Not only are liberals rejoicing and conservatives grumbling, as Gil Troy points out in the Toronto Globe &Mail newspaper, but questioning the decision, too, are some in the broad peace movement itself. The Nobel Committee described U.S. President Barack Obama’s accomplishments this far: “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.” However, Lech Walesa, the 1983 peace prize winner, said to reporters in Warsaw: “Who, Obama? So fast? Too fast — he hasn’t had the time to do anything yet. For the time being, Obama’s just making proposals. But sometimes the Nobel Committee awards the prize to encourage responsible action”, he said. “Let’s give Obama a chance”.

Nuclear activist and writer Douglas Roche said, “The doubters are wrong. Obama has already restored humanity’s hope for peace…What Obama has “done” is to raise our sights from the battlefield to respectful diplomacy as a route to peace….His actions are winding down the war in Iraq, re-starting nuclear disarmament negotiations with Russia, thawing relations with Cuba, ordering the closing of the Guantanamo prison and ending the policy of torture. He went to Cairo to address the Muslim world and to the United Nations to chair an unprecedented summit of the Security Council aimed at eliminating nuclear weapons… His overture to Iran was spectacular: ‘Over many centuries your art, your music, literature and innovation have made the world a better and more beautiful place,’ he told them. He urged Iran to discuss ‘in mutual respect’ the gamut of issues that for three decades has cast Iran and the US on opposite sides of a gulf splitting the region…Obama, as he himself recognized in his post-Nobel remarks, cannot bring peace by himself. He needs tremendous international, as well as domestic, support…” For those of us here in Canada, also striving for nuclear disarmament, the Nobel Committee has made the right choice.