Fernando Fuster-Fabra's Blog
OBAMA’S RETURN TO EUROPE: WHAT IS IN STORE AFTER THE G-20 FLOP?
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Sad to say but true, President Obama is not only a questioned leader in the USA but also as a world leader before the eyes of some of his staunch allies, particularly in Europe.
This weekend’s NATO Summit in Lisbon will be the first encounter after the disheartening G-20 performance by the cast of developed & developing nations’ leaders meeting in Seoul. Said summit will be followed by yet another bilateral one between the USA & the EU which may not count with Obama’s presence.
The disheartening results of an ineffective meet such as the one held in Seoul, whereby developed democracies on both sides of the Atlantic succumbed to a subtle Chinese strategy of political abstraction, cannot but have cooled even further already estranged EU-US postures in the economic field. China had its ways at the Seoul summit and as of today has further aggravated economic tensions with the latest communiqué from its central bank by raising its reserve ratio 50 basis points. Furthermore, the Communist Asian superpower has set its protectionist mechanism to curtail foreign investment in Chinese real estate and enterprise as a precautionary measure to avoid speculation.
True to say, the EU’s stance at the G-20 meet wasn’t all that unanimous, with Germany applying pressure on the USA in a similar manner as China but with different tactics. I keep asking myself why both superpowers – the USA on one side and the EU as a whole bloc of 27 state & 500 M population on the opposite side – haven’t yet decided to sit down to draw out a single strategic route for the economic crisis resolution.
The opportunity was missed when the EU-US bilateral summit scheduled in Spain in May was cancelled due to Obama’s overloaded agenda on the home front. Since then, six months have elapsed and the crisis has not only grown in intensity but rather new doubts have been raised as to the best common ground solutions no one seems to venture into.
The NATO encounter will have Afghanistan at the top of the priority list. The US seems more worried about ensuring military backing from the EU partners than solving other issues on hand. Indeed, probably the new common adversary encased in Al Qaeda’s terrorism requires a collective effort in lieu of a defunct ‘cold war’ with the extinct USSR now converted into an ally represented by Russia. Nevertheless, even in this new ‘war against terrorism’, I see a lack of realism in the world leaders’ analysis.
¿Can we forget that China, the emerging superpower with UN veto rights, not only is not a full-pledged democracy but likewise is a traditional sly manipulator of world political tensions in such vital issues as Iran & Korea?
Resolving favourably the Afghanistan issue is yet light years away, if ever a satisfactory solution is feasible on medium term. Yet, NATO members are attending the issue as ‘top priority’ with the presence of a no less insignificant and worthless Karzai. Instead, these nations should be discussing not only a common defence with Russia against ‘international terrorism’ (not only Al Qaeda), which goes from fanatic movements bent on destabilising democracies but also implies ‘economic terrorists’ who are capable of sinking the world into further long-term crises whilst bolstering their unscrupulous enrichment schemes.
While the powerful in economy and the military meet in Lisbon, the Nobel Peace Awards Committee has cancelled this year’s ceremony because China has not allowed the 2010 awardee, Liu Xiaobo, nor any family member, to travel to Oslo; Haiti is plagued by cholera and the population has uprisen in revolt against the UN Blue Helmets; Indonesia suffers from volcano eruptions with death toll rising; the Sahara territory under Moroccan dominion is isolated from the world whilst possible abuses are being committed; More than 30,000 children die each day due to hunger, and malnutrition shortens the life expectations of many thousand more; There are over a billion hungry people in the world today according to FAO’s malnutrition report, with almost 2/3 in Asia (where China & India have the largest populations) and 1/3 in Africa & Latin America.
I could go on to cite numerous such situations, not to mention that poverty has increased even in developed countries (15 M in 2009) the world over.
I wonder how our leaders can meet time and again to discuss economic & military issues and get nothing resolved to the world’s citizenry’s satisfaction in what really counts.
Fernando Fuster-Fabra Fdz.
