Posted on 10/14/2007 12:49:02 PM PDT by neverdem
Nature 449, 643 (2007) | doi:10.1038/449643b
News
French plan for research integration meets with disapproval.
The French government is to create a powerful institute for research on immigration and integration. The move has sparked opposition among social scientists, who claim that the body is a thinly veiled bid to exercise political control over their research.
The Paris-based institute will be placed under the High Council for Integration, which is affiliated with the prime minister's office. It is expected to be inaugurated shortly by Brice Hortefeux, the immigration minister.
The government says that the 23-member institute will serve as a 'one-stop shop' for distributing both public and private research funds, and help define “pertinent fields and topics” for study.
But in a statement issued on 2 October, 75 French historians and intellectuals expressed their “grave concerns” over the institute, branding it a “threat to academic freedom”. That threat arises, they say, “in a context where the political discourse tends more-and-more to present immigration as a danger, where successive legislation has increasingly restricted the rights of foreigners and where rhetoric serves to mask discrimination”. A tough immigration bill is currently going through the French legislature (see Nature 449, 377–378 ; 2007).
The dissenters also criticized the nomination of Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, a specialist in Russian affairs and secretary of the French Academy, as the institute's president. During urban riots in 2005, Carrère d'Encausse sparked controversy by identifying polygamy among immigrants as one of the causes.
Ironically, several of the statement's signatories are listed as members of the new institute in a document released by the government on 19 September. Paul Schor, a specialist in American minorities at the School of High Studies in Social Sciences in Paris, says that he first learnt of his inclusion when the list was circulated on the Internet. He says he has had no explanation for being included in the list, and that it was done without consultation.
This story should be interesting.
Surprise!
Here’s something for the social scientists of Europe to ponder. Propaganda sown in what is purported to be a “islamic environmental website” in Canada named “YOUNG MUSLIMS”:
“If Islam is again to play the role of the leader of man- kind, then it is necessary that the Muslim community be restored to its original form.”
...
“The distance between the revival of Islam and the attainment of world leadership may be vast, and there may be great difficulties on the way; but the first step must be taken for the revival of Islam.”
...
“If we are to perform our task with insight and wisdom, we must first know clearly the nature of those qualities on the basis of which the Muslim community can fulfill its obligation as the leader of the world. This is essential so that we may not commit any blunders at the very first stage of its reconstruction and revival.”
...
“The Muslim community today is neither capable of nor required to present before mankind great genius in material inventions, which will make the world bow its head before its supremacy and thus re-establish once more its world leadership. Europe’s creative mind is far ahead in this area, and at least for a few centuries to come we cannot expect to compete with Europe and attain supremacy over it in these fields.”
“Hence we must have some other quality, that quality which modern civilization does not possess.”
http://www.youngmuslims.ca/online_library/books/milestones/hold/chapter_7.asp
[Joseph Lenin would no doubt appreciate the genius.]
btt
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