Playing among the arrowroot leaves I tried in vain to pick up the strands of frogs' eggs, believing they were beads. --Wagari Muta Maathi, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Winner

The Nobel Prizes have a long history, having been awarded for more than a century, starting in 1901. The Nobel Foundation awards the prizes, named for Alfred Nobel, who cited his intent to establish the foundation and the Prizes in his will.

Nobel was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1833. Educated by private teachers in St. Petersburg, Russia, he learned Swedish, French, Russian, German, and English. His family had a vast technical background—his father developed aquatic mines used to protect St. Petersburg's harbor, and built bridges and buildings. His brothers developed an oil business in Southern Russia. His grandfather was a leading Swedish technocrat.

Alfred, after much experimenting and many accidents--one of which killed his brother, invented dynamite (a solid, controllable form of nitroglycerin, and safer to handle) and a detonator cap to set off the explosion. With industrial uses rapidly expanding for controllable high explosives, dynamite earned Nobel a significant fortune—and the inaccurate but oft-repeated tag of being “a merchant of death.”

His foundation also began in controversy, with different factions vying for control of the Nobel fortune. When he died, the country of Nobel's legal residence was up in the air, the fund to provide for the prizes was not yet established, his will had procedural and filing issues, his family considered contesting the will, and many thought the idea of having the Norwegian parliament select the annual winners was heretical.

Finally in 1901, the first Nobel Prize for Peace was shared by Jean H. Dunant and Frédéric Passy. Dunant, born in Geneva, founded the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Geneva Convention (1864); he died alone and never spent any of his prize money. Passy, born in Paris, lived their his whole life. He organized peace congresses, and worked as an activist to promote international peace, and wrote about political economy.

Since 1901, the Nobel Peace prize has been awarded 90 times to 120 recipients.

Recently, the definition of activities related to peace have branched into new territories. The 2003 prize went to Shirin Ebadi, a Iranian born lawyer, mother, wife, and activist for children rights. But he faced controversy for calling herself a Muslim woman rather than extolling her identity as an Iranian. A leading Iranian human rights organization wrote after her award:

“We were stunned to hear you calling yourself a Muslim woman instead of an Iranian woman. Have you forgotten that Iran has been a defeated country and Islam is a foreign religion forced on the Iranians for centuries?”

Another writer agreed: “If Ebadi were genuinely for the Iranian people and wanted to see them free, why is she identifying herself as an Islamic woman – as a part of the religion that has oppressed the Iranian people for centuries?”

The human rights organization also asked “Also didn’t we hear you advocating the separation of mosque and state?”

The writer agreed again: “It seems if a person wanted to liberate the Iranian people, especially someone like Ebadi, they would advocate the separation of religion and state. But she isn’t. Why not? Ebadi insists that Islam and human rights are compatible. Yet even Islamic Scholars such as Kadivar have stated that Islam is the religion of discrimination and separation.”

Finally, the Iranian group asks in its letter: “Dear Mrs. Ebadi, how can you be working for human rights and then accept the Islamic laws of torture, amputations, stoning, beating and flogging?”

In Iran, her university was forced by the State to cancel a reception in her honor.

Ebadi's 2003 win was followed in 2004 by the award of the Peace prize to another woman, Wangari Muta Maathai, of Kenya. Maathai, the first Kenyan woman to earn a PhD., is a professor and department chair (veterinary anatomy), and an activist for sustainable development.
 

In her Nobel lecture, Maathai said, “Although this prize comes to me, it acknowledges the work of countless individuals and groups across the globe. They work quietly and often without recognition to protect the environment, promote democracy, defend human rights and ensure equality between women and men. By so doing, they plant seeds of peace. I know they, too, are proud today.”

Maathai joined six other Peace Prize winners from Africa, including F.W. De Klerk, the South African President who presided over a country divided by the racial policy of apartheid, which he helped end;--and Chief Albert Luthili, Bishop Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela, South Africans who, since the 1940s, struggled against the apartheid De Klerk oversaw for rights, freedom, and justice for all South Africans. The other African winner, Egypt's former President, Anwar Sadat, summed up the intent of the Peace Prize,

Kenya's Maathai's major contribution has been to sustainable development. Through the Green Belt movement she helped found, Maathai has been helped coordinate and direct the planting of 30 million trees over the last thirty years.

Dr. Maathai, in her Nobel lecture, reminded everyone that: “The Norwegian Nobel Committee has challenged the world to broaden the understanding of peace: there can be no peace without equitable development; and there can be no development without sustainable management of the environment in a democratic and peaceful space. This shift is an idea whose time has come.”

