Dissidents turn

The Nobel Peace Prize,awarded this year to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China, is an inalienably politic choice,never given without a motive. Awarding it to Barack Obama last year,then just nine months into his presidency,set to rest in perpetuity all notions of a Peace prize without a message. If the 2009 award was a signal to the surprised US president to follow up on his rhetoric,this time round the Norwegian Nobel committee,believing that there is a close connection between human rights and peace,has signalled the Peoples Republic to clean up its human rights record. The writing on Beijings wall: with power comes responsibility; your breathtaking economic progress is fine,but you still practise political medievalism. The liberties promised in your own constitution are distinctly absent from your political reality. You must change.

Liu Xiaobo,jailed for 11 years for his role in the Tiananmen protests in 1989 and for drafting Charter 08 a call for democracy,electoral politics and human rights observation in China is the Peoples Republics most famous dissident abroad,but almost unknown within China. While the confused Chinese can neither privately take pride in nor publicly celebrate a fellow citizens Nobel glory,Beijing has not only warned of damage to Sino-Norwegian relations but had also blacked out the broadcast of the announcement,calling the choice an insult to the Peace prize.

Liu Xiaobo,whose Charter 08 evokes memories of Charter 77 both the document and the civil initiative associated above all with Vaclav Havel,poet-playwright,former Czech dissident and president,and a supporter of the 2010 Peace Laureate probably doesnt know yet hes won the Nobel,and will have to wait till his wife is allowed to visit him and convey the news. But both he and the regime thats jailed him know that a politic choice is not just judicious but also cunning.