Criticism against the Nobel Foundation politicizing the celebration of Nobel prize laureates and their scientific achievements is growing. The behavior, to not invite the leader of the second biggest party in the Swedish Parliament to the Nobel Banquet, is said to show a lack of judgment.
By inviting the leader of the reformed Communist Party but not the leader of the growing conservative and national Sweden Democrats, they have been sharply criticized.
In the weekly magazine “Dagens Samhälle” the columnist and opinion analyst Peter Santesson believes that the Nobel Foundation with its actions, increases polarization in the country and destroys the Nobel celebration as a unifying tradition.
”In the era of politicization, previously common areas and symbols are transformed into arenas for political signalling,” he writes, saying that something happens to the Nobel Foundation’s image when used to make political statements.
The Nobel Foundation gets ”involved in political conflict and here is another opportunity to fight it. For my part, I think it is indiscriminate. These are so precious things used to build political barricades. Once put into service in this way, they cannot be restored to their original condition.”