Hopeful Intentions: The Peace Prize

This week, Barack Obama became the third president to win the Nobel Peace prize and the first sitting President to do so since Teddy Roosevelt in 1906. When the announcement was made it was met with a variety of opinions, mostly, “what’s” and “why’s” and “what for’s?” But in the weeks before the actual awarding, everyone simmered down and it became known that this award is meant as a hopeful symbol to a leader who could actually do something to promote peace in the world.

I’ve thought about this quite a bit, going over the past winners I cared about. My awareness of this prize began freshman year at my international high school when global matters became my passion and model UN and debating my favorite thing. After going through the catalogue of past winners, I can’t think of a more appropriate winner for this year except President Obama. Presidents, statesmen and dignitaries have been the primary winners of this award throughout its history. And while some of them have been for their accomplishments-- (Roosevelt was given the award "for his successful mediation to end the Russo-Japanese war and for his interest in arbitration, having provided the Hague arbitration court with its very first case,” according to the BBC)—it’s also true that many winners of this prize have been given this honor almost as a carrot. Think of 1994 when Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres won, two Israeli statesman and the head of the PLO…how’d that work out? Peace has not come to the Middle East but they got the award because the committee wanted them to come together to try to make peace.

When South Korea’s Kim Dae Jung won the prize in 2000 do you think it was because he had done something to improve relations, nuclear or otherwise, with the crazy Kim Jong-il? Nope, and how’s that going? I’m not above admitting that I was so hopeful the day David Trimble and John Hume, rivals in the long-standing Northern Irish conflict stood together and shook hands for the first time at Stormont in 1998. I was there. It was extraordinarily inspiring. Guess who were co-winners that year? You got it. How’s the Northern Irish power-sharing agreement going now, you ask? See above.

Very few unique individuals have been awarded this honor for something they alone accomplished without holding a governmental office. Linus Pauling stands out for his win in 1962, lauded for his campaign against nuclear war testing—truly a peace prize winner. And then there are the two who seem to be above everyone else in the award’s history-- Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama. In what could only be the Nobel’s equivalent of the Oscar’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the Saint and Lama were awarded the Peace Prize in 1979 and 1989, respectively.

Writers seldom win this award, after all, isn’t that why we have the Nobel Prize for Literature? But two stand out. Elie Wiesel won the Peace Prize in 1986 not for his words but for serving as the Chair of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust. But one writer/speaker sticks out to me as someone probably forgotten today but made an impact on me, and probably others as a surprise winner in 1992.

Rigoberta Menchu wasn’t exactly a poet, but it was her passion and speech that gave voice to an entire country, and in particular to an entire group of impoverished, forgotten people who lived in the shadows of dictatorship and no-class citizenship. This was especially the case among the Quiche Indians living there. Menchu’s award was for her body of work in the field, and then verbalizing it in her autobiography in which she dictated to Elisabeth Burgos when she was only 23 years old. In 1992 I was in an international high school program and I will never forget the first lines of that book, “My name is Rigoberta Menchu. I am 23 years old and my life story is intended to present proof of the fate of my people."

Below is an excerpt of some of the words that made her famously influential not for their uniqueness perhaps in today’s terms, where it seems everyone has some sort of “memoir,” but because with these words and her speaking out, she gave voice to poverty before the privileged parts of the world was fully aware of the incredible destitution, and depravation of much of the world—long before we were connected by the internet, before we could tweet. For a second, Menchu was the human face of poverty long before Bono’s One campaign.

"We don't need advice, theories or books, because life itself is our teacher. I have been made to understand in the depth of my soul what discrimination means. My life story is a tale of exploitation. I have worked and suffered hunger... When looking back at a life such as mine and when taking in the stark reality of it, a hate for the suppressors who have brought so much suffering to a people begins to grow."

I hope President Obama takes his prize in stride and does his best to do what he said. Here are a few lines, the full text can be found at the follwoing link: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5B92KK20091210?WT.srch=1&WT.mc_id=obamanobel

“I receive this honor with deep gratitude and great humility. It is an award that speaks to our highest aspirations — that for all the cruelty and hardship of our world, we are not mere prisoners of fate. Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice.

And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated. In part, this is because I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage. Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize — Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela — my accomplishments are slight. And then there are the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice; those who toil in humanitarian organizations to relieve suffering; the unrecognized millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened of cynics. I cannot argue with those who find these men and women — some known, some obscure to all but those they help — to be far more deserving of this honor than I.

But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 43 other countries — including Norway — in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks...
Like generations have before us, we must reject that future. As Dr. King said at this occasion so many years ago: "I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him."
So let us reach for the world that ought to be — that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls. Somewhere today, in the here and now, a soldier sees he's outgunned but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere today, in this world, a young protestor awaits the brutality of her government, but has the courage to march on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty still takes the time to teach her child, who believes that a cruel world still has a place for his dreams."

Let us live by their example. We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the intractability of deprivation, and still strive for dignity. We can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace. We can do that — for that is the story of human progress; that is the hope of all the world; and at this moment of challenge, that must be our work here on Earth."