Musing on the Nobel Award for Obama

  E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanado
 October 10, 2009

 I am saddened after reading reactions to the Nobel Prize award for President Obama. And that sadness, I am afraid, has led me to some unpleasant conclusions about the award.

Others have already come to the same conclusions about the Nobel Prize.  That the prize has a political underhand play.

In this sense, it has become the tool to handle the newest American president; Barack Obama, a man who happens to be the first Black American president in history.

President Obama is now the first president to win the Nobel Prize this early in office and on projection alone, not what he has already accomplished.  The alacrity of his award is unheard of.

Consider the early reactions to the award in the journals of today, and you know they are warm-ups for future historians:

Peter Beaumont of the Guardian, UK, a fairly liberal paper, wrote “The reality is that the prize appears to have been awarded to Barack Obama for what he is not. For not being George W Bush. Or rather being less like the last president. “

 Then he said, “The question now is whether having been anointed perhaps too early by the committee, a Nobel Prize earned so cheaply and at so little cost will help him in his efforts on the international stage or rather be an albatross around his neck. Something against which all his future efforts will be judged – and perhaps found wanting.”

I have to agree with Beaumont's premonitions about Obama.  His quick  acceptance of the award brings up a notion of the tragic:  being Black and therefore made vulnerable to be led by pacification and control. For me, this may be the long-term intent of the award.

The award may frame or freeze Obama's future actions.  He may not be able to do or initiate any change without considering the projected wishes of the managers of the award.
 

Thus, the “peace award” may turn Obama into a praetorian guard of Eurocentrism.

Obama, the first African American president, is being tempted on a scale like no other before.  The chance that his very acceptance of the award may have already offended the majority of his Black constituents worldwide. Is very possible

The hope that Obama, being Black, may be a different kind of president, a trailblazer in world politics, and had a better chance to make a spectacular positive difference as a world leader is about to be damaged.

But also, the prize would also be a challenge to the American presidency itself.

Until Obama, America the superpower had effortlessly led the nations of NATO.  It will be now a test of whether by the award a European interest-led group may be able to control and direct America’s power in the geopolitical space.

In granting the prize, the Nobel Committee said it chose Obama "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" and for creating "a new international climate".

Furthermore, "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future.."

The committee continued that "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so based on values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

I have the sense all these lofty statements about Obama are projections easily made to turn him into the Trojan Horse of the Nobel Committee's wishes.

George Bush barely left office a year ago.  And the Nobel Prize committee is ready to detach itself from his global policies. Bush’s enforcement of his policies has not been subtle.   It has led to death and destruction. 

The Nobel Prize committee’s wish is for another American president to offer a dominant but subtle global presence of the power of the West.  And the committee thinks Obama would be the man to do it.

So, Obama is now the workhorse of the lofty one-world concept, the same ideal the leaders of a weakened Europe want.  Gone are the days of the empires, but fortunately, along comes Obama, the saint of the Black world to do more of the dirty deeds of control that have gone on in the past.

The one-world concept goes smack against the American lone superpower notion.  Obama could be directed by the aspirations of the Nobel Peace Prize committee and the American presidency would be tested.

The Nobel Peace Prize Committee, appointed by the Norwegian Parliament, doesn’t present awards in the belief of American exceptionalism.

American supremacy and exceptionalism have always reminded the European powers how less relevant they have become.  A one-world government promotion is something that could, at least, bring America’s supremacy down a notch.

Europeans see in the election of Obama the opportunity to nudge themselves back into relevance.  And because of what they think of him, he has become an asset.  They are using Obama to poke the middle finger at both the concept of “American exceptionalism” and the era of George Bush in world affairs. 

Yet, this notion of Obama’s utility for Europe becomes offensive to some of us once you concede that either Obama, as the first Black president, will be easier to manipulate or that his will may not be strong as George Bush’s.

Or worse, Obama could be considered an accidental president.  The implied idea of an interregnum becomes more offensive once you consider that Obama is Black.  But this may also present a problem for Obama’s legacy, how he could easily be maneuvered to accept the prize, especially with the historical origin of its wealth.

But what if history turns out right for Bush and wrong for Obama?

And what exactly was it about George Bush’s policies that made them wrong for peace, so he couldn’t get the prize for himself?

In the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, would dialogue alone have brought peace?

Before George Bush, it was a European force that controlled Afghanistan. They had ample opportunity to engage the Taliban and al-Qaida in dialogues but didn’t.  Later, they joined with Bush to wage war on Afghanistan; the same George Bush that the committee is now throwing shade at.

America, for all its faults and might, has be ut there trying to do more and has for the world than the collective nations of the EU, including rescuing them from WWII ravages.

Despite America’s notion of “exceptionalism” for itself and known exploits in capitalism, we must look at who has been at this game for the longest.  And it has been the Europeans.

For centuries, Europe promoted institutions like slavery, and colonialism, and oversaw the Middle East demarcation exercises.  They have exploited the riches of the Third World like no other.  These are the nations now looking to promote one-world governance through Obama, in effect a son of the same exploited Third World!

So, this premature prize award could be suspect.  It may be a ploy to control Obama.  The award has caused even supporters of Obama to question his sincerity and prospects in world affairs.  Europeans have had their ambitions to control the world and still do.

When Obama was running for office, the invasion of Iraq was an issue.  He had offered that Afghanistan was the place to fight al-Qaida.  Historians may question his promise on this issue.

And should we blame Bush for the WMD fiasco, Iran's nuclear facility that escaped attention until the announcement by Iran herself may also become an issue.

Is it by coincidence that Mohamed ElBaradei, the UN atomic agency chief who couldn't find WMDs in Iraq in 2005 also didn't know about Iran's second nuclear facility in 2009?

El Baradei, by the way, was quickly awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 2007.

When it came to Obama turn to call at the UN attention to Iran’s second nuclear facility build-up he failed.  However, the failure might be supported by a reason.  Calling attention to Iran’s nuclear facilities would have sounded as bellicose as Bush’s attitude towards Iraq’s WMDs.

Iran's second nuclear facility is a fixed structure. The WMDs that “Bush lied and people died” about could have been movable before the war.

Could the non-actions by Obama, both in Afghanistan and Iran, have influenced the decision for the Nobel Prize Award?

But how about some humane policies of George Bush?  There are several running in Africa.  His MCA plan and PEPFAR, a spectacular generosity for development and funding for the fight against AIDS that has so far saved a lot of lives.  Should these have qualified him for the prize?

There is something ideologically or racially different in the treatment of Bush and Obama by the committee.  The committee seems to patronize Obama more than Bush. 

On the question of race, there is also some difference.   Secretary-General Kofi Annan and President Mandela had solid achievements before they got the awards. Comparatively, what they achieved as individuals cannot e expected from Obama before the award because he had none. 

Obama’s only achievement was becoming the first Black president of a superpower nation.  But after this award, could the Nobel Committee call in the chips on Obama, if the European powers find it necessary to project power unfairly on some Third World nation?

The tendency in world affairs suggests that any prize award can be used as a prod for policy directions.

Unfortunately, Obama could have waited or refused the prize until he had accumulated some solid achievements.  He could have even refused the prize as Jean-Paul Sartre did.  Prize or not, Obama could still have been a hero.  But we have to wait for history to unfold.

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, October 10, 2009.

Permission to publish:  Please feel free to publish or reproduce, with credits, unedited.  If posted on a website, email a copy of the web page to publisher@ghanadot.com. Or don't publish at all.