A Prize for Strengthening America

Ann Althouse:  A man on the street in Egypt "nails it" when he says that "they are handing him the Nobel Peace Prize because he isn't George Bush."

That doesn't do justice to what I imagine to be the Nobel Peace Prize Committee's intent in awarding the prize to President Obama.  The point, as I take it, is not that Obama isn't Bush.  Many people are not George Bush.  (Well, technically, every other person is not George Bush, but you get my point).  It's hard to imagine the committee's awarding the prize this year to any of the other Democratic candidates who, had they been successful, would have replaced George Bush -- Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards (snicker), Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, or Mike Gravel.

I see the committee's message a little differently from that Egyptian man on the street.  I think they handed Obama the prize not just because he isn't George Bush (though that surely helped), but because he represents a reaffirmation of an idea about the United States and the role that idea can play in world politics and world peace.  That idea is the possibility of cross-racial, cross-"tribal," cross-ethnic, cross-religious reconciliation.  Race, tribe, ethnicity, religion -- nothing (except perhaps oil) undermines peace within and between countries quite as effectively or as often as these.  Barack Obama's presidency reminds the world that there is a different way.

Obama symbolizes a major success of the American political experiment.  He is one of the most significant one-man illustrations of the capacity to transcend tribe that the world has seen.  It's easy for us here in the United States to get caught up in our domestic politics, our Bill-O'Reilly-versus-Keith-Olbermann dueling, and forget what the election of Barack Obama meant, and still means, to a great many people the world over.

The best analogy for this award might be the 1993 award to Mandela and de Klerk, or maybe the 1998 award to Hume and Trimble.  But they're imperfect analogies because the committee could only make its message intelligible by simultaneously honoring two people, two races, two religious, two tribes.  Here the committee was able to communicate its message of hope for a more peaceful world with an award to just one. 

Yes, Barack Obama's frame is too small, and his presidency too new, to support the award comfortably.  But if you think of it as an award not to one man but to all of us, the United States, the people who elected him and then peacefully transferred power to him, the frame seems a lot bigger and stronger.

"A prize for weakening America?"  

No.  Just the opposite.  It's a prize to all of us, for finding it within ourselves to remind the rest of the world that the idea of America is still alive.

Comments

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

Eric,

In some respects supportive of but if not compatible with what you write here is Roger Alford's post at Opinio Juris: http://opiniojuris.org/2009/10/09/why-did-barack-obama-receive-the-nobel-peace-prize-my-theories-and-your-vote/ (I'm not a fan of the poll he placed at the bottom, especially because the reasons listed may have worked in some combination or another to account for the outcome.)

[Barristers Handshake]

I just want to remind everyone that I'm alive and well and I have ideas. Many, many scholarly ideas. In fact, I plan to publish my ideas in the law journals of Harvard, Stanford, and Yale.

So, in light of that can I please have:

1) A tenure track job.
2) Tenure
3) A chaired position (perhaps with a great office, or maybe even the best office)

I didn't go to a top law school, I didn't have top grades, I didn't have a prestigious clerkship. I do though have decent publications and great teaching evaluations. What are my chances of being offered 1, 2 & 3 in the market this year? Better yet, what are the chances a school like UNC awards me 1, 2, & 3? (or even looks at my FAR form?) I think awarding me these things will remind the academy that "there is a different way." It will communicate hope to those who didn't graduate from the "elite" law schools. I'm counting on you, Prof. Muller to make the case for me to your colleagues!

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

BH,

You're perhaps better served by taking a (pretend) sabbatical, going on an extended retreat (Im sure there's some Benedictine or Buddhist monastery that would have you), or visiting a therapist of psychoanalytic persuasion.