Observer of Human Behaviour
Tags: Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, China, Economic Crisis, Economic Terrorism, European Union, FAO, G-20, Haiti, Iran, Karzai, Korea, Lisbon, Liu Xiaobo, Madrid, NATO, Novel Peace Awards, Obama, Oslo, Russia, Seoul, Terrorism, UN, United Nations, USA, USSR
HAITI & THE WORLD’S FALSE PROMISES
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Scarcely nine months after Haiti suffered the earthquake disaster, it appears again in headlines the world over. This time is the outbreak of cholera that is brought to front page.
What really is concerning is the fact that the Haiti earthquake disaster harvested promises expressed in high-sounding phrases before the General Assembly and in other international forums. Today, when Haiti again is news, not only have the promises not been fulfilled but likewise world leaders and organisms have a rather indifferent reaction to the urgent sanitary needs of a stressed Haitian population still living in provisional tents since last January. Only Oxfam seems to have kept acting to bring comfort to the needy in the distressed island. The UN officials have not said a word about their role, which should be a leading one. Nor have the economic organisations linked to the UN seemed to seek the urgency of rebuilding homes and roads in the ruined Caribbean nation. Likewise, the USA and the EU have decelerated the flow of humanitarian aid after the first months of the disaster. Many nations seemed to have returned to their priorities and principal worries, the global economic crisis.
Where are those millions of Dollars & Euros in aid boisterously promised nine months ago? Has part of the aid received been deviated by corrupt officials in charge of the humanitarian actions? Have the countries delivered the sums promised by their respective leaders when the flashes and TC cameras registered their promises?
In any manner, world leaders have failed to fulfil their compromise with the disaster-stricken victims of Haiti. Aloofness and disdain of true world humanitarian affairs is part of the role that most leaders seem to prefer, as a shield from miserable reality. Only the economic crisis keeps them awake at night but snore whilst human beings die of hunger, disease or natural disasters.
Fernando Fuster-Fabra
Barcelona
Tags: Cholera, Earthquake, European Union, Haiti, Humanitarian Aid, Hunger, Oxfam, United Nations, USA, World Bank IMF, World leaders
HEALTHCARE, A MILESTONE IN U.S. HISTORY THAT DIVIDES AMERICANS
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President Obama has won the first round of a battle where several Presidents before him succumbed. In his scarce year in office, not only has he already made History by being the first Afro-American President that also won the Nobel Peace award in record time but also the instigator of a social change in American public health.
The internal war waged by anti-healthcare factions were not only directed towards the proposed new public health measure but went so far as to directly attack the President with all types of tactics. In fact, even prior to the East Room signing ceremony today, 12 states had already announced their intention of filing law suits questioning the constitutionality of the new law before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The most powerful nation in the world is a paradigm of how prosperity & progress can blind a population into the real values of quality of living. For such an economic and military power such as the USA, it is unconceivable that almost half of its population reject social policies that enhance their healthcare program. Having lived in that country for some time, I for one experienced that imperative necessity of having an appropriate private medical insurance coverage, just in case. Such situation is unthinkable even in the less powerful nations of the European Union.
Furthermore, have closely followed the public debates and strong opposition campaigns of vested interest lobbies, one cannot but be surprised that public opinion was intentionally misled by supposed risks of U.S. bankruptcy due to the then proposed measure, now enacted into law. Important media and affected insurance companies dumped the citizenry with false facts about the long term costs of putting the law into effect from now till 2014, when in truth; the U.S. medical burden today is way off costs in other developed countries round the world.
In spite of the historic signing today, this law will have a bumpy test run before it can slowly be put into effect. Its repercussions are yet to be felt in this year’s congressional elections and the sponsors of the so-called anti-Obama tea-parties will prolong their misdoings in a last-ditch attempt to stall the desired effects of said new law.
President Obama deserves a round of applause for his strategic steering of the vessel to safe port but his Administration must realise that once more the ship must sail out and face new thunderstorms of that archaic Establishment that has had its ways and whims in Washington D.C. for too long a time.
Is this the moment towards a real change in the outdated American way of life?
The President’s remaining mandate will be the testing ground of who is to have the final say before the next presidential elections in November, 2012.
