Maybe it's a little guilt about the Sami within their country

Facing mounting criticism for their noble choice: "Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland singled out Obama's efforts to heal the divide between the West and the Muslim world and scale down a Bush-era proposal for an anti-missile shield in Europe.

"All these things have contributed to – I wouldn't say a safer world – but a world with less tension," Jagland said Tuesday."

Norway is a tiny country. It rates very high on all the social-cultural perks--usually at the top which liberals attribute to their confiscatory taxes and socialist government and not their shared gene pool. (I'm guessing if you examined Norwegian-Americans you'd get a similar result without socialsim.) I think they've even taken in a few dispossessed non-blonde, darker skinned people over the last 30 years, like Somalis and Vietnamese. Some have even decided to become members of the family (citizens)--but they were chosen for adoption. Illegal immigration and racial dust-ups aren't much of a problem there--so they can be smug when chosing peace prize winners who speak but don't do, because that's their way too. Unless of course, you look waaaay up north at the Sami culture within Norway's borders, a very ancient, indigenous, nomadic people who were living there centuries before the "Norwegians" and who prefer to ignore man made boundaries and move their herds across Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. No, to those people (who have many dialects) they aren't so welcoming. Whether with good intentions or bad, as a result of all the efforts of the four countries in which they live, the Sami culture will soon be reduced to some pretty costumes in cultural museums and special representation in the various parliaments.