Obama Wins Nobel Peace PrizePresident's award is a controversial surprise
President Barack Obama has won this year's Nobel Peace Prize. The award, which was announced October 9, took almost everyone by surprise, including the president himself.
"Well, this is not how I expected to wake up this morning," Obama told reporters Friday morning, shortly after receiving the news.
The Nobel Peace Prize is considered a great honor. The Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden, awards the prize to the person (or the group) who has done the most to establish friendship between nations, to help stop war, and to promote peace. Past winners include Martin Luther King Jr. (1964); the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF, 1965); and Mother Teresa (1979), a Catholic nun who helped homeless sick people in India.
The foundation also awards achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, and literature. The prizes are given in memory of Alfred Nobel, a Norwegian scientist and inventor who established the prize in 1895.
The Nobel committee said it chose Obama “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," said Thorbjorn Jagland, chair of the Nobel committee.
Surprise, DisagreementThe choice of Obama struck many people as inappropriate. Critics said the president hasn't accomplished much. After all, he has been in office less than one year. The president himself echoed that feeling, saying the award wasn't really for him but for the United States and its ideals.
"I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel committee," Obama said. "Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.
"To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize—men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace."
EncouragementSupporters, however, pointed out that the award is the Nobel committee's way of signaling thumbs-up to Obama's policies. The prize is meant to encourage the president to follow through.
"For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman," the committee said in a statement explaining its decision.
Obama said he recognized the award as encouragement. He said he hopes to work with nations around the world on issues such as curbing climate change, controlling nuclear weapons, and establishing peace between people of different religions and races.
"I know that throughout history, the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes. And that is why I will accept this award as a call to action—a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century," the president said.
Obama is the fourth U.S. president to win the prize and the third sitting president to do so. The others were Presidents Theodore Roosevelt (1906) and Woodrow Wilson (1919), and former President Jimmy Carter (2002). Former Vice President Al Gore shared the prize in 2007.
Winners of the award receive a medal and a cash prize. A White House spokesperson said Obama will donate the roughly $1.4 million award to charity. The award will be presented to him at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway, in December.
Vocabulary
diplomacy—the art of managing relationships with other nations; the practice of negotiating peace between nations
affirmation—approval
aspirations—hopes
transformative—effecting change
stimulate—to encourage
momentum—forward motion, energy, force
sitting—in office; still serving out a term
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