Fernando Fuster-Fabra, Madrid
OBAMA SPEAKS TO THE NATION
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U.S. President Obama is one speaker worth listening to even it means staying up late. He has command of language and an impressive presence in public, that very image that made him popular and landed him in the White House.
Last night Barack Obama returned to his campaign speech ways and challenged Congress leaders to back up measures he proposes to create new jobs and resolve economic problems of the average American. He knew that he had the audience nationwide and that his words would sink in deep to make it clear that he means business.
However, the President avoided putting pressure on ticklish issues such as the healthcare bill and only mentioned it in the passing. Likewise, for the first time in his 12 months in office, he blamed the Bush Administration for the economic crisis and two wars inherited. A wink to the Republicans on budget and tax cuts didn’t harvest the expected applauses but Obama didn’t deter from his intention to speak more to the gallery than to the congressmen and senators in the hall.
Surely enough, public opinion surveys showed an improved image. What I wonder is how much easier will the Obama Administration have it to pass bills in the Senate. In a congressional partial election year, politicians from both parties will be cautious not to provoke voters in their constituencies. I feel that the first bill to be sacrificed will probably be the healthcare bill, at least as to the extent of coverage and planned expenditure.
No matter how well Barack Obama may speak to the nation, Washington lobbies end up having most of their ways at the end of the day. The President assures he isn’t quitting but neither are the lobbyists.
Fernando Fuster-Fabra, Madrid
OBAMA AFTER A YEAR IN OFFICE: THE HONEYMOON IS OVER
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Anti-Obama Campaign
On the day of President Obama’s first anniversary in Office, the Democratic Party’s defeat in the senatorial elections in Massachusetts has been the final bitter drop to a rather complicated year.
Obama has had a rather full year with a rather favourable start due to his popularity as candidate, President-elect and during the first half of 2009. Three main issues have weighed heavily on White House decisions in this twelve months sin taking oath as America’s 44th President and first Afro-American to preside the world’s most powerful nation.
A change in Bush’s Iraq policy was probably the issue that best met with citizenry approval. This included the closure of the Guantanamo installations, a promise that has yet to be fulfilled. However, the international warfront did not end with the announcement of an orderly troop from Iraq. The anti-terrorist campaign in Afghanistan was likewise inherited from the Bush Administration. If new Iraq policy seemed acceptable, new troops for Afghanistan have met both with political and citizen objections.
Obama’s decision to reinforce American troops in Afghanistan clash with its effects on the U.S. budget precisely at a time when not only Republican politicians question such expenditure but also meet criticism from some Democrats. True to say, the Obama Administration has had to dump public funds to save the American car industry and salvage the country’s largest banks. Such financial effort has further strained U.S. reserves and added to the overburdened public expenditures.
To top it all, Obama’s promised health reform is another burden to the already overloaded public deficit. Resistance to said bill has already provoked tensions within the Democratic Party and has been the Republicans’ main issue brought up against the White House in 2009. The degraded version passed by Congress is up for the Senate vote just when the bitter defeat for the Massachusetts senatorial post has grabbed the Democrat’s majority in the Upper House.
What awaits President Obama in his second year in Office? With the honeymoon over, the White House advisors must drain their minds to come up with creative solutions to the dark clouds up ahead.
Fernando Fuster-Fabra, Madrid
Tags: Afghanistan, Automobile Industry, Banks, Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Financial crisis, George W. Bush, Guantanamo, Healthcare, Iraq, Massachusetts, Republican Party, Terrorism, U.S. Congress, U.S. Senate, White House
THE HAITI TRAGEDY & POVERTY: WORLD POWERS MUST ACT NOW
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New tremors in Haiti today whilst dead still litter the streets, wounded are treated in open-air installations and humanitarian relief is slowly distributed in a trickle, proves that last week’s earthquake tragedy is but the tip of the true disaster in such forsaken paradise in the Caribbean.
Haiti, the poorest nation in the American continents and one of the poorest in the world, has been plagued since its independence from France in 1804 by political instability that provoked the United States to occupy the territory from 1915 to 1934. Further U.S. military and financial support in 1954 to François Duvalier (Papa Doc) imposed upon the island a pretended dynasty with his son, Jean-Claude (Nené Doc), succeeding him in 1971. A national uprising overthrew him in 1981 but still Haiti continued to live in misery in one coup after another that brought corrupt leaders into power.
