Already there are those questioning why President Obama? What has he accomplished to garner this prestigious award? If you're one of those...I give you the words of Matthew Goodman...author of "Hold Love Strong."
Matthew is an incredible young man...if you haven't bought/read his book...you are doing yourself a disservice!
Here is the entry from Matthew's blog!
Any criticism of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama must only be addressed with one simple question: in the last nine months, what have you done or tried to do, or what conversation have you had to make the world better? If the answer is something that indicates an insular, domestic approach to the world, or if the reply is that you have done some sort of good act for someone you already know and love, a family member, a friend, a coworker, etc than you have no right to question or criticize. This is quite simply because this is the twenty-first century, not the twentieth or nineteenth or seventeenth or any other century for that matter; and we have now entered a stage in the world’s history where there is no excuse or reason not consider ourselves, and to champion the need for us all to be global citizens, and to take action as such. Barack Obama, more than any leader in the history of the world, is leading this charge. His outreach to friends, foes, and those on the fence about his presidency is as unprecedented as it is a moral imperative. If he is successful at bridging the divides he is working on, or if he is only successful in bringing them greater attention, then we will be pushed closer to a world in which physical, cultural, economic and religious boundaries are of less importance and eventually, hopefully, nationalism will be replaced by humanistic pride.I speak of this from a very personal perspective. In writing Hold Love Strong, and after working in egregiously disadvantaged conditions of the worst of New York City’s public school programs and with men and women returning home from prison for nearly a decade, and after spending close to eight years working on a novel highlighting the conditions of the aforementioned peoples’ lives in an effort to understand, to communicate, and to spur action in the name of their plight, and in an effort to prove that we, as human beings, have the capacity to understand each other far beyond what we accept, the novel has been treated by numerous authors, artists, so called liberal educated men and women in a manner that amounts to foolish prejudice and shallow, forsaken pride. I can’t tell you how many people I have reached out to that have not responded with even a brief email; and I can’t express how disappointed I was when recently I was told that a certain head of a large, progressive nonprofit did not wish to meet with me because, without reading a single word of Hold Love Strong, he was offended that I wrote such a book. In addition, a friend recently shared with me a blog run by an ivy league educated, liberal woman that said I should stick to writing about myself and what I know as if the last decade of my life, the people I know and love and who I have little doubt know and love me, are insignificant and thus not apart of my personal development and foundation.
Perhaps I am naïve, but I believe that the purpose of writing, the purpose of having a voice, of speaking out—be one a leader or a humble member of a larger chorus like myself—is that of citizenship to the utmost and most honorable degree: not self-promotion but the promotion of us. Thus, I am proud that the Nobel Peace Prize went to Barack Obama. It is deserved for it supports the efforts of each of us who continue to believe in our ability to overcome preconceived differences and the rhetoric of limited, self-obsessed thinking. Today is a day that not only recognizes and celebrates Barack Obama, but it is also a day that celebrates us: naïve, eager and idealistic as we are. To the rest of the world, well…. please join us in the 21st century where it is not too hot, and the breeze is cool.
No comments:
Post a Comment