Just how noble is the Noble?

Carlyle Laurie

With U.S President Barack Obama winning the 2009 Noble Prize for Peace, questions ought to be raised about the ‘Noblest prize of them all’.

A statement by the Nobel Committee states, "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future."

At the risk of sounding cynical, Obama is a man currently leading two wars, both in Iraq & Afghanistan. He’s been in the White House for less than a year and his rhetoric still hasn’t transcended into much action on the ground.

Among those who have won the coveted prize are names whose work has helped humanity for decades on end.

Mother Teresa (1979), Nelson Mandela (1993), Mikhail Gorbachev (1990), to me that’s what deserves a Nobel.

Not a leader who’s gone from absolute obscurity to the White House.

To be fare, the President from Chicago has made a sincere attempt to ‘right the wrongs’ done by his predecessor George W Bush.

For one ordering the closure of Guantanamo Bay, promising to end combat operations by 2011. Opening up communication channels with the Arab world and working to eliminate the risk of Nuclear weapons.

If he succeeds in achieving even half for what he has promised, his ‘nobility’ will not be questioned. But until then it’s debatable.

It’s like rewarding a child in school, even before his results are announced.
Obama isn’t the first U.S President to win the prize, Jimmy Carter won it in 2002 for his ‘decades’ of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts and advance democracy.

Again the defining term is ‘decades’. Carter worked for decades.

This year’s decision by the Nobel committee, could belittle the work done by previous winners.

One only hopes this award pushes the world’s most powerful man to come clean on his promises.