In a country where poverty is circumvented only with the funds from foreign aid and numerous NGOs operating humanitarian missions, it is understandable that the eradication of poverty has not been a priority for its successive governments. Lax government controls on the use of aid funds for development, health & educational projects have permitted the deviation of huge sums into private bank accounts of Haitian government officials.
The participation of the United Nations has not been limited to humanitarian support through its agencies but likewise had involved Blue Helmets stationed in the territory. However, it must be said that the U.N. role in Haiti has always gone along stream that of the United States and the U.N. Blue Helmet detachment was in lieu of American soldiers that were no more.
With last week’s earthquake, President Obama again compromised U.S. military forces for Haiti. The European Union headed by the Spanish Government which occupied this semester’s rotating presidency likewise acted resolutely with not too much ado and contributed towards a quick solution.
However, a new dilemma has arisen. Not taking seriously anti-American comments by Venezuela’s President, Hugo Chavez, the postures of French President Nicholas Sarkozy and Brazilian President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva on U.S. troops on Haitian soil seemed out of place at a point and time when humanitarian action was the only true concern.
Which brings me to question the handling of this situation:- Have we reached a point where the United Nations has lost authority and effectiveness to handle world crisis or major disasters?
Is protagonist role all world leaders think of or want when such situations arise or should these think first of the human tragedy?
The silent but effective actions undertaken from Spain and Spanish coordination of the EU aids must be applauded. The quick reaction from the White House must be praised too.
It is not time for lead roles or being on front page headlines. It is time to seriously think why the developed countries have not resolved yet the poverty and misery that only ends in more misery in tragedies such as the Haitian earthquakes these days.
It is time to meditate whether the organization whose creation and charter were mean to face up to the challenges of a world in peace has failed in its objectives during this past six decades.
World leaders must decide whether the time has come to think more of justice and minimum quality of life for any human being with a new social & political order that the United Nations has been unable to provide.
Has the time arrived for a change in world governance?
Fernando Fuster-Fabra, Madrid
Tags: Barack Obama, Blue Helmets, Brazil, Caribbean, Earhquakes, European Union, F. Duvalier, France, Haiti, Hugo Chavez, J.C. Duvalier, Lula da Silva, Nené Doc, NGOs, Nicholas Sarkozy, Papa Doc, Spain, United Nations, USA, Venezuela
EUROPEAN UNION: FIRST SIX MONTHS OF LISBON TREATY & SPANISH PRESIDENCY
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Today, Spain’s Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, presented the objectives of the EU’s first semester within the scope of the recently ratified Lisbon Treaty. His extemporaneous speech before the European Parliament was centred on the economic crisis but his explanations went on to indicate his inclination towards social policymaking.
Just a few weeks back, Rodríguez Zapatero went under fire in U.K. newspapers (The Financial Times & The Economist), seconded by Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal. Whilst the WSJ editorials are tinted by the ultra-conservative influence of no less than Murdoch’s Spanish Sancho Panza, in the person of Spain’s former Prime Minister José Mª Aznar, those written by British economic experts went beyond the limits of journalistic competence in questioning Zapatero’s capabilities in a sarcastic comparison to popular British TV character, Mr. Bean.
In its fourth rotating mandate, Spain has so far lived up to expectations, with important European milestones set in each one of its presidential semesters. With a clear all-out support of the EEC, later the EU, Spain has earned its entry into the European club and has there onward led some initiatives which other members, like the United Kingdom for one, have yet to set into their agendas.
This semester is too important for the 27-Member Union to waste words in sarcasm and destructive criticism, more so when the United Kingdom has undermined EU unifying efforts in too many occasions.
As an expert in EU relations, the underlying motive of such mocking comments is certain resentment towards Spain far beyond the political scene and more focused on Spanish corporations taking over numerous British enterprises in the last few years, to name a few – Banco Santander and Iberdrola.
