Peace Laureate Obama: Questioning the wisdom of his Acceptance

Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama has created mixed reactions, worldwide.

Compare Obama with his predecessor Nobel Peace Laureates who “promoted a greatly increased awareness of both the interconnectedness of all humankind and negative consequences of the resort to violence and concern for the poor”. They came bearing personal stories that demonstrated at great personal risk the power of the human spirit. Joy Williams led globe-girdling citizen campaign for a seemingly impossible treaty to ban landmines; Hoping to “disarm the landmines of the heart’, Betty Williams founded a powerful grassroots movement and promoted non-violent alternatives in relationship between Protestants and Catholic in Northern Ireland. Albert Luthuli and thereafter Rev. Tutu evinced “courage and heroic patience to lead black South Africans in their use of peaceful means to oppose the apartheid system”. Costa Rica President Sanchez was named Laureate in 1987 for his pioneering role in sponsoring peace agreement among the five Central American states to bloody wars. He also challenged citizens of rich western countries to recognize the gap between their luxury spending and amounts needed to fund basic human services in other parts of the world. Reminding Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj? Suu Kyi won it for her undaunted spirit to fight for democracy against Myanmar military regime and suffering decades-long house confinement. Roberta Menchu of Mexico became the youngest ever Nobel Laureate “by marinating a disarming humanity to win the rights of the aboriginal peoples—‘the expendable peoples’-- around the world.” They all shared a message in their own way: That peace is grounded in the personal and spiritual as well as the economic and military dimensions of global interconnectedness.

Obama’s performance pales into insignificance in such a galaxy of stars. Yes, he has logically created hopes for his positive role by his profile and rhetoric, untested so far though. He convincingly situates himself as a world leader of hope by his personality, and public activism flavored by a humanitarian world-view. Also; he has infused a new climate of hope in the troubled world of ruffled regions from Iraq to Afghanistan that President Bush had left. Perhaps, Obama has won the prize of expected positive role in resolution of conflicts related to N-control, multi-lateral approach in international problem-solution, and climate control. Also for his refreshing initiative to reach out and open dialogue with the estranged Islamic world. He has the potential for elevating personal transformation as well. But it's a bit premature to decide on such an award that was earlier given, quite deservedly, to the likes of President Sadat with his Israeli PM Begin, Jimmi Carter, Wangari, and the like.

Last week, Obama faced the first defining test of his political will to determine whether he would stand his ground, or yield to China on an issue that has more symbolic than substantive significance -- a White House photo-opportunity with the visiting Tibetan leader Dalai Lama.

Obama's response was to signal his seismic response to Chinese sensitivities by avoiding the revered Nobel Peace Prize awardee whom Chinese leaders detestably call "the jackal in a monk's robe". Ironically, the latest Peace prize awardee became the first US president in 18 years not to receive the spiritual leader who fled Tibet for India following the Chinese invasion of 1959, and represents an autonomous homeland as a “ Zone of ahimsa” by restraining his followers from waging a violent struggle against China even when he estranged some of his angry young followers in the process.

Pragmatic policy of "strategic reassurance" with intransigent China has been factored for treating the Dalai Lama this way. But it smacks of Obama's weak tendency to give an inspiring moral leadership to the world to fight the forces of violence and confirmed violators of human rights, 20 years after Tiananmen, about which democratic powers have shed crocodile tears only.

Apologists console us that the Dalai Lama is assured, after Obama's Beijing visit in October, "he will see Obama this year--a 'proper meeting on the President's official agenda, rather than a 'drop-by' in the corridors of the White House."

Is the coveted prize an incentive to the President, still a green-horn in White House to pursue a peaceful role in the world? Rather, it is likely to exert moral pressure on the President who may otherwise have logical imperatives for taming the Talibans and use internationally legitimized force to regulate affairs in Afghanistan, and a failing state of Pakistan, or preventing the control of N-weapons in the hands of the terrorists, or a defiant group of Iran and North Korea,etc.The U.S.President will have to resort to some ‘un’laureate’ like military/strategic measures if an increasingly intransigent China will play scheming game to threaten its allies in East Asia or challenge the U.S. itself in regions of its tragic interest.

As someone who profiled eight Peace Laureate, Helena Cobban states, “All these laureates subscribe to a broader set of truths that are not necessarily self-evident. That human beings can easily become locked into self-perpetuating ‘systems of suspicion and violence’ at any level—from interpersonal to international.” She cautions, “When one is inside such a system, it can be hard t see it and to recognize one’s role within it; but each one of us has a capacity to make a leap forward from self-centeredness toward greater understanding.” Obama has to take care of these potentialities.

This is the second faux pas of the Nobel Prize committee after they bungled on awarding Gandhiji, who was above such worldly recognition though. Obama like other Laureates is inspired by Gandhi. Let us pray then an Obama who can develop a transformative leadership to build a global human culture and architecture of world peace.

In the overall context, it would have been far-sighted on his part to have respectfully refused to accept the global honor at this juncture when he has yet to respond to the imperatives of managing governance of a super power in a world of insanity and uneasy order while cultivating the expectations of a Peace Laureate. By renunciation of this burdensome honor at this juncture, he would have raised his image and kept this prize, on hold, for a future if his performance would entitle him to deserve it, with unanimous acclaim.