Former Vice-President Al Gore won the Peace Prize in 2007.

Dr. Ralph Bunche, whose father was a barber and grandmother had once been enslaved, graduated from UCLA with honors and earned a PhD D. from Harvard. He became the first African-American to win the Nobel Prize in 1950. As United Nations chief negotiator, he brokered a peace agreement and armistice between armed, warring fractions of Arab states and the new nation of Israel.

Dr. Bunche noted in his Nobel Lecture, entitled, “Some Reflections on Peace in Our Time:”

In this most anxious period of human history, the subject of peace, above every other, commands the solemn attention of all men of reason and goodwill. Moreover, on this particular occasion, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Nobel Foundation, it is eminently fitting to speak of peace. . .

Then, in phases that eerily seem to reflect our own times, Dr. Bunche, with penetrating accuracy and clarity, observed:

“In these critical times - times which test to the utmost the good sense, the forbearance, and the morality of every peace-loving people - it is not easy to speak of peace with either conviction or reassurance. True it is that statesmen the world over, exalting lofty concepts and noble ideals, pay homage to peace and freedom in a perpetual torrent of eloquent phrases. But the statesmen also speak darkly of the lurking threat of war; and the preparations for war ever intensify, while strife flares or threatens in many localities. '

“The words used by statesmen in our day no longer have a common meaning. (wr/emphasis.) Perhaps they never had. Freedom, democracy, human rights, international morality, peace itself, mean different things to different men. Words, in a constant flow of propaganda - itself an instrument of war - are employed to confuse, mislead, and debase the common man. Democracy is prostituted to dignify enslavement; freedom and equality are held good for some men but withheld from others by and in allegedly "democratic" societies; in "free" societies, so-called, individual human rights are severely denied; aggressive adventures are launched under the guise of "liberation". Truth and morality are subverted by propaganda, on the cynical assumption that truth is whatever propaganda can induce people to believe. Truth and morality, therefore, become gravely weakened as defences against injustice and war. With what great insight did Voltaire, hating war enormously, declare: "War is the greatest of all crimes; and yet there is no aggressor who does not colour his crime with the pretext of justice."”

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist preacher and civil rights leader, was the second African-American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. At 35, he remains the Prize's youngest winner.

Dr. King's selection triggered a relentless barrage of fierce criticism by American political leaders, opinion makers and from other quarters, especially from citizens who felt strangely disturbed, displaced, or shaken by Dr. King's persistent drive for equality and opportunity. Dr. King's use of non-violent confrontation and direct action against segregation laws severely limiting the rights and choices of African-Americans was seen by many as a deliberate effort to incite of violence, as an example of“outside agitation” and external interference, and as an plotted effort by communists to overthrow America (NC Sen. Jesse Helms pronounced Dr. King to be a Communist from the well of the Senate floor). Many though it was mockery of peace. They held true peace lay in the old status quo rooted in discrimination, two tier rights, and non-white groups being bereft of power. Dr. King's award was widely thought to be a travesty and a sham, and was met with disgust by many.

In his La Prix Nobel lecture, Dr. King brought his considerable powers of analysis to bear. Like Dr. Bunche's, his observations remain relevant:
Every man lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live. Our problem today is that we have allowed the internal to become lost in the external. We have allowed the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live.

“We live in a day, says the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, "when civilization is shifting its basic outlook: a major turning point in history where the presuppositions on which society is structured are being analyzed, sharply challenged, and profoundly changed.”

And again, Dr. King speaks from the past, in this 1964 address, in a language that mirrors the present so presciently, that it causes shivers:
Another indication that progress is being made was found in the recent presidential election in the United States. The American people revealed great maturity by overwhelmingly rejecting a presidential candidate who had become identified with extremism, racism, and retrogression. The voters of our nation rendered a telling blow to the radical right. They defeated those elements in our society which seek to pit white against Negro and lead the nation down a dangerous Fascist path.

Let me not leave you with a false impression. The problem is far from solved. We still have a long, long way to go before the dream of freedom is a reality for the Negro in the United States. To put it figuratively in biblical language, we have left the dusty soils of Egypt and crossed a Red Sea whose waters had for years been hardened by a long and piercing winter of massive resistance. But before we reach the majestic shores of the Promised Land, there is a frustrating and bewildering wilderness ahead.”

Dr. King could well be describing the public reaction to the newest African-American winner of the Nobel Peace Prize--the 44th President, Barack Hussein Obama.