In spite of Spain’s high unemployment rate at the present time, never has the U.K. generated as much jobs as Spain has in the years before the outbreak of the worldwide financial crisis nor has it contained its public deficit to have Spain’s five-year surplus. In fact, Tony Blair’s apparent economic miracle was partly a well-designed accounting reengineering by no less than Gordon Brown, as narrated in detail in the book – Fantasy Island.
Furthermore, Brown’s government has again manipulated figures in order to hide from EU scrutiny state subsidies to British banks in violation of European Commission regulations. Whereas Spain has not nationalised a single bank, the U.K. has both subsidized illegally and nationalised bankrupt entities. Whilst Spain has an exemplary supervision of financial entities the U.K.’s banking system is a free-for-all that allows quite a few irregularities.
The British economy has a full decade ahead before it can say it is out of the rut even if stats show that recession may have come to an end in 2009’s last quarter. What these financial newspapers seem to forget is that whilst Spain now lingers in unemployment, its growth potential in new technologies (solar & wind energy) and innovative activities (electric cars) with renewed immigrant labour forces will launch Spain into a new cycle of competitive businesses. What has been known as the financial crisis is greatly accountable to the uncontrolled business in Wall Street and The City. All risky financial gimmicks launched by the American & British banks have brought us to where we are.
Likewise, the British press seems to resent Obama’s chummy attitude towards Spain’s Prime Minister in detriment of Gordon’s declining role. Should the Tories take over next May, 10 Downing Street may still drift further away from The White House.
Spain has a challenge to reemploy its workers but the United Kingdom has a greater challenge – to start admitting they are no longer an empire.
It’s best these newspapers think twice their words before going to press. I’ll be watching in 2020 where the United Kingdom is to be compared to an environmental conscious businesslike Spain in this coming decade.
Fernando Fuster-Fabra, Madrid
Tags: Aznar, Banco Santander, Electric car, European Commission, European Parliament, European Union, Frantasy Island, Gordon Brown, Iberdrola, Lisbon Treaty, Mr. Bean, Murdoch, Rodríguez Zapatero, Solar energy, Spain, The City, The Economist, The Finanacial Times, Tony Blair, United Kingdom, Wall Street, Wall Street Journal, Wind energy
WORLD LEADERS UNCAPABLE TO THINK BIG
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Year 2009 has come to an end. Are world leaders satisfied with their performance?
I for one am not. This year ending obliges me to reflect how decided leaders would have availed of all those caucuses to reach substantial agreements to resolutely face up the challenges of the financial & economic crisis.
One cannot put all the blame on just one leader, as all have had a say in all the summits. Three such meetings were of economic nature but the last one where our leaders deserve the most reproach for was Copenhagen.
And in this summit, President Obama, in my opinion, did not live up to expectations. Moreover, he has probably eased the path for China’s ever-growing influence on world politics and economics. I have asked myself why the EU bloc silently towed the line instead of refusing to sign the ridiculous declaration that was more a farce than an honest attempt to keep hopes alive.
The problem will grow precisely in the Year of the Tiger, 2010, when the Asian Tiger, China, will apply further pressure on the USA. One must not forget that China holds U.S. Treasury Bonds that will come due in the following years. Will the American economy have reached a point of recovery so as to guarantee liquidity to pay up?
The Obama Administration must meditate each step it takes from here onward. The European Union may not always be around to pick up the pieces of Chinese broken promises. Choosing allies is an ability of those statesmen who know how to think big when facing challenges.
The main issues to be resolved need a highly democratic sense where China would definitely fail to qualify in. Likewise, Russia’s Putin may complicate renewal of the nuclear arms agreement with the USA.
How big will Obama and his generation of democratic world leaders be in 2010?
Fernando Fuster-Fabra, Madrid
OBAMA AFTER COPENHAGEN
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Almost a year after taking oath of office and with the unexpected Nobel Peace Award to his brief presidential CV, President Obama must be evaluated as to his effective achievements in his first year in the White House.
Surely, media all over the world but more so the U.S. press will undertake a point by point fulfilment analysis of the President’s electoral promises. From a global point of view, one must get down to brass tacks to properly evaluate Obama’s first year in office.
