Date Published: 10/18/09

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WELCOMED USA BACK AS WORLD LEADER By Farouk Martins Aresa

Some people around the world especially in the USA are not sure the President of USA deserves the Nobel Peace Award. He humbly accepted with self-deprecating nobility in comparison to past recipients. The conservatives in the USA including those who ridiculed him for the failure, despite his effort to bring the Olympics to Chicago, wondered what he did to deserve an award. Simply put: Obama prevailed in an election against those who think United State is not part of our world. It was an eventful task unparallel in world history against formidable opponents.

The rest of the world prefer United States leadership, life-style and the environment that gave an African from a single family home born in Hawaii the mantle of world most powerful office. The award is for Americans who made that dream possible not necessarily just for him. We cannot forget an election watched by the whole world wondering if the Country we emulate will stand up or live up to its leadership responsibilities in the world. If not the USA, where?

The world has seen many powers lost its grip through needless and expensive wars that over-stretched its economic and military capacities, we have seen world powers that lost their empires through economic greed, colonialism and slavery. The lessons of those years have taught us that we cannot follow the leaders blindly and allow the world to be drawn into chaos, wars and unprincipled ideas that will lead us to disaster. If the rest of the world refused to go to war in Iraq at the command of United States, it is because we see other means to achieve same.

It is not a reason for USA to defy reasonable calls inside and outside the Country to be patient so that resources could be devoted to the real perpetrator of 911 that generated so much anger throughout the world. United States could and has taken on more than one enemy at one time when there were needs to but not just because it could. All the goodwill generated towards United States was squandered by those who think the rest of the world can go to hell.

If election in United States can bring back the leadership the rest of the world missed so much in the past eight years, whoever waged that campaign and won deserved a Nobel Price for the votes that could only be garnered in the United States. It was evidence of American democracy at its best. People can talk about flawed election or ballots in some close election, but in an election where Democrats penetrated into the strongholds of their opponents, it showed that American were ready for a change. That is why Americans as a whole deserved the Nobel Price.

We have heard debates about what achievements Obama have, if any. We forget that a kid with a dream, a scientist with a dream, a writer with a dream or a trader with a dream has so many obstacles to overcome before she can even be perched in power to accomplish such a task. There are so many dreamers and achievers of medals, it is the one with enough goodwill in the eyes or even in the world’s subjective criteria that are encouraged to lead us to a greater heights. Many scientists never got a Nobel Price but one Albert Einstein did.

The Nobel Peace Award must continue to encourage and nudge the best of us towards peace and world harmony even in the face of doubters. We still have problems in the Middle East now but Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin later lost their lives because they deserved that Noble Peace Prize won in 1978 and 1994. It was shared with Menachem Begin the Prime Minister of Israel in 1978 who was the leader of the terrorists group that had bombed Jerusalem’s King David Hotel in 1945 where about 91 died and 45 were injured. Terrorist who later became leaders of their countries like Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus or Ben Bella of Algeria never got a Nobel Peace Award.

Sure, there is that danger of over expectation based on campaign promises. There are special interests seeking immediate relief they were looking forward to in the USA. The alternative is to surrender to the same status quo they voted against. The fact that US turned a new leaf does not mean that those defeated will fold their arms waiting for alternate views to succeed. They are ready to scuttle any progress not in consonant with their ideologies. Fearing failure to fulfill campaign promises there will be obstacles and setbacks but forward a must, divided never.

Apart from extremists, most conservatives and liberals are not evil. They love their countries equally but see a different path to greatness. The moderates or independents in most countries determine who win the elections. They can be persuaded by either reasonable ideology that offers practical solutions to situation at hand. In order to hold on to the center, that solution must not only be reasonable, it must be packaged and sold attractively. Most politicians get a bump in the polls after meeting and inspiring multitude of people and world leaders, not Obama. He was called the greatest star with nothing to show for it by his opponents.

Nevertheless, as soon as he assumed office, he was faced with the deepest recession since the last depression with the whole world suffering along, based on the policies he inherited from those with opposite economic theory. He introduced the Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February 2009. A country may have the best economists in the whole world and still plunge into depression, the same country with the best economists can save the world from the cold grip of that depression. The difference is in the leadership as USA with the largest economy has led the world markets back onto saver ground. That leadership deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.

The debate today is how much we are coming out, not how far we are falling into depression. After all, Wall Street has recovered but people are still waiting for jobs in the Main Street. Usually those with failed policies that pushed the country on the brink of disaster will shut up and face the corner. No, not these ones, they have not learned and are back to the same failed culture of greed. They are making a storm out of a tea cup, stalling and criticizing every move Obama makes, full of ridicule without Olympic award to their own Country and sarcasm for Nobel Peace Award to their President. Let Obama be Obama.