The Power of a Promise

The Nobel committee’s surprise choice to award the prestigious prize to Barack Obama is more than simply symbolic; it is a powerful political message addressing people the world over. The Nobel committee did not reward action but rather boldness, positive intentions, a great promise or, more so, a hope for a better future.

In a violent world, shaken by a terrible financial upheaval, the inequality divide, previously unseen environmental changes, tension and wars, the Oslo jury also highlighted the urgent situations facing mankind.

Barack Obama joins a hall of fame which includes such famous names as Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela. And by doing so, he has been confirmed as the man to break from the bellicose, warlike, nationalist politics of Bush and the shadow that his reactionary politics cast over climate and environmental goals, to the point that the United States had refused to sign the Kyoto protocol.

It is also about the rejection of this sinister and deadly war of civilizations. The Nobel Peace Prize must prompt action. It is urgent!

It seems paradoxical that the prize is awarded to a leader whose country is occupying other countries, notably Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet this further reinforces the necessity to mobilize populations to seek diplomatic and political solutions to these wars so that the Iraqis and Afghans may regain their political and economic sovereignty.

We have no choice but to hail efforts such as those undertaken to cancel the installation of antimissile shields on the Polish and Czech borders, the vote for the resolution calling for nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, the search for diplomacy instead of confrontation with Iran, the appointment of an envoy responsible for finding a two state solution for Palestine and Israel and the closure of the sinister Guantanamo prison.

Unfortunately, for now there are virtually no results, although it should make French leaders reflect on their position which is contrary to these efforts. France has returned to NATO, refuses Turkey’s outstretched hand and is creating tension through its strategy towards Iran by sending troops to Afghanistan as well as charter flights of refugees fleeing the Taliban.

There is still a long way to go in removing all the barriers to a more harmonious world rid of poverty, famine, wars and environmental destruction. Strategies of war and domination, inherent to capitalism, are against it. The Nobel Prize is a call to political courage and firmness, so that the United States, in cooperation with all other countries and peoples of the world, gets more involved in the resolution of the serious problems that we currently face, first and foremost poverty, the terrible third world debt, wars and conflicts and the construction of a Palestinian state next to Israel, where security must be ensured.

The American president must also assist the peoples of Latin America; he must respect the Honduran vote to reinstate Zelaya, refuse the installation of military bases in Columbia, end the embargo against Cuba and free the Miami Five.

The surprise generated yesterday morning by the Nobel Peace Prize committee is more about encouraging new choices than establishing concrete actions that we desperately want to make happen. It is the power of a great promise and of a hope that we share, which require the mobilization of whole populations to become a reality.