This morning I awoke learning that President Obama had been given the Nobel Peace Prize. The notation for winning the peace prize being: for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.
Okay, I was surprised. So let’s take a quick look at previous winners and the language surrounding their Nobel Peace Prize.
for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts.
2007: International Governmental Panel on Climate Change & Al Gore, for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.
2006: Muhammed Yunus, for their efforts to create economic and social development from below.
2005: International Energy Agency and Mohamed ElBaradei, for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way.
2004: Wangari Muta Maathai, for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.
2003: Shirin Ebadi, for her efforts for democracy and human rights. She has focused especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children.
2002: Jimmy Carter, for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.
2001: The United Nations and Kofi Annan, for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world.
2000: Kim Dae-jung for his work for democracy and human rights in South Korea and in East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular.
In my book Without Warning, I present the history of the Nobel Peace price and its controversy at the time. For instance, Nobel assigned the Peace Prize to the Norwegian Parliament, despite the fact that Nobel was from Sweden. And, Nobel was criticized for creating the Peace Prize since Nobel obtained most of his wealth from the manufacture and sale of explosives. So the mere fact that the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama is highly controversial, maybe shouldn’t be all that surprising. However what I do find surprising is the language surrounding this special award. I’ve underlined the key words above and a very clear pattern emerges. President Obama’s efforts were extraordinary, vs. untiring, important, their, and her efforts in previous years.
Language is important. It gets to the heart of the matter. And this is no different for the Nobel Peace Price. Nobel was an extraordinary man. However, I’m uncertain at this point of his political career, whether “extraordinary” truly defines President Obama’s contribution to world peace.
Your thoughts?
