Obama's Acceptance Speech at Nobel Peace Prize Award & African Nations(The Way I listened to it)

[OLOLADE Opemipo Osuolamilekan Ibiobamimo Mogbohunoluwa Adeyemi LaCrown]

Being My Analysis of President Obama's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech and how it relates to the Continental Africa and its Rulership

 

After listening to President Obama's acceptance speech which I chronologically followed his scholastic efforts to balance what had gone wrong in the past few years preceding his ascension into the oval office in terms of War and his vision of world peace coupled with his present stance of sending troops to Afghanistan, I cannot but help to focus on his expressions on violence, just war, just peace and the true definition of peace. The latter struck the need for my analysis as it affects the African nations.

 

Though, Obama quickly put to rest the question of his unworthiness for the nobel prize which had grazed the air since he was announced in October because it was at the beginnning of his tenure as the commander in chief of the United States Military, yet he believed as the Head of State of a nation in the midst of two wars, that could have prompted a deserving reasoning to bend history in the direction of justice. However, the Nobel Prize Committee had considered Obama fit for the award for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee also attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world free from nuclear weapons.

 

It is not an overstatement to herald the fact that president Obama spent half of his speech to make his case for what is a just war and just peace, even as he reckoned that the two wars that America is fighting, one is winding down while the other is a conflict that the nation did not seek except that they were joined by other allied forces. To me, that seems like re-echoing his stance on the Iraq war which he never supported from day one. Nonetheless, he mesmerized on the difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and effort to replace one with the other.

 

He claimed that the questions are not new as they appeared with the first man. And that even "at the dawn of history, the morality of war was not questioned; it was simply a fact, like drought or disease -- the manner in which tribes and then civilizations sought power and settled their differences". That seems like addressing the way we do business or tell stories in Africa. Our forefathers will tell us how they became the owners of the land that supported them. How they go about killing people in the name of capturing the weaklings. So, war is a phenomenom that is common to an ordinary man, even in Africa. The question remains, what is a just war?

 

President Obama said, "I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war. What I do know is that meeting these challenges will require the same vision, hard work and persistence of those men and women who acted so boldly decades ago. And it will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just peace". He emphasized that "we must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

 

Moreover, wars between nations have increasingly given way to wars within nations. The resurgence of ethnic or sectarian conflicts; the growth of secessionist movements, insurgencies, and failed states; have increasingly trapped civilians in unending chaos. In today's wars, many more civilians are killed than soldiers; the seeds of future conflict are sewn, economies are wrecked, civil societies torn asunder, refugees amassed and children scarred.

 

As much as the phrase of increasing wars within nations centered on world peace, I believe it addresses our African nations more than any other part of the world. My reason being that we never see it or address it as war but lives of innocent people that are continually wasted are on the rise. Folks cannot do for themselves what could easily be possible decades ago in the name of corrupt leaders that lack compassion for its citizenry. Rights become privileges even in the broad daylight. Assassination and/or death threats become the norm in the name of corruptible powers. What else could one say?

 

In obama's message, he referenced the fact that "in many countries, there is a disconnect between the efforts of those who serve and the ambivalence of the broader public. Though, he understands why war is not popular. but also know that the belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility. Peace entails sacrifice. His grip on peace requiring responsibility and sacrifice is what is missing on our soil, continental Africa where the so called leaders are not ready to carry out the functions of their respective position, either in the public sector or in the private arena.

 

I was a bit encouraged when he systematically chastised the America on the way they fight the wars, especially when he said "we lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor those ideals by upholding them not just when it is easy, but when it is hard. This was epitomed in the neglect of the rules guiding wars as enmeshed in Geneva Convention.

 

In an African way, I will borrow the phrase to address the Diasporan Africans involvement in the happenings in continental Africa. Several of our brothers and sisters in the diaspora believed that our leaders are corrupt back home, yet we seek for ways to partner with them by embracing them in one way or the other that seem to benefit our personal fulfilment. Even some times, we do seek for opportunities to serve with them, yet there has not been any good report that distinguished our years of sojourn outside the continent from those that have no clue about what operates outside the shores of Africa. it then comes to the mere fact that we are only better when we are not in power, and immediately we are control, we lost our sense of morals. Diaspora Africans cannot even run a small organization with handful membership without deceit, fight and hatred. How then can we prove that we are better than the people criticize daily?

 

In his second point that addresses the nature of a long lasting peace that we seek in the world, he emphasized that peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based upon the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting. Thus, he opined that peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or worship as they please; choose their own leaders or assemble without fear. Pent up grievances fester, and the suppression of tribal and religious identity can lead to violence.

So, as we see in Africa, even though several countries have not adopted the word WAR to describe what is going on in their countries, it is crystally clear, based on the above that a lot of African countries are in war within their respective nations. Just name it. So, the impression anchored on the the failure to uphold human rights as excused by the false suggestions that these are Western principles, as the practice of democracy, foreign to local cultures or stages of a nation's development are mere illusions. Our governments are repressive and none of them can move down a new path with such ingenuity.

 

In my analysis of the speech, the president did not mince words in his third point of long lasting peace by drawing the happenings in our African nations.... Obama said a just peace includes not only civil and political rights -- it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want. It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine they need to survive. It does not exist where children cannot aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within. And that is why helping farmers feed their own people -- or nations educate their children and care for the sick -- is not mere charity.

 

The president cannot say it more than what we expect our government back home to do for us. Instead, our   (s)elective officals are filled with avarice and self agrandizement. It does not matter to them what the people want or the future of the nation by developing the educational sector or the economic viability of their respective  country. So, if truly the celebration of this nobel prize mean anything to the Africans, then we must key into the words of Obama to agree with the beliefs that "we will NOT have the will, or the staying power, to complete this work of establishing PEACE without something more -- and that is the continued expansion of our moral imagination; an insistence that there is something irreducible that we all share.

 

In my own final assay of the speech, I need to resonate what president Obama said that "as the world grows smaller, we might think it would be easier for human beings to recognize how similar we are; to understand that we all basically want the same things; that we all hope for the chance to live out our lives with some measure of happiness and fulfillment for ourselves and our families. And yet, given the dizzying pace of globalization, and the cultural leveling of modernity, it should come as no surprise that people fear the loss of what they cherish about their particular identities -- their race, their tribe, and perhaps most powerfully their religion. In some places, this fear has led to conflict. At times, it even feels like we are moving backwards.

 

Hmmmmmmmmmmmn! what a powerful speech, especially in a moment like this when Africans kill themselves in terms of transitioning. We have sit tight individuals that don't want to leave office and we also have disgruntle individuals that have nothing to show the electorates, yet they want to claim that they are popular to win elections. ALL in the name of thuggery and gangsterism. Howz peace possible when an ordinary man cannot fend for themselves and government cannot take care of oits citizens?

 

OLOLADE Opemipo Adeyemi LaCrown

"For God and Country"

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"DECEMBER--THE SIEGE IS OVER, TIS TIME TO CELEBRATE:-Our today is the Tomorrow We Were Worried About Yesterday but DIAMOND Cannot Be Polished Without Friction just As GOLD Cannot Be Purified Without Fire. Good People Get Talked About & If I found Myself to be Talked About 4 My BELIEFS, I Count Myself Favored. After All, I AM STILL HERE TO TELL MY STORY

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