The Prize should be an award for action

Erin Chapman is a junior majoring in history.

Here’s a novel idea: Nobel Prizes should be given to people after they have done things – not before. 

Well, at least it seems somewhat novel since Friday, when the Nobel Committee selected President Barack Obama as the 2009 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Unlike the other prizes that are awarded for lifetime achievement in a discipline – physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and, since 1968, economics – the peace prize has frequently been awarded proactively to encourage potential peacemakers to continue to pursue their efforts.

People like Mikhail Gorbachev, Yasser Arafat and Al Gore were all given their Nobels in the midst of their endeavors as an affirmation of the steps that they were taking, and not necessarily as a reward for the progress they had made.

But doling out recognition before the work has been done – or in this case even started – cheapens the prize. I’ll take one Nobel Prize for Literature, please. You know, for all of those great novels I plan on penning.

See what I mean? Cheapening.

Although Obama certainly has made important contributions to changing the tone of international relations, as he mentioned in his acceptance speech, he hardly deserves to be among the ranks of Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Teresa.
Obama supporters are angry because we had hoped that president Obama would win this award, we just had thought it would come 20 years and a few Middle East negotiations later. But giving the award out to people who have not had time to prove their diplomatic chops doesn’t help to further the cause of peace.

Selections like these take away the award’s prestige and make it a mere political ploy.


Zach Ammerman is a sophomore majoring in French and political science.

Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize was a good thing. But if you had to make the pick between him and one of these people, would you have really made the same decision as the Nobel Committee?

1. Mir Hussein Mousavi: The nation of Iran is currently at a major crossroads in its history. Mousavi – after almost certainly having the 2009 presidential election stolen from him – stood up and demanded peaceful resistance to the government crackdown that followed the election. Official police reports document 450 post-election arrests, but the number is likely in the thousands. Moreover, there have been widespread allegations of rape and torture of the prisoners. Mousavi has used his voice relentlessly in opposition to the increasingly repressive government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

2. Morgan Tsvangirai: Tsvangirai, the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, has been beaten so terribly he has had to be hospitalized on more than one occasion, arrested without cause, accused of treason, almost thrown out of a 10-story window and had two elections stolen from him. And he has to work with the man responsible for it all: the despot President Robert Mugabe. Tsvangirai has openly advocated peaceful and effective protest to Mugabe’s leadership. Tsvangirai was also nominated for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. 

3. Dr. Denis Mukwege: Mukwege established a hospital for the treatment of victims of horrific sexual violence in Bukavu, a city in the war-torn region in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, by far one of the most dangerous places in the world. On an average day, Mukwege treats 10 women, 30 percent of whom have complications from rape that are serious enough to undergo major surgery. Every day, hundreds of women are brutally raped in the Congo. Because of the hospital established by Mukwege, many of them survive and receive free psychological care and medical treatment.