Nobel

I lost 10 rupees to a friend today. Had wagered in favour of Morgan Tsangurai to get the Nobel Peace 2009. Was at City Centre when the news broke. He called to celebrate his win. Not that he had seen this coming. None of us had. After the initial gloat was over, he admitted to have been as baffled as I was then. Not that I was completely sure he was being honest.


Barak Hussain Obama, the recipient of this year's award just accepted his award with the requisite amount of humility and just the right amount of humour. Beamed live across millions of homes, with his own countrymen in disbelief, most unable to mutter anything beyond an almost incomprehensible, "Awesome!", he said this award was a call to action and would spur him on to achieve what he had set out to achieve.

But that is it, isn't it? You aren't supposed to be spurred on by the award. It is supposed to be the crown of your actions, not the base of it. We all share the European community's broad based sense of relief and cautious infectious optimism with the change of regime across the Atlantic but surely this is going overboard?
The man at the helm of a country waging two active wars, with troop numbers surging in Afganistan by 28,000 and escalating drone attacks in Pakistan killing civilians as collateral damage in the "War against Terror", Mr.Obama is hardly the apostle of peace.

The "President with the best intentions" Award perhaps but the Nobel? Obtuse though I am, I absolutely fail to see his "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy". He commissioned talks in the Middle East. To no immediate effect. He involved the U.N. Again, no effect. We are so terribly happy at the U.N. getting back to where it should have been all the time. It is ridiculous that the committee has cited Obama's stated position on bilateral negotiations as one of the factors for the decision.
Where, pray, is the peace? In the U.S. tacit coup attempts in Honduras? In his eight odd months of office, what key international work has been achieved? Climate change? Brilliant speech. Nuclear disarmament? Brilliant speech. Concrete work? Sorry, that is for the history books. We at the Nobel Committee do not care for such trivialities.

In the years to come, I will probably be proved wrong. And the seasoned greyheads in Oslo will probably be laughing triumphant, albeit tooth-less, smiles. They have probably correctly identified a trend. But to award a man for offering hope seems too much. His P.R. team maybe. I am sorry that the world has come to a state where we give away the greatest human prize for just being a decent being. Extraordinary conduct seems a dead ideal.