Dr. King goes on:
I do not wish to minimize the complexity of the problems that need to be faced in achieving disarmament and peace. But I think it is a fact that we shall not have the will, the courage, and the insight to deal with such matters unless in this field we are prepared to undergo a mental and spiritual reevaluation - a change of focus which will enable us to see that the things which seem most real and powerful are indeed now unreal and have come under the sentence of death. We need to make a supreme effort to generate the readiness, indeed the eagerness, to enter into the new world.”

In 1994, Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader of the PLO, received the Nobel Prize for Peace.

In Charleston, I'm friends and a writing mentor to Alison Sher, a young writer and recent college graduate who nearly caused a crisis in US and Bhutan relations and almost got herself kicked out of the country for blogging during a study trip to Bhutan (her study advisers told her that Bhutanese officials requested that she should shut down her blog because it violated the Bhutan Happiness code; that she really little experience and no idea what it was really like to be Bhutanese, that being in the country was a great opportunity, and that her private feelings were best expressed in a journal—she was told this while crying hysterically, in a not-to-be-believed Alison meltdown)—in fact, she's in the coffee house now, working on her review of the music at a Charleston organic jazz cafe, emceed by a Yoruba Priest, named Dr. O, who greeted the crowds on the mike with a pronounced, “Ashaye!”

Alison's grand-aunt, Gertrude B. Elion won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1988. Mrs. Elion, a chemist, was the child of European immigrants, attended college free at New York City's Hunter College during the Depression, and as an experiential learner, her contributions and knowledge advances during the course of her career led to her sharing the Nobel in 1988. Ms. Elion, who only earned a Master's degree and never married, died in 1999.

Barack Obama has been called the “face of evil” by Americans commenting on the internet who feel his short tenure in office makes the prize undeserved. The resounding assessment of Obama's award is expressed rhetorically: “What has he done?”

As with all the Nobel Laureates, in all of the fields, especially, Peace, history shows the answer depends on your point of view. Certainly, Obama as President, has not planted 30 million trees, founded a humanitarian triage group, written best sellers with enduring substance--or even ended the two tier, inequitable system for dealing with intra-gender sexual orientation in the US Uniformed Military Services.

Yet, by any measure, no Head of State, modern or otherwise, has directed more attention toward world peace as a multi-national, community process--by the traditional diplomatic and government tools of meetings, appearances, and words. Obama's dint of speeches, high level meetings, diplomatic engagement are unparalleled or rivaled from antiquity to the present.

His behavior has matched his words, much to the chagrin and angst of some, who consider his positions to soft and his behavior as kowtowing to barbarous bullies who are world leaders. For others, Barack has engaged in weighed political restraint in the face of provocation from several international and national fronts (Venezuela, Iraq, Al Queda, North Korea, among them). It most be agreed he has freed hostages, killed pirates, and changed the focus of the war, striking terrorist leaders from Africa to Afghanistan. While there are no signed agreements (it is simply to soon), the announced willingness of Russia and other countries to negotiate security and economic agreements are a measure the emphasis on World Peace Barack Obama has committed to in just 38 weeks as American President.

To this end, Obama spoke to citizens and parliaments in London, Strasbourg (France), Prague, Ankara, and Baghdad in April alone. Secretary of State Clinton who right now is traveling to London, Dublin, Belfast, and Moscow, has visited 34 countries and longed 134, 748 miles!, from India and China to Honduras and Mexico to lay out the new policy initiative of “Smart Power.” Secretary Clinton said about the Barack's Prize, “I think from the Secretary's standpoint, not only is it well-deserved, the outreach that the President has made in the first now ten months in office, but it's an affirmation of the strategy of engagement, of the need to work collaboratively and multilaterally to solve the challenges of the world."

What has happened during Barack's 38 weeks in office? Are there results to point to?

• After his visit to London, world leaders agreed to keep their individual stimulus policies in place and to strengthen regulation.

• After Prague, Barack and Russian President agreed in July to reduce nuclear stockpiles by a third.

• Little progress has been realized yet in the Middle East, but talks continue.

• In an important breakthrough, Iran has agreed to an inspection of a nuclear enrichment facility and indicated it is willingly transfer its uranium to Russia for peaceful purposes.

The Obama Presidency may fall on domestic issues and on the mantras of consensus doom and gloom which seem to be gathering wider acceptance, but it is clear that his trips to Asia Minor (Turkey), the Middle East (Egypt), the African Continent, his involvement in international meetings with other Heads of State has made a significant difference in the way in which the prospects of peace are viewed around the world, in the language and attitudes of Statecraft, in the expanded conversations about topics previously off the table—African corruption and sectional conflicts, the systemic rape and slavery of children and women, the advancing nuclear threat from Iraq, the ties of peace to global prosperity. Obama is shaping and driving a new era of government relations, within and between countries. The prize is a measure of his influence especially outside of the United States.

