An honour of enormous proportions, and one which the President accepted with a comforting sense of humility. Faced with much criticism, and inability to understand why the President of a country in the midst of 2 wars could receive such an accolade, Mr. Obama/Mr. Pragmatic addressed the much ado with some of the more memorable lines from his speech:
"I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies."
"So part of our challenge is reconciling these two seemingly irreconcilable truths - that war is sometimes necessary, and war is at some level an expression of human feelings. Concretely, we must direct our effort to the task that President Kennedy called for long ago. "Let us focus," he said, "on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions."
"So let us reach for the world that ought to be - that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls. Somewhere today, in the here and now, a soldier sees he's outgunned but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere today, in this world, a young protestor awaits the brutality of her government, but has he courage to march on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty still takes the time to teach her child, who believes that a cruel world still has a place for his dreams."
The prize includes a gold medal, diploma, and $1.4 million dollars...but can really put a price on peace?
Read the full text of the speech here.
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