in anticipation that he will bring peace,not that he has done some solid effort..As said in the post,all the efforts of people worthy of it are down the drain..Oh well,nobody works for peace targetting nobel prize…
I like Obama :)
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This is the stupidest thing of the year and it’s not even April 1 st ! How friggin shallow can they get ?
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It is too early and he should respectfully decline it
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Yediyurappange Doctorate
Obama – Nobel prize yella ondhe
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The Nobel Prize was once aspirational. Somewhere along the way, it came to be called symbolic, inspirational. Though Obama sees it as a call for action and as a supportive gesture, I think it would probably turn into a dissuasive measure. Having accepted the prize, the already indecisive President is likely to turn more of a procrastinator, eager to please all and ending up pleasing none.
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I do’nt think he deserves the Nobel Prize. Was the Nobel committee so short of deserving candidates?
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In your list of Arafat and Begin , you left out Mandela who was a terrorist-there were photographs of him with AK47. The end does not justify the means. At least Obama has intentions to do good for his society and the world. But then the acceptance of this prize ( The Huffington Post says he has) means restrictions of military actions against Talibans in Afghanistan and against nuclear Iran.
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Hey, I’m hoping for a more peaceful world too. Can I have my Nobel now?
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Nobody is happy that Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize.
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Pingback: Global Voices Online » South Asian Bloggers On Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize
>>Ironic! Gandhi doesn’t win it inspite of a life time of Non-Violence
The Noble committee didn’t award the Peace Prize for 1948; citing lack of suitable candidates. May be was really in the honor of the Mahatma.
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I think whether Obama getting the peace prize is justifiable or not may not be very relevant. Getting the peace prize at the beginning of presidential term, in a way might prevent both Ameica and its president from embarking on further military misadventures, at least for the next few years.
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*D.P. Satish*
Are you a jagalaganti or just a nut? I am trying to figure you out. :)
*All*
Obama wouldn’t deserve the Nobel by the Prize’s historic benchmarks, but clearly, the committee has modified those benchmarks with the times. I think Obama is a bold and beautiful choice.
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@SM : I’m also black and I HOPE to become President!
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This has been a nobel joke. Its like someone being awarded the degree before actually passing the exams!!
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Really shocked, what did Obama do? Does his rein coincidence to close Guantanamo made him to deserve this prize (as the dirty job mission to IRAK was already accomplished by predecessor)? or Does Nobel think Obama fixed eternal peace saying Assalamualaykum in Egypt? Does he support peace so passionately sending more troops to Afghanistan? who messed up Swat valley? Did he stop or at least prevent any war? does his soft speech and smile earn this PRIZE? OBAMA you never take the control…you are under control of big secrecy…
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Probably Lalit Modi lost in the Auction for the NP. Obama was better bidder, Maliya was on honey moon!
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..”Obama wouldn’t deserve the Nobel by the Prize’s historic benchmarks, but clearly, the committee has modified those benchmarks with the times. I think Obama is a bold and beautiful choice…
I think Mysore Peshva is ‘Dr. Ramesh of Obama worship’!!
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It’s like scorers giving a batsman a century when he has just finished taking guards. His supporters in the pavillion are already bursting crackers and doing cheers with champagne in the moon!
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i think they should have given him nobel prize for literature, for writing beautiful literature, which all the time, consistently, manage to say the right things to all the people all the time. nice nice words and concepts they are filled with. and i know that many people like his holier than thou and your aunty sermons to others about how they should lead in a way “that speaks to the” agenda of the “new world”.
in any case obama has done nothing that is respectful of or sympathetic to the concerns of india, including his policies to pakistan and china. i wonder why he has so many fans in india. i guess its like that time when diana was lionized as the “prema devate”.
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For Obama to be nominated for peace price , the process should have started when his term was 12 days old. Yennapa antha ganandari karya madi bitta e mahashaya a 12 divasadalli.
