Nobel Prize 2019 : Memorable, Honorable, Controversial

From October 7^th to October 14^th Norwegian Nobel Committee announced winner of Nobel Prize. In total there has been 15 nominees across 6 categories which are physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, peace and economic sciences.

▲ Picture of Nobel Prize https://www.nobelprize.org/

As a reward for continuous effort to approach unsolved problem

Among the nominees, Esther Duflo is a notable winner in terms of her gender and age. She is world 2^nd female and the youngest nominee of economic science field. She was honored to award the prize for her experimental approach to alleviating global poverty. In 2003, she co-founded Poverty Action Lab at MIT with her husband, Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kramer who are also awarded Nobel Prize this year with her. In the lab, she has conducted randomized, controlled trial experiments which is originally being used in medicine experiment, to solve not only poverty but immunization, education, Malaria by solving the Last Mile Problem. It infers the situation that is not showing improvement although there are enough technology and infrastructure to solve it.

             ▲ Illustration of three laureates in economics sciences. Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kramer. https://www.nobelprize.org/

Birth of another controversial nominee

There’s another notable laureate but not for good reason. Peter Handke, an Austrian novelist, playwright and translator, won the prize for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience. One of his play Publikumsbeschimpfung(Offending the Audience also known as an Anit-play, 관객모독), which breaks the custom – the role of audience and player - has been evaluated as a new horizon of the play. However, after the announcement, there has been outrage in Bosnia and other groups. The reason of the outrage is pointing out his past actions. He advocated Slobodan Milošević, who made a condolence at his funeral. Slobodan Milošević is 3^rd President of Federal Republic Yugoslavia, who provoked civil war declaring Greater Serbia. During Yugolsav Wars, he took lead of so called ethnic cleansing murdering thousands of Muslims and 850,000 of refugees. Also, the war has caused about 300,000 deaths.

▲Illustration of Peter Handke. https://www.nobelprize.org/

A world-wide writer Ismael Kadre revealed his critical voice about the award. He said “We shouldn’t associate writer’s political color with work. But there is a line that writer should not cross.” Then he said “I agree with people who are criticizing Peter Handke’s award. We must not make defense of him.” Also, there is a demand to withdraw his award. Especially Mother of Srebrenica which represents thousands of survivors of the tragedy during the Balkan Wars mentioned that they are going to send a letter to committee to call off his award.

Is Novel Prize really mean something until now despite of all controversies?

This is not the first time that the committee award the prize to person who is political and social issues. In 1973, secretary of United States , Henry Alfred Kissinger became laureate for peaces with North Vietnam. But during Vietnam War, US conducted secret bombing raids on Cambodia at his tenure. Also, another winner of the peace prize, Yasser Arafat won the prize for his role in bring peace between Israel and Palestine although many people accused him of leading terrorism targeting civilians in Israel.

Opinions that the Nobel Prize is unbiased and the value of it is keep decreasing is keep arising in the internet. Maybe it’s time for us to reconsider the meaning of the prize.

Yoo ByungJoo

<woosamoe@kangwon.ac.kr>