In an earlier post I offered one defense of Obama's getting the prize - that simply his election changed the world's dialogue and the potential for peace. While he may not have taken actions that can be connected with increased peace, beyond campaigning for the presidency, I asked readers to identify someone or some group that had had a greater impact on world peace than Obama's election.
Today Obama said in his speech there were more deserving people for the prize. While there are people who have made greater personal sacrifices in pursuit of peace, I'm not sure that their impact on world peace was greater than Obama's election.
Since I wrote the original post on this topic, I thought further that if his mere election changed the dynamics of international relations, then perhaps the American voters, rather than Obama himself, should have been given the prize.
But after hearing Obama's speech in Oslo today, I can only wonder how we have managed to get such a thoughtful, and forthright president who can express his vision so eloquently. Maybe the years of having Bush as president have lowered my expectations. This president dealt with the complexities of the world, the contradictory tugs that our values and desires pull us. His words don't paint a black and white world, but one of great nuance. I can travel the world once again and proudly point to the man that my fellow citizens and I elected to be our president.
Yet I can't help but wonder what the people who support Palin think of such a speech. Is it too subtle? Is it too abstract? Part of me suspects that the better Obama is, the more some of his detractors oppose him. They simply can't deal with their world view being challenged in any way.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
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President Obama never do anything else well speech....the speech is really wonder i also like it..and today's speech .......perfect....
ReplyDeleteInteresting, Steve, and thank you for posting this.
ReplyDeleteI saw a balanced delivery hitting notes needed for home that didn't play well internationally. The Oslo City Hall reaction was polite and restrained. The initial critical response on major news websites is strongly disapproving. It is being called Obama's 'War and Peace Prize' speech.
The Committee did make the choice because of the election and a promise fulfulled--there is no doubt of that. On that, I see the Prize given to symbolize Europe's (and Western civilization's) full refutation of colonialism's tool, racism. We cannot lose sight of this fact: A major nation of European creation has elected a 'non-white' person as its leader. South Africa understands this. Brazil knows what this means. Indonesia gets it. Here, in Great Britain, they feel what this means and ask, 'Can we do this here?'
Obama is a man of the moment and a political leader blessed with intelligence, education and an international bearing unique to American leadership.
He mentioned very early on his duty as head of state; that it encompasses that right to protect his people unilaterally, as the 'rules' have defined them for hundreds of years through many treaties. His history is correct.
And this is where I find him powerful. He finds his own way and his own words to express his vision. It is frequently one that embraces disparate elements of differing opinion and established camps of ideology. Here, he corrupts our deepest held beliefs of peace and mixes war into its pursuit. If there is something shaping in his young presidency, it is this: He speaks his 'truth' to his audience wherever he may be, from power, to power.
He is, quite frankly, what so many of us on the left, hoped for: a leader of (largely) progressive constitution who means to have that guide his time on the world stage. Everything else is the push and pull of politics, a vicious and very necessary mosh-pit where soaring rhetoric meets its frequent master.
I too, call upon philosophers and thinkers to work on what is 'just war'. It was 17th c jurist Hugo Grotius who is credited with establishing much of the groundings of what became international law. That is what is evolving here, as our president rightly quoted from Kennedy. These are the institutions that make it possible to control war between sovereigns and others.
We are a long ways from having these institutions fully able to control the ruptures in diplomacy that become armed conflict. Our courts do not stop law breakers, but they do provide the means to correct, to reform and to say no to what we do not condone. This is similarly, the work of international courts, political bodies, and treaties. Our world problem is how to agree on enforcement against sovereign states.
So I agree with Steve. We can travel the world as Americans with our heads held up now. The world knows we have a leader it can engage, criticize, and he will then listen and regard their views, together with his nation's own.
What an amazing change that is from an almost Imperial America we had become. A superpower that did what it wanted, where it wanted. What a blessed relief this change is for me, for all of us in this world.
I, for one, was able to sing the strains of 'America, the beautiful' with full voice this past Thanksgiving here in London, as thousands of Americans gathered at St Paul's Cathedral to hear the American Ambassador give his and our president's address for the day.
I still plan to gain my EU citizenship, but I will remain an American as well. That declaration was not possible for me in a Bush (or Palin) America. The Nobel Peace Prize recognizes this change in possibilities and many, so many outside the USA agree with me.
Thank you, Mr. President, for understanding we live in a world of nations, not simply spheres of influence. Thank you for envisioning our best hopes, and setting on a course to meet that future, together.