The Gown Student Newspaper at Queen's University Belfast

OPINION: Barack Obama – A ‘Nobel’ President?

As far as politicians go, it would be safe to say that Barack Obama is a pretty popular one.  Charismatic, seemingly sincere and eager for ‘change’, he charmed American voters into believing that he was some sort of superhuman politician who could singlehandedly set right the policy failures both domestic and foreign inherited from the previous Bush administration.

BY KATHRYN MCCANN

Top of the foreign policy list was donning the peacemaker cloak and attempting to repair the strained diplomatic relations between America and the Middle East. However now that we are coming to the end of Obama’s first year as president, his failures thus far, are plain to see. The Israelis have ignored his special envoy and their demand for an end to illegal Israeli settlement building on Arab land in the West Bank, while right wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas seem more reluctant than ever to respond to Obama’s calls and enter into bilateral negotiations. The recent nuclear talks in Geneva resulted in little more than another stalemate with Ahmadinejad over Iran’s nuclear capabilities, while it seems Obama is taking forever to decide what to do about Afghanistan, a country marred further this week by the fact that the presidential elections must be held again following accusations of fraud (by an American backed President no doubt!).

Yet despite all this, the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to bestow on Obama, its highest honour, the Alfred Nobel peace Prize for people that end militarism and war and are for disarmament.  But what exactly has Obama done in order to achieve this honour? This is the first time in history that the Nobel Peace prize has been awarded to someone that has yet to achieve anything in the name of peace, in the optimistic hope that something will be achieved in the future. Obama himself, on hearing that he was the 2009 winner of the award said he was greatly ‘humbled’ and quite rightly so, especially when we consider the awards past winners. Obama’s achievements  thus far are overshadowed in comparison to the achievements of Northern Ireland’s past winners, Peace campaigners Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams, and politicians John Hume and Seamus Mallon who were granted the honour of the 1998 award after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. If there is any more evidence that this prize is ‘too much too soon’ it is the fact that Obama was nominated a mere two weeks into his presidency. It must be remembered that Obama is an elected public servant, NOT a celebrity and that perhaps he has been granted this award because of his star-quality and his popularity, and not because of any concrete achievements? Public opinion is divided on the issue; with esteemed middle- east journalist Robert Fisk commenting that the decision was a ‘Nobel prize of a mistake’ to Rock star Bono applauding the decision as a deserved recognition of Obama’s efforts to ‘re-brand America’.

The fact remains however that Obama received this award not because of his achievements but because of anticipation. The golden medal that he will receive on the 10^th of December ceremony will only add to the weight of expectation heaped on Obama’s already overburdened shoulders.

However at least Obama can rest easy knowing that he has Bono’s support!

Tags: barack, Gown, newspaper, Nobel peace prize, obama, qub, queen's university, student, The Gown

This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 2:33 pm and is filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.