Nobel committee may have looked deeper than most
It is disheartening, and frustrating to see that mere minutes after current US President Barack Obama is given the Nobel Peace Prize, he is torn apart by virtually half of the US media, most Republicans and many pundits all of whom are singing from the same song..loosely titled…”He does not deserve it”.
The tragedy is that there is a pervasive blindness about peace and how it is accomplished. Signing agreements do not make peace happen, bullying aggressors at Martha’ Vineyard or Camp David does not ensure peace, if it did, Isreal and Palestine would have settled differences long ago.
Peace is a slow process but one that has so far always begun by flexibility and open lines of communication. Peace is achieved by establishing dialogue, communicating positions and being flexible about solutions, showing a willingness to actually communicate, not just broadcast agression.
In selecting Obama the Nobel committee countermanded most perceptions of peace and how peace is achieved today, something they have done before.
Perhaps, they are seeing deeper than the naysayers, perhaps not, I am not them so I cannot say. However, if one looks at ‘tone’ in international dialogue, foreign newspapers and even U.S. magazines, war does in fact seem to have receded. By scrapping the proposed missile shield that so angered Russia and China, having direct talks with Iran, lobbying for total nuclear disarmament and allowing Brazil to diffuse the crises in Honduras without conflict, Obama actually has achieved some measurable accomplishments for peace. However a quick daily read of headlines is the best testament to now being a more peaceable time. Most nations are now focusing on financial restructuring, international summits like the G20, the impacts of the Treaty of Lisbon vote in Ireland, recent elections and congratulating Rio on the 2016 Olympics. What has almost completely disappeared is international saber rattling.
Sometimes the absence of a thing is hard to see but once you do see it, you can’t miss it. The bully pulpit so favored by others has been put away by Obama and consequently, international tensions have gradually ebbed now for the better part of a year. Previously unimportant international meetings now take center stage and the biggest public contest was for the Olympics, surely this is a good indicator that perhaps the Nobel Committee was looking with different eyes.