Notes of Concern…
…Jackson Blair
WHAT FOR?
Since Alfred Nobel provided for The Nobel Prizes, The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded 89 times to 119 Nobel Laureates between 1901 and 2008.
Between 1901 and 2001 the Nobel Committee has received 4,857 nominations of individuals for consideration.
Winners of the Peace Prize rarely come as a surprise. They traditionally are men and women or organizations whose work has been extensive, demonstrated over time, and generally agreed to be worthy.
Some examples of Peace Prize winners just since 1984 include Al Gore and the subject of climate change, Jimmy Carter and his work at mediation, the United Nations and Secretary General Kofi Annan, Doctors without Borders, the Campaign to Ban Landmines, Nelson Mandela who’s 28 years in prison brought an end to apartheid in South Africa, the Dali Llama, Elie Wiesel and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
The reader would be right to assume almost all the other winners are of equal importance, made enormous contributions and had measurable results.
And now joining that distinguished list of laureates comes Barack Obama, the newly announced Nobel Laureate.
The nominations closed just weeks after his inauguration. Whatever nominating papers were in hand at that time did not relate to anything he did while President of the United States. So the committee should have been considering what he did prior to his election. If they wanted to cheat a bit, they could look at this first year in office. That is the sum total of his file, to be weighed against a lot of people that quickly come to mind who should have been far ahead of him in line for consideration.
With this in mind, it would be fair to say he may well be the least qualified person every to be selected, a person whose contributions may be many and lasting but are in the future, and a person whose selection will bring serious questions about the entire Nobel process.
A reasonable person would ask: what was the hurry? There are thousands of men, women and organizations whose considerable and measurable work for peace has gone unrecognized all these many years.
I believe President Barack Obama could be a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize in the future, at a time when few would question whether it was deserved.
To his credit, I think President Obama was as shocked as the world when his name was announced. His friends, supporters, colleagues detractors and others had a similar response to the news:
“WHAT FOR?”
