When word came from Norway of President Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was sound asleep. Gibbs phoned Obama before the sun rose and thus began the single most bizarre day in recent American political history. President Obama later appeared in the Rose Garden to bashfully qualify his acceptance of the award as "a call to action." Obama said he was both "surprised and deeply humbled," suggesting he felt odd "to be in the company of many of the transformative leaders who have received this prize." The speech was concise, and Obama was back at work inside the White House before most in Washington had begun their lunch hour.
Only two other sitting presidents — Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt — were given the Nobel Peace Prize. Many have asked, as Obama joined that list on Friday, whether he has, in fact, accomplished anything meriting a Nobel. In reality, however, the more pertinent questions arise concerning the meaning and context of the Nobel Peace Prize itself — what is its actual meaning for global politics, or even its ability to highlight points of international progress?
In 1867, Alfred Nobel patented a safer, more stable form of explosive that he termed dynamite — a rather counterintuitive claim to fame for the man with a famous peace award named after him. The Nobel Foundation, created through Nobel's last will, gives out a series of awards and cash prizes annually in the fields of physics, chemistry, economics, literature and peace. The Awards Committee is appointed by the Norwegian Parliament, and though it is not legally stipulated, all on the committee are Norwegian nationals.
Given the modicum of respect the United Nations receives as a multinational body, one can't help but ask the question of why in the name of all things rational the Nobel Peace Prize — awarded unilaterally by Norwegians who are appointed by Norwegians — matters at all. The case for the award's requisite legitimacy is further muddled when considering recent recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize: Jimmy Carter in 2002, Dr. Mohammed El-Baradei of the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) in 2005, and former Vice President Al Gore in 2007. At last check, Carter has busied himself emboldening Hamas, the IAEA's non-proliferation strategies in Iran have failed miserably, and Gore's global warming PowerPoints have all but disappeared with little meaningful, tangible impact on global policies beyond abstract pledges.
In short, the Nobel Peace Prize has not been a particularly useful tool in measuring individuals' impact on global peace, especially when considering this year's thought-to-be-short list. Morgan Tsvangirai — the opposition leader of Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change Party who was savagely beaten by President Robert Mugabe's goons — successfully led an electoral struggle against Mugabe's decades of tyranny, forcing Mugabe to sign a power-sharing agreement last year. He was passed over for the award. Wei Jingsheng, Hu Jia and Gao Zhisheng, Chinese dissidents and human rights activists, have been repeatedly imprisoned and tortured. They were all passed over as well.
Instead, the committee awarded Obama, crediting him with creating "a new climate in international politics," certainly unarguable given the fact that he isn't George W. Bush. The committee has, of late, been privy to playing self-righteous politics with peace, and this year's selection is no exception to the rule. The Nobel Peace Prize is in no way a legitimate metric with which to objectively measure political progress, currents of international politics or significant achievements in the large-scale reduction of global conflict. Obama's receipt of the award should not imply that his domestic or international agendas are progressing, or that he has achieved the change for which he so staunchly campaigned in 2008. It simply means that our president is currently very popular in Norway.
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Teddy Minch is a senior majoring in political science. He hosts "The Rundown," a news and sports talk show that airs from 3 to 5 p.m. every Friday on WMFO. He can be reached at Theodore.Minch@tufts.edu.