At this point and time, the closing of the U.N. Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen could be the best indicator of the pressures the U.S. President must have been subjected to in the last twelve months since his historic election.
The U.S. stand on curtailing CO2 emissions showed signs of a shift away from the irresponsible disregard of the Bush Administrations (2000-2008) of the Kyoto Protocol; a new will to participate was expressed upon Obama’s takeover. However, after the Asian Presidential tour in November that ended with a China-US meet, thunder clouds again appeared in the December Copenhagen summit skies.
Obama’s charms lost force and the Chinese Government did not succumb to his persuasive speeches. Moreover, China has a firm grip on U.S. Government Bonds which are the funding source for the Obama’s anti-crisis strategy.
The Asian posture, mainly China and India, have remained unchanged in spite of the President’s efforts during his Beijing summit and at the first dignitary banquet at the White House in honour of India’s Prime Minister Singh. Without the United States and China accepting the European Union’s CO2 cutback proposal and financial scheme, any alternative agreement would be a whitewash that would fall short of all minimum expectations.
And this is exactly what has happened.
Obama’s four-hour negotiations resulted in a lame pronouncement initially only back by India and South Africa, to later add in China and Brazil. President Obama has sought a way out that has put his goodwill relations with the European bloc in jeopardy.
Obama has likewise had his hands pretty tied up at the home front to make any spectacular promises on the principle issues at stake at the Copenhagen meet. How much of Obama’s climate change posture is due to a need to face up to global challenges for approval of vital bills into laws?
At the outset of the New Millennium’s second decade, the world’s most powerful man Barack Obama, as Head-of-State of a nation whose international supremacy is put to test, must set up a visionary list of priorities in his quest of long-term objectives. A clash of interests among main issues vital before the eyes of the average American such as healthcare, Afghanistan troops, Guantanamo, Iraq withdrawal, unemployment, climate change, sustainability, etc. have been cleverly manipulated to cast the shadow of a doubt as to Obama’s capacity to live up to his campaign promises.
Has Obama’s lukewarm speech before the Copenhagen climate change assembly anything to do with the upcoming voting of indispensible funding and bill approvals on the mentioned issues in the U.S. Senate?
Have potent lobbies influenced the Obama Administration to prevent signing a new protocol that could prejudice vested interests profits and multinational expansion strategies?
There are relevant lessons to learn from Copenhagen. One that cannot be missed is Obama’s failure to live up to expectations in Oslo earlier this month. He now has to double his efforts not only to turn his words into acts but also to end his so-called just wars.
Obama must admit he cannot walk alone towards a better world in peace. We, the people of the world, are watching.
Fernando Fuster-Fabra, Madrid
Tags: Afghanistan, Brazil, China, Climate Change, Copenhagen, Guantanamo, Healthcare, India, Iraq, Just War, Kyoto Protocol, Nobel Peace Award, Obama, Oslo United Nations, Prime Minister Singh, Sustainability, U.S. Bonds, USA
NOBEL AWARDEES OBAMA, OLSTROM & WILLIAMSON
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December 10th is the day assigned for the Nobel Awards ceremonies. In compliance with Alfred Nobel’s will, the Peace Award is handed over in Norway at Oslo’s Storting Hall whilst the other Nobel Awards including the Riksbanken Economic laureates, an award added in 1968, participate in a later ceremony the same day at Stockholm’s Concert Hall.
This year’s ceremony has followed the usual protocol where it not for the fact that the awards were for a majority of American citizens headed by no less than U.S. President Barack Obama. Without any intent of demerit for the other Nobel laureates, I must call the attention to this year’s Economic awardees, Olstrom & Williamson, who together with Obama form a solid indication of the Nobel Committee’s intention in the awards for 2009.
