Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize, but what does this all mean?

(c) Jurvetson

So it has just been announced that Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize 2010. The prize is awarded ‘to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.’

Doesn’t this just devalue the whole concept of the prize? He hasn’t achieved anything, as yet, apart from nuclear arms reductions. And the thing with nuclear arms reductions, is that nuclear weapons have not killed a single person. And if Obama’s achievement here is worthy of the prize, why didn’t Richard Nixon gain the peace prize in the 1970s? And what about that Scottish guy who punched the flaming terrorist in 2007? He’s saved more lives than Obama!

I do quite like Obama, that must be said. He is a shining example of a dignified and morally exceptional politician. But if his mere moral stance is enough to win the prize, then many others have just as valid a right to it. It makes a mockery of an already questionable prize.

It raises fresh questions about the validity of the prize. Yasser Arafat and Nelson Mandela, both lest we not forget, terrorists, have won the prize. That is people who have advocated and lead violent terrorist movements, winning a prize for peace. Now whilst with Mandela, I fully sympathise with the very necessary fight against apartheid in South Africa, that doesn’t change the fact that he advanced the cause of violence in the name of struggle.

Of course there are the few who do deserve it. Martin Luther King, Anwar Sadat, Woodrow Wilson…all for great efforts, but the legitimacy of this prize has been devalued, of that there can be no question. Jimmy Carter managed to win the prize, despite his disastrous legacy being the situation we see in Iran today; a people controlled by a bloodthirsty Ayatollah and a President trying to develop nuclear weapons. And Mikhael Gorbachev has even won it, despite his 1980s political and economic reforms accidentally causing the breakdown of the Soviet Union. That wasn’t his goal. Boris Yeltsin would have been a more appropriate recipient.

And this year, Obama has not achieved anything. Nuclear proliferation does not count, it doesn’t kill anyone, hasn’t killed anyone, and won’t kill anyone, unless we don’t take action in Afghanistan and Iran. Obama hasn’t solved either of those conflicts yet. There are more appropriate individuals who could have this award. Among those who have actually done more for peace this year include Hosni Mubarak, Nicolas Sarkozy and Mir Hossein Mousavi. Mousavi particularly would have been a more appropriate winner. He has actually sacrificed an element of his freedom in the cause of democratisation.

Obama will probably one day be a great president remembered for an historic legacy, most likely involving the advance of peace the world over. But he has not achieved anything yet. And for such a great politician only in his opening days as President, don’t tar him with the same meaningless and valueless award that has been bestowed upon terrorists like Mandela and Arafat.