#ThrowbackThursday: The Controversial Nobel Awardees

The Nobel prize, founded by Alfred Nobel, is regarded as the highest civilian honor that is bestowed on people who served the mankind in any extraordinary capacity such as medicine, chemistry, physiology, mathematics, science, literature and peace. It is an honor that is meant to recognize the efforts of an individual[s], and to encourage others to step up and deliver for the betterment of humanity and this world. Surely, there are many success and failure stories to learn from, but a Nobel Prize winner gets much more exposure.

However, in the hundred and ten year history, these awards have been wrought with controversies at the selections of certain laureates, who would not have made it into the list if their backgrounds were considered … but as they say, one good deed is enough to absolve a lifetime of sins.

President Barack Obama:

This seems like the best place to start. When the newly elected U.S. president got nominated for the Nobel Peace prize in 2009, the New York Times stated it ‘a stunning surprise’. But when shortly after that he actually won the award, debates broke out that the Nobel committee of Sweden had ulterior, political based motives behind it. For how was it possible to decide that in three short months Barack Obama had shown enough progress to have won the coveted prize, not to mention the drone attacks and the wars that were still in process under the pretense of eradicating warfare. The committee did acknowledge later on that the award was given in respect to Obama’s “efforts” in creating world harmony … contrary to any concrete achievements.

Harald Zur Hausen:

Another Nobel Peace Prize winner who comes in this list of controversial laureates is Harald Zur Hausen, who won the prize in 2009 for discovering the HPV causes cervical cancer. What really caused the stir was the fact that the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, which had the two highest stakes in the two largest HPV vaccines, was suspected to have influenced the committee members, as Hausen’s win directly benefitted the company. Though the company denied any such ties, and the investigations also turned up nothing, AstraZeneca is still suspected to have ‘bought’ the award as having the prestige of this award behind the vaccines greatly increased the monetary returns. The Sweden’s anti-corruption unit regarded this award as a suspect win and it brought about a lot of notorious claims.

Yasser Arafat:

According to the TIME magazine’s heated debate over Yasser Arafat’s win in Nobel Peace Prize category ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’. Throughout his life Yasser Arafat was surrounded by controversies, and when he won the Nobel award, it was considered one of the worst choices because his efforts at constant terrorist campaigns against Israel. All his efforts at strengthening the Arab world were in fact against the peace treaties, but late on in his life when he signed a peace treaty along with the Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Rabin and the Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and they became his sharers in the Peace award for the trio’s combined efforts to restore peace to the middle eastern region.

John Forbes Nash:

Many have called him a flawed genius, but the truth is that his brilliance was evident from an early age and eventually got honored with the 1994 Nobel Award for Economics for his work as a Princeton graduate student 40 years ago. There wasn’t any controversy regarding his work but the fact that he was alleged to be involved in anti-semitism and his constant battle with schizophrenia made him a controversial choice, so much so that the committee members who selected him were restricted to three year service rather than letting them serve their lifetime. When in 2002 the movie A BEAUTIFUL MIND was nominated for academy awards, his anti-Semitism rumors resurfaced, but were ignored as garish PR tactic by the opposing films. His contribution to the world of economics and mathematics was considered enough for him to be awarded the Nobel Prize.

Fritz Haber:

Perhaps, the most controversial prize winner is Fritz Haber who won the Nobel award for chemistry in the year 1918. Though his work has stood the test of time when it comes to quality as his researches are still being used by students for synthesizing ammonia and its role as a fertilizer manufacturing has helped eased famine. But the twist comes where Haber’s own life is observed, for he was an enthusiast in chemical warfare and helped the Germans in World War I, which resulted in hundreds and thousands of deaths! There have been many debates over his ‘win’ and many have called for him to be stripped of his honor. But the fact also remains that Alfred Nobel himself hold the patent to dynamite … so it seems fitting that Haber be included in the list of Nobel awardees regardless of his deeds after his discoveries.

Alexander Fleming:

His discovery of Penicillin earned him the 1945 Nobel Prize for Medicine, though it has been questioned many a times whether or not it was he who discovered it. Many critics claimed they found notes in the history books of 1870’s about bacteria fighting properties of mold Penicillium notatum. Even Fleming himself was found to admit that he had found the lead through reading Psalm 51 “purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean”. Though critics believed that he had not discovered the entire theory on his own, the fact remains that he was the first person to isolate and produce penicillin which has saved millions of lives.

Malala Yousafzai:

This young winner of the 2014 Nobel Award for Peace is a girl who stood up for education and women’s rights and went through enormous tragedy, being shot in the face by Taliban who were controlling her native valley of Sawat. There are many who claim that the efforts by Malala are not yet Nobel worthy, or the fact that the political situation in the country makes it all a very murky picture about how she got shot and how she recovered so completely so quickly, who was behind her fame in reality and what is the actual story behind the “attempted assassination’ of this one girl, as yet there are many who raise their eyebrows when her name got selected for the Peace prize, but like the rest of the list, the selection committee in Oslo does the research and the thinking. Nobody really can know what influences their choices.

Nothing sparks up a debate like the Nobel. And if we consider the controversial beginnings of its founder Alfred Nobel himself, who invented the dynamite aside from being a pacifist, the contrast is too much for it not to be a part of the award itself. Perhaps, the world will never agree on the same principles, but as long as we get our juicy bits, there is nothing to complain about!