By Charles.S.Perera

Barrack Obama – the man well deserves the Noble Peace Prize.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ United States of Ameruica is a fractured Nation- fractured between the Blacks , and the Whites. In to this fractured Nation was born on the 4 August, 1961, Barrack Obama, fathered by a black man and mothered by a white woman. As a child he went through all the rigors of a child of a mixed marriage. He suffered the separation of parents, and living with people who were not his.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Born into such circumstances, he has now paved the way for others of different communities born in to a same Nation to find their identity as members of the same Nation.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ He set an example to those who fight for ethnic separation like the Tamils in Sri Lanka to understand, if they can use their intelligence more positively, that separation of minority communities from the majority is a disaster for the country and the nation. He showed that it is not by denouncing the majority, and claiming separate homelands and political settlements that they can achieve success, and make the country progress as a Nation. That itself makes him deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Barrack Obama made it crystal clear, that it is through accepting the majority, seeking integration as equals that the communal unity could be achieved and even a leader from a minority community could rise to hold the highest office as the President of the country.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The American blacks had been fighting for equal rights ever since slavery was abolished in America. Neither peaceful demonstrations nor aggressive opposition to the white American domination, found their acceptance and integration in to the white American Society.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The early negro American movement that started from narrow racial advancement within America took a new turn after the World War 2 with the American black leaders lending their support for the people of countries seeking independence from European colonialism and against America for supporting the Colonialists.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Subsequently they stopped their support for those seeking independence from colonialism to concentrate on a Civil Rights moment of the negro Americans. Many were the black Americans, such as Ella Baker, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, who became pioneers of the American Civil rights movement slowly but surely making cracks in the almost impenetrable wall of the American racial segregation.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ In 1983 still a young man in his 20s awaiting graduation, Barrack Obama decided to become a community organiser. ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦to mobilise the poor and giving back to the community.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦ through organising , through shared sacrifice , ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦.because this community I imagined was still in the making , built on the promise that the larger American community, black, white, and brown could somehow redefine itself- I believed that it might ,over time, admit the uniqueness of my own lifeƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦ This was my idea of organisingƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Thus he wrote in his book ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…- Dreams from My FatherƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚. Having had no response to all the letters he wrote to civil rights organisations, councils and tenant rights groups, he decided to find conventional work for a short time before starting on his community projects.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Subsequently he found employment as a research assistant to a multinational corporation, the only Blackman in the company. He was accepted in the company and promoted to the post of a Financial writer. But the call to the service of the under privileged people of his community was greater and he gave up his promising job to become a community worker in Chicago ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…- a job closer to streetƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ But soon he was out of a job, service to the community a distant dream. He wrote ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚¦In six months I was broke ,unemployed , eating soup from a can.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Finally he met people doing Community service, and met an Organiser who put him in charge to Organise the community of people in Altgeld Gardens Public Housing project. A place which had been abandoned due to bad sanitary conditions, and heavy, putrid odour emanating from a sewage treatment plant seeping through the windows of the residential buildings.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The Altgeld Gardens a housing complex, which was built to house affluent white Americans, after its abandonment became a dump to house the poor blacks away from white neighbourhoods. He worked with the people to improve their condition of living organising them into active working groups through the help of the Community Churches. He was undaunted by failures, not discouraged by the indifference and the surrender to poverty and hopelessness of life of the people whose lot he was trying to improve.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ It was Barrack Obama, the man that gave himself to the upliftment of a community without anger, hatred, and aggresivity. He neither criticised the whites nor praised the blacks, but in silence with patience and hard work he brought a dim light to the darkness of the lives of those with whom he worked. He gradually moved into politics not for his self aggrandisement but for the sake of other, where he thought he would be better placed to help the disadvantaged communities.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ He did not follow his erstwhile elders, to manifest against the whites and their racial regimes. But he worked in friendly cooperation with the his black community as well as the white community. He was able, through peace and friendly contact break communal barrier, first to become a Senator, and then to become the President of the whole of America of the Blacks, and the Whites.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ He surprised the world and then won the affection of all Nations. And to-day he is still working hard for the welfare of the poor, coordinate the rich to make America, and then the world a better place for every one to live without fear of natural disasters, economic upheavals, or the perils of a nuclear war.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ To what extent he will be successful only the future will tell. But still there are the whites who dislike him despite what he is, there are nations who pay no attention to what he proposes.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ But a day will come when his peaceful ways, patience ,and unflustered acceptance of criticism pay dividends and he will be able to make of America a country dedicated to peace and service of man.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Barack Obama- this man who brought so much of change to himself, and changed the attitude of the American people as a Nation, deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for what he had been, and his present pursuit of peace