THE world collectively gasped in surprise last Friday as the United States of America's President Barrack Obama, continuing his gravity-defying human stunt, was named the unanimous winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

The five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee in making the announcement had pointedly said that the Peace Prize which sets out to encourage global peace efforts of individuals and institutions had received a total of 205 nominations. Of these nominees, quite a few had remained on the cards till the last hours to the announcement of Obama's win.

The surprise had come from many quarters, including those who are glad and welcome the Nobel Committee's decision to, as it were, 'pre-empt' Barrack Obama by offering the dynamic US leader what cynics have dubbed 'golden hand-cuffs'; thereby committing him to the pledges he has publicly made. These include pledges he had made both as Democratic Presidential candidate in 2008 and as President of the United States since taking office. Most of these pledges have not yet become reality.

According to some, the Nobel Committee made the award in unbiased recognition of the reality-changing potentials of a President who is not yet one year in office. But critics have seen the award as 'too early' for a world leader who has not, in practical terms, achieved concrete much or anything at all.

The award may well be a call for global recognition and support for Obama's peace-inducing political instincts that radiate human empathy and mutuality, the insistence on global recognition and respect for human differences, creed and race, and the constructive use of diplomacy to solve common human problems and lessen the high, negative, global tension, that hung in the air during the last US administration.

It could therefore safely be said that Obama has achieved this feat of being a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize by being who he is and by what he stands for as Barrack Obama. This is because the nominations for candidates for the award ended 12 days after Obama was sworn in as President.

The Nobel Committee had found Obama's initiatives targeted at promoting global peace and his willingness to consult and work with Europe, Russia, China, Iran and Korea in nuclear arms control very compelling. So is his handling of one of the greatest economic crisis to hit the world this side of the 21st century.

Obama's olive branch to the Muslim world which had felt alienated by the previous US administrations was also noted. His mending fences with Europe and his committed engagement with Russia have considerably reduced tension all around the world.

Then there is Obama's commitment to and investment in clean energy which includes research into alternative energy to address the potentially catastrophic climate change.

Though it might seem problematic that a President Obama who is still commander-in-chief of an army that is engaged in bloody wars in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan is being so honoured, it must be said that certain wars are inevitable when opponents that Obama identified, in his acceptance speech, as "ruthless adversaries" threaten the peace of nations, their citizens and the peace of the world.

All in all, we both rejoice and agonize with President Obama whose self-elected pledge and task to change the world will be made harder now that the hopes he raised have been held up to him and the world to see and judge.

Mercifully, the Norwegian Nobel Committee had also recognised the extra burden the award will be for Obama when it defended its decision to honour him even when his young administration has yet to fulfill its promises and achieve its potentials.

Mr Thorbjoern Jagland, the Chairman of the Nobel Award Committee, responding on the timeliness of the award had said that it was appropriately timed to highlight the potentials of Obama's world-view and mobilize global support for his views as leader and pathfinder.

It is to his yet to be realized dreams and hopes that Obama owes the peace prize, a fact he acknowledged in his acceptance speech thus: "I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century."

We, therefore, call on his critics to recognize that our world is in peril and that the global community has endorsed Obama for a perceived qualification and ability to navigate it to a safer shore.