The Triangle

Issue date: 10/16/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Olivier Douliery MCT Campus

Media Credit: MCT

President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize Oct. 9.

The Nobel Committee, the group responsible for awarding the prize, stated Obama had won the prize for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples."

The committee emphasized what Obama has done to support international bodies and promote nuclear disarmament, according to the BBC.

BBC also noted that the prize was awarded to Obama less than a year after he took office.

"It was because we would like to support what he is trying to achieve," Thorbjoern Jagland, Nobel Committee head, said. "It is a clear signal that we want to advocate the same as he has done."

As reported by the BBC, Obama was woken up early with the news, and in an address said he was "surprised and deeply humbled" by the award.

Obama said he would accept the award as a "call to action."

However, Obama did state that he did not feel he deserved the award that other "transformative figures" had won.

Many people agree with this view.

In an article by the BBC, it was stated: "An estimated 75 percent of comment[s] sent to the BBC expressed surprise at the award. Some said awarding the prize to Mr. Obama was plain wrong, others that the decision had come too soon, before he had made any concrete foreign policy achievement."

Mike Hess, chairman of the College Republicans at Drexel University, called Obama winning the award "absurd."

"President Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize is at best premature, and at worst patently absurd," Hess said. "Some have speculated that the chairman of the committee did it to cause a stir, and if so, he was certainly successful."

Hess said Obama has only made speeches against nuclear weapons and has not taken action.

"It does a disservice to those like President Teddy Roosevelt and the Red Cross, who actually deserved their Nobel Peace Prizes," Hess said.

Many people still respect Obama, yet disagree with the award.

"While I respect Obama as a person and think he has worthy character of a Nobel laureate, he has not yet accomplished enough during his presidency to deserve such an award," Anand Kumar, sophomore biology major, said.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid according to Reuters, said, "The Nobel prize for peace? Obama should have won the 'Nobel Prize for escalating violence and killing civilians'."

The Nobel Committee gave reasons why they chose Obama for the award.

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population," the committee said in a statement.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy summarized the meaning of the award as "America's return to the hearts of the people of the world."

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