Stunned by Hope

In the almost nine months that Obama has resided in the White House, he has so far accomplished little more than “hope” for “change,” as he promised his voters and the world during his campaign. That in itself is not strange.

Making concrete policy from abstract goals is a tough and time-consuming activity. But meanwhile, Obama is engaged in a very wearisome fight on one of the main international points of his policy agenda: Afghanistan. Before he became president, he made Afghanistan first priority in his anti-terrorism policy. He has been working for months already to turn this promise into a practical approach.

Yet the Norwegian committee has thought this enough to grant him the Nobel Peace Prize. The five-headed selection committee does not honor him for what he has done, but for what he hopefully still will do: in international diplomacy, nuclear disarmament, human rights and climate control. Seldom has “a person caught the attention of the world in this manner and given the people so much hope for a better future” as Obama, the committee writes. Thus, he has become “the world’s leading mouthpiece” for the ideals the Nobel Prize has been rewarding for 108 years.

What has come over the committee to grant the prize to a politician who still has to redeem all expectations? Have the five selection gentlemen been stunned by the promise of hope?

Perhaps President Obama was flattered. But he has to realize that the prize might be more of a burden than a benefit. Many politicians who have received it while still in office have not gotten much pleasure from it.

President Gorbachev of the Soviet Union (1990) lost his office and his state one year later. President Sadat (1978) and Prime Minister Rabin of Israel (1994) were killed. The honor that is bestowed upon Obama can only turn against him as a kind of kiss of death. In any case, his opponents will have to take an extra step to make him fall.

Every civilian victim in Afghanistan becomes a stain on the award and undermines both jury and winner.

Actually, Obama should have refused the prize, claiming he does not want to be laurelled for intentions, but for results. That is most likely too much to ask. But he can follow the example of Martin Luther King, who said at the prize presentation in 1964, “I must ask why this prize is awarded to a movement which is beleaguered and committed to unrelenting struggle; to a movement which has not won the very peace and brotherhood which is the essence of the Nobel Prize.”