Barack Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize?

Kind of grabs me.

I like the guy. Kind of… He is an extraordinary person in more ways than one. And the charisma and organization which swept him to the American presidency is something that is considerable. It is there, it is tangible, it is.

And, he is someone who believes, and works on buffeting his belief with reason.

Yeah, I am not into ‘believing’ but the guy does make me a believer. Something that I think is illogical. No man is a god. No man is perfect. Those are the absolutes that I cling to…

Since the election, less than a year ago. Well, since long before the election, I became fascinated by this modern fairy tale. (Not in the Clinton meaning…). I became fascinated.

And since the election, I have been horrified.

It is one thing to criticize with intent to correct. It is something else to criticize for the joy of criticizing. To criticize with the fervour of hate and hatred. That gets my goat. And the opposition, (in my view of course) has gone wildly overboard. Well, it may be race based, as Carter believes. It maybe just politics. And, I must say that I am no expert here.

Fact is, I have been ‘tuned’ into US politics for the last year… Longer than I would have thought possible. My attention span is weirdly short. Bite me.

But I have been following the weird twists and turns of the American debates. Makes for much more interesting reading than the Kabaka and President in Uganda. Those are big babies, just out of the crib, playing for life stakes. And they just don’t know it…!

Anyway, back to Barack.

Favourite was Zimbabwe’s Tsavingrai. I thought the guy was going to get it. I mean, I have followed the sorry tale of Zimbabwe for years. Sad years. If Mugabe is the orgre, Tsavingrai is something else. He is not perfect, but he has tried. He is the guy that Mugabe has beaten up on, and caned and done all sorts of things for. He is an African, (yes, playing the race card…!) My  money was on Tsavingrai.

But, Obama won.

Not yet finished his first year of the presidency. Fighting a campaign style war with his opposition, who are accusing him of things from being a Hitler imitator, to the anti-Christ. Extraordinary.

When I saw the breaking news, I thought it was impossible. Obama cant have qualified for this. But, looking into Alfred Nobel’s reasons for the Peace Prize, I couldn’t but agree. With the Nobel Committee. Course, I am biased. But, it is undeniable that, using the power of the most powerful office on this planet, Obama has accomplished a lot of what the founder of the Nobel Prizes dreamed about. They lauded the change in global mood, the efforts to work together, the multi-lateralism, the efforts at peace. And of course, the pseudo ‘Islam vs America’ war that he has defused. In a way. In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."

As for being the commander in chief with two wars ongoing (not counting the ‘war on terror’), just remember that Alfred Nobel gave us the power of explosives, bombs in war. So, maybe in this weird, beautiful world of ours, the logic fits that Barack Hussein Obama, the first African American president of the US, should get the coveted Nobel Peace Prize for his lofty intentions, and the power of charisma… To encourage him rather than to thank him.

Gosh, I just want to see how the Republicans in the US react to that. It will be a shock to them, as to all others, but I keenly anticipate the fireworks.

American politics is a reality show whose twists and turns keep me glued to the net!

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