Obama's Nobel Peace Prize an award for audacity of hope

Obama believes in “change,” and believes in “yes, we can.” Change is coming to America, albeit slowly and tortuously, in changing the country's entrenched medical care system and addressing the excesses of Wall Street that set off the global financial tsunami in 2008. He has been trying hard, through diplomacy and negotiations, to engage the Muslim world by presenting a kinder and gentler America, and to limit the proliferation of nuclear arms, and battle the global climate change by cutting green house emissions. Concrete results are yet to come, though.

Defending his committee's choice, Thorbjorn asked rhetorically, “who has done the most in the previous year to enhance world peace and who has done more than Mr. Obama?”

The answer is obvious. No one except Obama, at least among today's world leaders. Just look at the list of participants in the G-20 summit. So don't blame Thorbjorn for the choice. By Nobel's tradition, the selection has always been political. “We must go from time to time into the realm of realpolitik,” Thorbjorn admitted. “It's always the mix of idealism and realpolitik that can change the world.”

I see the mix as well balanced between Obama's idealism of changing the world by giving people hope for a better future, and the political reality that the prize cannot focus primarily on dissidents and human rights activists. The world, threatened by war, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and climate change, is in dire need for change that Barack Obama has pledged to bring about.

“The prize is a bold statement of international support for his vision and commitment,” pointed out former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, a 2002 Nobel peace laureate. “It marked America's return to the heart of the peoples of the world,” echoed French President Nicolas Sarkozy. These are apt assessments of the choice.

The Nobel committee deserves kudos for its emphasis on idealism in this year's selection. If concrete accomplishments of the recipient are the body of the prize, idealism is its soul. Obama's vision and his audacity of hope are what the world is lacking. “I accept this prize as a call to action,” Obama said last Friday. His action, I am convinced, will translate his ideals into reality, and vindicate the choice of the Nobel Committee.

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