Meanwhile at home, Republicans have mocked Obama's selection as a fund-raising tool.

Perhaps Micheal Steele, the African-American chair of the Republican Party, provided the double example of the new struggles a-raising from new victories and of the words without common meaning that Martin Luther King and Ralph Bunche foreshadowed. Steele's comment: "Democrats and their international leftist allies want America made subservient to the agenda of global redistribution and control," This was written in an e-mail that invited contributions of up to $1,000. It closed: "Truly patriotic Americans like you and our Republican Party are the only thing standing in their way."

And, in the strange world of bedfellows, Steele and the many of the Republicans now agree and share the view of the dictator and anti-American dilettante, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a strident and disrespectful vocal U.S. Critic. Chavez, according with Steele, other Republicans, and popular American pundits, says he doesn't think Obama deserved the prize.

But Republican Congressional leaders John Boehner in the House (OH) and Mitch McConnell (KY) in the Senate have been silent about Barack's Prize, but Boehner has oscillated back and forth as to whether Obama is a socialist, taking yes and no positions in front of different audiences at different times. Otherwise, on the Prize, no statements from their offices.

Barack's Republican opponent in last fall's election has gone against the prevailing trend. With the traditional patriotism and loyalty of a graduate of the Naval Academy and a long time Senator of national stature, John McClain (AZ) has gone against the grain. "Americans are always pleased when their president is recognized by something on this order," McClain said.

Among the comments found on the internet, others say Barack is the face of evil. Others say Barack believes America is evil. Still others say he is unready to face evil.

Keeping our eyes on the Prize, the original Nobel statement specifies the prize should “be awarded to the person who has accomplished “the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the promotion of peace congresses.”

The Peace Prize is awarded in a different fashion than the other Nobel Prizes. Academic and professional organizations such the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decide who wins the other prizes. The Peace Prize is determined by a five person committee selected from the Norwegian legislature, or Storing.

For Obama's award, the committee members were Thorbjorn Jagland, president of the Storting (chairman) and former Labor Party prime minister and foreign minister of Norway; Kaci Kullmann Five, a former member of the Storting and president of the Conservative Party; Sissel Marie Ronbeck, a former Social Democratic member of the Storting; Inger-Marie Ytterhorn, a former member of the Storting and current senior adviser to the Progress Party; and Agot Valle, a current member of the Storting and spokeswoman on foreign affairs for the Socialist Left Party.

One writer noted: “The peace prize committee is therefore a committee of politicians, some present members of parliament, some former members of parliament. Three come from the left (Jagland, Ronbeck and Valle). Two come from the right (Kullman and Ytterhorn). It is reasonable to say that the peace prize committee faithfully reproduces the full spectrum of Norwegian politics.”

America, by its reaction to Barack's selection, has a different spectrum of political views and a different crititeria of assessment. Part of that assessment is to leave unanswered the question of “what has he done?”

But in Europe the question is debated and the answers discussed. One writer notes: In recent years, the awards have gone to political dissidents the committee approved of, such as the Dalai Lama and Lech Walesa, or people supporting causes it agreed with, such as Al Gore. Others were peacemakers in the Theodore Roosevelt mode, such as Le Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger for working toward peace in Vietnam.

Therefore, the award to Obama was neither more or less odd than some of the previous awards.

The debate about Barack's Prize agains brings to mind the maxim mentioned by Dr. King in his Nobel lecture: But every crisis has both its dangers and its opportunities. It can spell either salvation or doom. But either way, it's of our own making.

And in a country that, still believes that “yes, we can,” despite causal mantras of doom and several announced cries for its “failure,” Barack's selection is noteworthy on the basis cited by the Mississippian, William Faulkner, in his 1950 speech at the Nobel dinner. “It is a privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past.”

All pictures, fair use.
From the top: Nobel winners Shirin Ebadi, Wagari Maathai, Nelson Mandela, Ralph Bunche, Gertrude Elion, William Faulkner.
Walter Rhett writes Southern Perlo, a national cultural/history blog reviewing politics and social issues in a Southern story telling style, with key Southern examples.
Kudu Coffee in Charleston, SC, supports Southern Perlo with great coffee. Walt's new magazine book, "Carolina Gold," is finished; Walt now has the printer's proofs. Follow Walt/Southern Perlo on twitter.com/walterrhett. Please stir the Perlo; comment below.