The Nobel Obama: Triumph of Symbol

Barack Obama won a historical election in November 2008. He captured the presidency of the most powerful nation on earth and arguably throughout history. Prudence demanded an avoidance of the race card during the campaign although it did manage to surface here and there despite efforts to suppress. When victory was achieved however, racially charged celebrations broke out across the nation and around the world. The party seemed never to end. Blacks and non-whites danced in the streets from Harlem to Kenya. “Yes We Can” became “Yes We Did” and for a prolonged moment in time, the hope of all people who are not white radiated with a powerful energy which has yet to dissipate.

Now Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize and many people, including myself ask “for what”? I supported and continue to support this president but do find his major accomplishments more a thing of the future than the near past. Still I have to sit back and give the folks in Sweden the benefit of the doubt. I have to assume they are intelligent and above corruption. This prestigious award is one of the most coveted, respected honors a human being can attain. Since there is no immediate issue presenting itself to account for this award, one has to seek deeper into the mystique of the Obama victory to discover reasons why this exalted community chose this man for the prize.

Avoiding the race card in this past election had the effect of obscuring the elephant in the victory (no pun). My initial thoughts regarding the celebratory reactions around the world had to do with the irony of ignoring the race of the man while he was running, but exalting it after his victory. The celebrations made no effort to camouflage the obvious. A black man had been elected president and for this reason alone there was cause to be hysterically jubilant. The media coverage displayed a wild party atmosphere going on in African–American communities around the nation, seasoned with like celebrations throughout Africa and the world as non-whites met this momentous occasion with an outpouring of unbridled joy.

The tumult was not fueled by a sudden realization that health care was coming to all, that peace was imminent in the Middle East, or that the economic recession was soon to end. The reaction was largely non-substantive, reveling mainly in the sole realization that for the first time in history the least likely of ethnic peoples was being represented first-hand in the White House. It was a dance of symbolism; a time of reference; an advance of the Civil Rights movement. It was everything but specific; a border-less passion set free as though confined throughout the entire spectrum of human history.

This victory inspired hope and energized the human spirit all over the world. It signaled the end to a human history of white people being in charge of everything powerful and economically significant. True, the idea held more symbolism than reality for the power structure rarely changes that much over the election of one president. Additionally, the election of a black man does not, did not, nor will not disenfranchise the power of the white man in politics or economic leverage. Despite the implications behind the presidential victory of a black man, racism, institutionalized in America and around the world continues to recede ever so slowly from the human landscape.

Barack Obama is an embattled president whose detractors will not rest until he is a loser in 2012. Nothing Mr. Obama does seems to meet with the approval of those who oppose him and seek his failure at any cost. The opposition media will misinterpret, twist and skew Obama’s words and acts no matter what it is he says or does. His trip to Denmark to win the Olympics for Chicago was win/win/, lose/lose, depending on who you ask.

When an aging, but still highly intelligent former president called attention to obvious racist attacks on Barack Obama from the opposition, Fox News immediately interpreted the remarks as referring to every attack on Barack Obama. Glenn Beck smirked and joked about being a racist just because you oppose Barack Obama. The tide of misinformation regarding President Carter’s remarks sought to ridicule the former president and deny any racism at all in the relentless drive to invalidate, devalue, criticize and deflate the presidency which in November, 2008 brought pure ecstasy to the majority of the world’s population.

Enter the Nobel Peace Committee. What this community has observed is that the election of Barack Obama was a significant inspiration to people all over the world, black and yes, white. It was a symbolic moment in human history that validated all people of color and demonstrated that indeed, you didn’t have to be white to count in this world. Symbols often carry more meaning that reality. Our faiths are built on symbols and non-literal meanings. Who would argue that faith does not impact the human experience in a great way, whether good or bad? The Nobel community has decided that symbol in the elevation of Barack Obama to the presidency of the USA is more important than the persistent devil trying to take command of the details. The opposition has been more than marginally successful in portraying Barack Obama as a failure and disappointment so far. The euphoria of November has abated in the wake of reactionary activity aimed solely at destroying the victory of 2008 with an unseating of Barack Obama in 2012.

My understanding of this award centers on the victory of Barack Obama as being sufficient enough to ignite and inspire the world to move towards peace and international cooperation. The momentum may be mired in a sea of impatience and dearth of accomplishments, but the victory nonetheless was significant for the very reason that race card-avoiders are reluctant to admit. It was the emergence of the Black and non white masses onto the open stage of power-sharing and the validation of all people around the world no matter their color or heritage. The Nobel Prize was the triumph of symbol; the celebration of spirit and the acknowledgment that faith in its purest form is still a potent and valuable motivator in the human experience.

President Obama wisely accepted this award in a diminutive tone, understanding that its raison d’être had less to do with substance than pure potential. It is an appropriate salute to the forces behind the fury of November 2008; a thank you to a man whose tireless effort and strong will took him through a hard-fought election where more than politics was at stake. Far more, for now it is at least a dream-able dream that the world’s people will seek to unite in a search for peace, even as wars continue to be fought more over principle than substance. I congratulate not Barack Obama, but the Nobel Committee for seeing through the camouflage and recognizing the president’s victory for what it truly was.


Robert W Hamilton: 2012: It's never too soon.