More thoughts on what the Nobel Committee is trying to say.
I was of two camps when news first broke (over Twitter) that the Nobel Committee gave President Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize nine months into his presidency. One was extremely skeptical; the other is full of unbridled joy.
I've started reading people's reactions on LJ, in the news, on my FB, and I'm happy to know what I'm not alone in thinking that the Nobel Committee had done something incredible and possibly completely unprecedented.
Consider the fact that we generally expect Nobe Peace Prize laureates to have actually done something tangible. As someone pointed out, TR stopped a war. Pretty damn tangible and defining, right? But what the Nobel Committee is going with is promise, the inspiration that Barack Obama inspired since he entered the race for president of the United States. How can anyone forget the explosion of headlines all over the world when the race was declared in his favor? How can anyone forget the joy and hope so many people around the globe expressed in the days, weeks, and months leading up to his inauguration? Here was the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, who spent part of his defining years in Indonesia, who was a community organizer with rhetoric that we've been craving, with a thoughtfulness and understanding that makes us think, "Yes, he gets us." Not all of us agree with his views, his stances, his approach, his opinions, his decisions, his choices, but how many of us cried when he took to the stage in Chicago and told us that we were the ones we've been waiting for?
Time, pragmatism, cynicism, town halls, real life, war, economic crash, the fickle minds of Americans, racism have all tried to bring him down from the pedestal he stands on, but look at him. Look at him talk to the rest of the world, look at him reaching out to the allies, enemies, and neutral states that we'e managed to alienate in the past eight years (and even beyond). The Nobel Committee's looking beyond what he's done and what he stands for here in the States; the President of the United States is a position of power on the global stage, whether we like it or not, and he's been using that to try and make a better future with other states.
That's what I think of the Nobel Committee's decision. Shocking and sudden and surprising as it is, I think they were right. A country so troubled by race finally places a person of color in the executive office, and although we're still fighting racism we put him there, we voted him there, we moved the country forward.
I hope you make good on that promise, Mr. President. I hope you really, truly understand where you stand and how much hope we have that you'll make the entire world a better place. I know you can't do it alone, but you've known that already, don't you? This new world we live in needs community and communication across oceans and country borders defined arbitrary and on paper, and you've started, you're trying, and I just hope you don't stop until you get there, I hope you keep at it until you hand the reins over to the next president to continue your work.
Good luck, sir. I will continue to disagree with you when I feel our opinions diverge, but you are the first president I voted for, the first president to inspire me to change my major, the first president to tell me that yes, I do have a chance to make a difference, no matter how big or how small.
Best wishes, Me.
(The Nobel Committee's Announcement of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.)
Incidentally, we're watching a video on the birth of racial slavery in America.
I've started reading people's reactions on LJ, in the news, on my FB, and I'm happy to know what I'm not alone in thinking that the Nobel Committee had done something incredible and possibly completely unprecedented.
Consider the fact that we generally expect Nobe Peace Prize laureates to have actually done something tangible. As someone pointed out, TR stopped a war. Pretty damn tangible and defining, right? But what the Nobel Committee is going with is promise, the inspiration that Barack Obama inspired since he entered the race for president of the United States. How can anyone forget the explosion of headlines all over the world when the race was declared in his favor? How can anyone forget the joy and hope so many people around the globe expressed in the days, weeks, and months leading up to his inauguration? Here was the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, who spent part of his defining years in Indonesia, who was a community organizer with rhetoric that we've been craving, with a thoughtfulness and understanding that makes us think, "Yes, he gets us." Not all of us agree with his views, his stances, his approach, his opinions, his decisions, his choices, but how many of us cried when he took to the stage in Chicago and told us that we were the ones we've been waiting for?
Time, pragmatism, cynicism, town halls, real life, war, economic crash, the fickle minds of Americans, racism have all tried to bring him down from the pedestal he stands on, but look at him. Look at him talk to the rest of the world, look at him reaching out to the allies, enemies, and neutral states that we'e managed to alienate in the past eight years (and even beyond). The Nobel Committee's looking beyond what he's done and what he stands for here in the States; the President of the United States is a position of power on the global stage, whether we like it or not, and he's been using that to try and make a better future with other states.
That's what I think of the Nobel Committee's decision. Shocking and sudden and surprising as it is, I think they were right. A country so troubled by race finally places a person of color in the executive office, and although we're still fighting racism we put him there, we voted him there, we moved the country forward.
I hope you make good on that promise, Mr. President. I hope you really, truly understand where you stand and how much hope we have that you'll make the entire world a better place. I know you can't do it alone, but you've known that already, don't you? This new world we live in needs community and communication across oceans and country borders defined arbitrary and on paper, and you've started, you're trying, and I just hope you don't stop until you get there, I hope you keep at it until you hand the reins over to the next president to continue your work.
Good luck, sir. I will continue to disagree with you when I feel our opinions diverge, but you are the first president I voted for, the first president to inspire me to change my major, the first president to tell me that yes, I do have a chance to make a difference, no matter how big or how small.
Best wishes, Me.
(The Nobel Committee's Announcement of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.)
Incidentally, we're watching a video on the birth of racial slavery in America.