Much has been said after the surprise announcement of Obama’s Nobel Peace designation, to the point it belittled the announcement a few days earlier of the Riksbanken Economic Awards to Elinor Olstrom and Oliver E. Williamson. To the very moment the awards were delivered yesterday, a sector has remained adamant to accepting Obama’s merits and debate over said issue has missed entirely the relevance of the overwhelming American presence in the Nobel Committee’s decision for 2009. Moreover, it is the first time that women occupied the awards’ major limelight, with Elinor Olstrom being the first woman to become an economic laureate.
While Obama was handed his diploma in Oslo according to Nobel’s dictates, Olstrom & Williamson, as well as the other laureates, received theirs from the hands of Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf at Stockholm’s Concert Hall. The strict protocol that these ceremonies have followed over the years may have been broken in few occasions, such as Mother Teresa’s request to cancel the banquet in lieu of donating the funds to charity. Obama has perhaps also done a similar act which few seem to have given due importance. The U. S. President has shortened his Oslo visit to less than 24 hours, just enough not to accept the regal protocol dinner offered in his honour. He has a lot of work back home. I make mention of this situation to back up my argument as to the reasons that may have warranted these outstandingly American Nobel Awards in 2009 with Obama in the key role.
In the aftermath of an unexpected financial crisis in the U.S.A. that has dragged global markets into the mire of a rather complicated economic international scenario, one must analyse Obama’s peace diploma in unison with the other awards, especially those in Economics to Elinor Olstrom & Oliver E. Williamson. It is well known that the crisis broke out at the closing of the previous U.S. Administration with President Bush at the helm. Never before had Washington been so neglectful of international trade & commerce and so bent on using its military force to maintain its world supremacy. The results of such international socio-economic policy have been the sad inheritance George W. Bush handed over to America´s first Afro-American President. Both Olstrom & Williamson have worked for decades in Social Economics whereby enterprise was given its just place and consumers justly valued in the development of international trade. Their theories were never in the mind of Republican U.S. Administrations and proof stands that today Obama has to fight it out to get a historic health bill approved.
Due to U.S. supremacy not only in military issues but likewise in worldwide Economics, this year’s Nobel Awards to Obama, Olstrom & Williamson pretend to call international attention to the need for “social peace in the United States of America” if the international community of democratic states is to resolve the socio-economic needs of the entire world.
Obama’s speech, in a humble tone for his still undeserved international merits, spoke of his role as U.S. Commander-in-Chief. It is fair to grant him a justification for his pseudo-military role as the world’s most powerful man in command of the best armed nation in current wars and skirmishes in different conflict zones. His decisions affect not only Americans but citizens of independent states with regimes of different nature. Whereas his predecessor justified all types of invasion as a defence action against terrorism, Obama has assumed a realistic stance to differentiate the causes of the various live warfronts today. This change of posture alone is worth taking into account as a merit for consideration in a peace award. Obama not only uses oratory to convince. He first is convinced himself of what he puts into words. He did not seek to justify any war nor wished to argue on theory of “just war”, for which reason I will not argue on his statement that some conflicts are necessary. Nevertheless, it is not Obama who is in doubt as a “man of peace”. It is The Establishment in America, with its vested interests and powerful lobbies that must be under surveillance.
Does America want to be known as a democracy for peace or of war? This is the question.
Obama, Olstrom & Williamson have acquired a commitment. With them, all other American citizens awarded Nobel prizes in their respective field of science. Not one of them can be considered in favour of anti-social actions defended by the most reactionary segments of American society. Without a support to these Nobel laureates, the world is in fact leaning towards conservative ways of managing world economics without any consideration for the poor of the world or environmental concern for future generations.
This is the essence of Obama’s peace award, in company of the recognition for Elinor Olstrom as a woman in the world of Economics and Williamson’s contributions towards better controls on enterprises’ model of acquiring benefits. The challenge of these awards now put America in the limelight. Will the United States of America live up to its mission of democracy, peace, climate & social changes in the forthcoming decade of this New Millennium?
Only time will tell.
Fernando Fuster-Fabra, Madrid
Tags: Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, Climate Change, E. Olstrom. O.E. Williamson, Economics, Environmental Protection, George W. Bush, Just War, Nobel, Obama, Oslo, Poverty, Republicans, Social Economics, Stockholm, Storting, The Establishment, World Economic Crisis