Maybe the committe must have thought Anyone could be better than George Bush. So they chose Obama. If Saddam was alive they could have given it to him as well just to send the messafe.
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Part of our fascination with the Swedish–Norwegian awards is the phonetic similarity between the name of the man who funded the awards into perpetuity and an English word denoting greatness. Can we all agree that this is not the “Noble” prize but the Nobel? Incidentally, as A. Adiga might tell Jiabo, the connection between the Booker prize and the word “book” is only accidental. Again, incidentally, the late YNK used to say that “Jnaanapeetha” was a misnomer.
Incidentally, still, we don’t seem to be troubled when a Nobel is given to an Indian or a person of Indian origins, but we rush to cast aspersions on the Nobel committee when the recipient is not one of our own. I have often wondered if the bearded sage of Bengal (incidentally, the author of two national anthems–one for India and the other for Bangladesh, both now feuding notwithstanding the fact that India birthed the Bengali speaking nation) was really worthy of the Nobel conferred on him any more than Kissinger, Arafat and the like. There might be something to the story that it was given to him because the English royal family and the Swedish royal family were having a spat over something and Tagore was the incidental beneficiary of the Swedish revenge attempt.
Incidentally, has Taralesubba changed his cyber identity to Tsubba? Whether it is so or not, the two sound equally loquacious and difficult to understand sometimes.
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‘Icon of Peace’ and the elusive Nobel peace prize
The word ‘peace’ is synonymous with Mahatma Gandhi.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the 20th century’s Icon of Peace , is
perhaps one of the few persons to preach non-violence after Gautama
Buddha.The world celebratied his 140 birth day on 2,Oct 2009.
As a world leader his words had the power to move the masses and the soul.
There may be a number of world leaders who dedicated their lives for
the cause of peace and won the Nobel Peace prize, but comparing
Mahatma Gandhi with them is just like comparing a candle light with
sun.
Gandhi, the ‘Father of the Nation’, should have been selected for the
Nobel Peace Prize more than half a century back. According to Nobel
Foundation, Gandhi was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize in 1937, 1938,
1939, 1947 and, finally, a few days before he was murdered in January
1948.
Later, members of the Nobel Committee have publicly regretted the
omission of Gandhi’s name . When the Dalai Lama of Tibet, now taking
refuge in India, was awarded the Peace Prize in 1989, the chairman of
the committee said that this was “in part a tribute to the memory of
Mahatma Gandhi”.
How can one deny Nobel Prize to Mahatma and say that giving Nobel
Prize to Dalai Lama who is a refugee in India, was “in part a tribute
to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi” ?
Those who have read Gandhi’s auto-biography know that Gandhi never
cared for such forms of recognition, and it is in the fitness of
thinking that Gandhi, who left this world with very little on him, and
almost made a virtue of nakedness, should have been unadorned by any
titles, awards, formal designations, and the like.
Nobel Peace Prize chronicler Gray suggests a “curious omission” when
men like Martin Luther King Jr. (the 1964 laureate who acknowledged
Gandhi as his mentor) and 1960 Nobel Prize winner Albert Luthuli (who
applied Gandhi’s principles in South Africa) are duly honoured but
Gandhi, “the first to employ non-violence in a political context, was
never awarded the Peace Prize”.
In late 1946 and early 1947, during his Noakhali
pilgrimage,seventy-seven year old Gandhi toured riot-affected areas
in Bihar, and almost single-handedly, through his heroic fasts,
brought peace to riot-torn Calcutta and Delhi. Perhaps, after these
efforts, Gandhi had finally established his rightful claim to the
Nobel Prize. But then again, because of the communal slaughter and the
fact that newly independent India and Pakistan were at war over
Kashmir at the time of its deliberations (and that by then
Gandhi was condoning India’s action of sending its troops to fight the
Kashmir invaders), the Committee may have seen the awarding of the
Prize to the sub-continent as inappropriate or may even have been
worried about the direction Gandhi may move on the as yet unresolved
Kashmir issue.
