Okay, I was as surprised as anyone this morning to discover that President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. So I did a little googling around, and found this excerpt from Nobel’s will, which set up all of the Nobel prizes:
“The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics; one part to the person who shall have made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
Now, no one has been talking about the abolition or reduction of standing armies lately, and “peace congresses” no longer occur as such. That leaves “the best work for fraternity between nations” as the major criterion on which this year’s 200+ nominees were evaluated, and, without knowing who else was in the running, it’s hard to say whether our new president truly deserves the prize. There may well be some hard-working NGO that could better use the prize money. But I can’t think of another single individual who has done more over this last year to at least try to promote fraternity between nations than president Obama, even if only by making speeches around the world… And, let’s face it, if Yasser Arafat can win the Nobel peace prize, anyone can.