Local Response to Obama Peace Prize Mirrors Global One
Published: October 10, 2009
Originally appeared in the News-Gazette
by Julie Wurth
President Obama's new status as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate generated pride, criticism and some questions from local academics and community leaders Friday.
Like other Americans, they expressed surprise that Obama was honored so early in his administration.
"It's a bold move by the committee to award a prize based on good intentions and attitudes rather than results," said Colin Flint, director of the University of Illinois Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security and an associate professor of geography.
Emeritus Professor Ed Kolodziej, director of the UI Center for Global Studies, called it "a great tribute to the change that he's been able to communicate, not just to the United States, but to people around the world."
"I'm just delighted that people around the world think so much of our president," added Larine Cowan, former director of affirmative action at the UI. "I agree with the president that this is a call to action for him to continue to move forward toward world peace."
The Nobel committee was candid that the award did not recognize Obama's achievements but "the major change in orientation in the United States," Kolodziej said. Dating back to World War II, he said, U.S. foreign policy was built around cooperation with its allies, as it took a firm but multilateral stand against the Soviet Union, for example.
George W. Bush changed that, adopting a more unilateral foreign policy that undercut U.S. influence around the globe, argued Kolodziej, who co-authored a book evaluating Bush's foreign policy, "From Superpower to Besieged Global Power."
Obama has returned to a multilateral approach, pursuing more open discussions with allies and rivals alike without being "naive," Kolodziej said. He has undertaken initiatives to improve ties with the Islamic world and jump-start nuclear arms control while trying to usher in health-care reform and deal with a major recession, he said.
"He hasn't rested. I think we've been blessed to have that kind of leadership. It's nice to have a competent administration," Kolodziej said.
The Nobel Prize committee praised Obama for his work in nuclear disarmament. Obama has said he would pursue ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the U.S. has signed but not ratified.
Many supporters of nuclear arms control see ratification of the treaty as a vital step in making the world safer, Flint said. The treaty would make the testing of nuclear weapons by other states unlikely, and if they did, they would be seen as renegade states, he said.
The president "has certainly put his weight behind a process already in play, and that was the idea of moving toward a nuclear-free world," Flint said.
However, it's one thing to express support and quite another to convince Congress to ratify the treaty, Flint pointed out.
One question being raised is whether others who have been working toward nuclear nonproliferation, such as Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, William Perry and George Schultz, should have shared in the award, Flint said.
Former Vice President Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work on raising awareness about global climate change. The prize was shared with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
For Francis Boyle, a UI law professor who has nominated former Illinois Gov. George Ryan for his work on ending capital punishment in the state, the Nobel committee's decision to award the prize to Obama's peace efforts was "truly Orwellian" while the U.S. wages war in Iraq and Afghanistan and threatens war against Pakistan, he said.
"Maybe Obama is a dove at heart," Boyle said, but his advisers, with the exception of George Mitchell, are hawks, he said.
President Theodore Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for negotiating a peace treaty between Russia and Japan, and President Woodrow Wilson won in 1919 because he founded the League of Nations.
"I don't really think Obama has anything like that to his credit at this time," Boyle said.
"He's very good at public relations and giving speeches, but this is the real world out there," Boyle said.
Others disagreed.
"If some other president had reached out to these countries that were not our allies and started dialogue with them, there wouldn't have been a need for Obama to get this award. For the humanitarian work that he's doing, he should be recognized," said Lorraine Cowart, a Democrat on the Champaign County Board.
Cowart and other black leaders said all Americans should take pride in Obama's selection.
"He is everybody's president," said the Rev. Jerome Chambers, president of the Champaign County NAACP, who was "ecstatic" at the news.
"He is being recognized as a world leader, without the baggage that many other world leaders have had to deal with. So many people saw him as being inexperienced. He has proven the experience he has is enough to play on the world stage," Chambers said.
Cowart said she was dismayed by the criticism she heard all day on national news programs, which she attributed to "the race card."
"I've seen people saying he shouldn't have got it, and that he should turn over his award money to charity, which he did. They're slamming him," she said. "Everybody should be thrilled. Whatever he does, as far as getting the Nobel Peace Prize and world recognition, it reflects on the United States."
The Rev. Ervin Williams, executive director of Restoration Urban Ministries, said he's proud of Obama as an African-American. He said many other African-Americans were probably overlooked in years past for Nobel prizes in other areas. And it gives young men and women another positive role model, he said.
"This to me is exciting, and I think it does make a statement," he said.