Lipsky, in his account of the history of the Peace Prize, noted that
even the relatively narrow range of choice circumscribed by the Nobel
Committee was no guarantee that it would not be subjected to the
criticism which “is the lot of any one who seeks to make a selection
from among a highly qualified field.” The greatest furore, he claims,
resulted from the failure to award the Prize to either Tolstoy or
Gandhi. In the case of Gandhi he points to a 1934 editorial in the
‘Christian Century’ as expressing widespread opinion that “if Gandhi
is not the most logical candidate for the Nobel prize, then the
popular idea of the function and purpose of that prize needs to be
revised.”
Nobody had ever been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously. But,
according to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation in force at that
time, the Nobel Prizes could, under certain circumstances, be awarded
posthumously. Thus it was possible to give Gandhi the prize. However,
Gandhi did not belong to an organisation, he left no property behind
and no will; who should receive the Prize money? The Director of the
Norwegian Nobel Institute, August Schou, asked another of the
Committee’s advisers,lawyer Ole Torleif, to consider the practical
consequences if the Committee were to award the Prize posthumously.
Ole suggested a number of possible solutions for general application.
Subsequently, he asked the Swedish prize-awarding institutions for
their opinion. The answers were negative; posthumous awards, they
thought, should not take place unless the laureate died after the
Committee’s decision had been made, says a internet website on Nobel
Prize.
As the historian Jens Arup Seip, acting as the committee’s advisor
in 1947 and 1948, said,Gandhi had left such an immense ethical mark on
the world that he could “only be compared to the founders of
religions.”
Before Gandhi, what the Western World called passive resistance was no
more than theory. Gandhi not only pioneered this idea, but was
extremely successful. Even if he did not gain lasting peace for
India,he ensured autonomy for his people without a full scale war with
Britain. Gandhi did far more than bring about independence. He
revolutionized the political outlook of the world. A campaign of peace
achieved more than any one rebel group or army could ever hope to.
Tolstoy and Thoreau are revered world wide for dreaming of passive
resistance. Gandhi brought their ideas into existence. This of course
was a much more arduous task than simply philosophizing. Therefore,
the Mahatma deserves at least as much fame if not more than innovative
white European authors. Mohandas Gandhi should be given the Nobel
Peace prize without hesitation.
While conferring of Nobel Peace Prize on Bangladeshi economist
Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he created for leveraging small
loans into major social change for impoverished families,the Norwegian
Nobel Committee said in its citation in Oslo,“Lasting peace cannot be
achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break
out of poverty”.
Mahatma Gandhi has made much more contribution than this when he
prodded millions of Indians to take to the spinning wheel (Charka)
manufacture Khadi cloth, and introduced other rural oriented cottage
industries which gave jobs to crores of rural people in
pre-independent India.
The Prize amount set at Swedish kronor (SEK) 10 million per full Prize
could be used to educate younger generation on the ways to achieve
peace in their respective regions.
By conferring Nobel Peace Prize on Mahatma Gandhi, posthumously, the
Nobel Peace Committee would honour itself of bestowing that award to a
person who was one of the world’s most influential persons of the
millennium.
If a ‘Person of the Millennium” – a bigger award than the Nobel Prize
is instituted, Mahatma Gandhi would certainly become the first person
to be conferred with that rarest of the rare honour. #
Nobel laureates of India
In which order Gandhi stands among them ?
Rabindranath Tagore -Literature-1913
C.V. Raman -Physics-1930
Har Gobind Khorana- Physiology or Medicine-1968
Mother Teresa- -Peace, 1979
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar-Physics-1983
Amartya Sen-Economics-1998
Is Mahatma Gandhi, Father of Independent India not above them ?
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@Vidyaranya. The best way forward for India and Indians is to move forward and not harp on about Gandhi not getting the prize.
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Let us not talk about Nobel prize for the Mahatma, He is above all this, it would be like giving him Bharata Ratna!!
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As if anyone cares… if Obama got Noble prize or if we discussed
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