The Nobel Peace Prize is no stranger to controversies and it lost the little credibility it had when Obama was handed the prize in 2009. He lived up to his anti-peace image when he “declared to bomb the Syrians because some Syrians used chemical weapons to bomb other Syrians”.
Also, Mahatma Gandhi was never awarded the prize despite having being nominated 5 times.
In 2012 the prize was awarded to the European Union “for contributing to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.” That year the EU was deep in crisis and there were mass protests all over the zone.
But the biggest controversy surrounding Nobel is that even Hitler and Stalin were nominated for peace prize in 1930s. This is what the official Nobel site has to say about the fiasco : “Adolf Hitler was nominated once in 1939. Incredulous though it may seem today, the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1939, by a member of the Swedish parliament, an E.G.C. Brandt. Apparently though, Brandt never intended the nomination to be taken seriously. Brandt was to all intents and purposes a dedicated antifascist, and had intended this nomination more as a satiric criticism of the current political debate in Sweden. (At the time, a number of Swedish parliamentarians had nominated then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlin for the Nobel Peace Prize, a nomination which Brandt viewed with great skepticism. ) However, Brandt’s satirical intentions were not well received at all and the nomination was swiftly withdrawn in a letter dated 1 February 1939.”
This year the prize was awarded to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) “for its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons” and some people are really pissed that Malala Yousafzai didn’t get it. She was among the favourites to win the prize and had the 16-year-old won, she would have become the youngest-ever Nobel laureate.
What do you think about these prizes? Do leave your comments in the box below.
