Surprise! Surprise! The Nobel Peace Prize!

On October 10, 2009 at 6 pm, I was listening to the news in the Tamil language radio station of Malaysia – Minnal FM – when the news reader said that President Barack Obama has been awarded the prestigious Nobel prize for peace. “What the….!” I exclaimed inwardly. It was so sudden! Surely, there should have been some announcements a few days earlier, in the medias, of the people being considered for the award, and discussions and the justifications. Had I missed those? I was disappointed in myself for being so ignorant. A day later, I let out a huge sigh of relief in knowing that I was not alone in being shocked out of my skin! Letters and blogs in the medias were full of expression of surprise.

Let’s face it. Obama had come into the world just as a ‘promise of peace’. He still remains so. The world is not in peace, now. Far from it. Iraq, Iran, Middle east, Pakistan, the Koreas, and Sudan, just to mention a few of the several nations in turmoil, are still in the same situation as when Obama became the President of the United States. All he had noticeably achieved so far was his move to close down the Guantanamo Bay Terrorist Camp and the procedures to pull all his soldiers from Iraq.

Come to think of it. As we are the witness, there is really no enduring peace here on earth. So, the past Nobel Peace Award winners were awarded the prize only for their two cents’ worth of contribution towards world peace. Therefore, Obama also seems to have obtained the peace award for his two cents’ worth of efforts!

Anyway, I think this is a good time to have a look at the past Nobel Peace Prize laureates. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded from the year 1901. Let us have a look only at the winners of the past 20 years.

Source: www.nobelpeaceprize.org

2008	Martti Ahtisaari - Finland
2007	Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. - USA
2006	Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank - Bangladesh
2005	International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Mohamed ElBaradei - Egypt
2004	Wangari Maathai - Kenya
2003	Shirin Ebadi - Iran
2002	Jimmy Carter - USA
2001	The United Nations ( U.N.) and Kofi Annan - Ghana
2000	Kim Dae Jung – South Korea
1999	Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) - France
1998	John Hume and David Trimble – both Northern Ireland
1997	International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and Jody Williams - USA
1996	Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and José Ramos-Horta – East Timor
1995	Joseph Rotblat and Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs - England
1994	Yasser Arafat - Palestine, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin – both Israel
1993	Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk – both South Africa
1992	Rigoberta Menchú Tum - Guatemala
1991	Aung San Suu Kyi - Myanmar
1990	Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev – Soviet Union
1989	The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso - Tibet

I hope you have beared up reading my two cents' worth of opinion on the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. No, don't send me the two cents! Ha! Ha! Ha!