Fw: Academics boycott US academic organizations:
"Aaron J. Seigo" <[email protected]>
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Below is an interesting email exchange. There has been quite a bit of discussion regarding the "second super power" (AKA "we the people") recently, and it seems this is one more manifestation of that concept in motion. As I'm sure most of you know, many technologists won't travel to the USA anymore (including Alan Cox) mostly due to the increasingly horrific "intelectual property" laws that are being passed in the USA, such as the DMCA. This is extremely unfortunate for the scientific communities since it seemed we were finally starting to get back to pre-cold war levels of international cooperation in the sciences among academics. The corporate world (and its sad influence on academic institutions) is another story, of course, but it is very sad to see rifts forming in the intellectual communities of our world along national borders. - -----Original Message----- From: Aniruddha Das [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2003 11:00 AM Here's a longish exchange of e-mails starting (at the bottom) with Israeli academic Daniel Amit's letter to the American Physical Society; The top letter is by an Indian Institute of Technology mathematician. Aniruddha ************************************************ - ------------------------------------------------ - -----Original Message----- Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 15:52:23 +0530 (IST) From: Shobha Madan <[email protected] To: [email protected], [email protected] Subject: Membership withdrwal Dear Sir, With this communication, I wish to withdraw my membership to the American Mathematical Society, and I will not review any more papers for Mathematical Reviews.(there are no reviews pending with me). I have wanted to do this for some time, but was not able to express my reasons clearly enough. Meanwhile I have just read an exchange of emails, in which Prof Daniel Amit has put into words my feelings at this moment in time. I have taken the liberty of attaching the letters in this exchange verbatim in order to communicate my own reasons for withdrawal. I have no protest against any individual human beings anywhere in the world, even with disagreements, but I do not wish to be a member of, nor contribute to, any American Organization. Shobha Madan - ------------------------------------------------ COPY [ Forwarded email below ] - ------------------------------------------------ - -----Original Message----- Dr. Daniel Amit Univ. di Roma, La Sapienza Ple Aldo Moro 2 00185 Roma, ITALY Electronic URL-Download Referral from Physical Review E Code: EA8932 Title: Transitions in oscillatory dynamics of two connected neurons with excitatory synapses Received 08 January 2003 Dear Dr. Amit: We would appreciate your review of this manuscript, which has been submitted to Physical Review E. This message is the COMPLETE REFERRAL. No hardcopy will be sent unless requested. - ------------------------------------------------ - -----Original Message----- From: "Daniel Amit" <[email protected] To: "Physical Review E" <[email protected] Sent: Friday, March 21, 2003 6:11 PM Subject: Re: Review_request AMIT EA8932 Roudi I will not at this point correspond with any american institution. Some of us have lived through 1939. Daniel Amit - ------------------------------------------------ - -----Original Message----- From: "martin blume" <[email protected] To: <[email protected]; <[email protected] Subject: your email to the American Physical Society Date: Tuesday, April 08, 2003 10:31 PM Dear Dr. Amit, We have received your email with your decision not to review a paper for us in light of American actions in the middle east. We recognize that reviewing manuscripts is a voluntary activity, one that you perform as a service to the physics community, and we thank you for your efforts. Given the voluntary nature of your participation we of course respect your decision to cease, and have made an indication in our database so that no further papers will be sent to you for review until you inform us otherwise. We ask, however, that you consider the following in hopes that in the not too distant future you will decide to review for us again. We regard science as an international enterprise and we do our best to put aside political disagreements in the interest of furthering the pursuit of scientific matters. We have never used other than scientific criteria in judging the acceptability of a paper for publication, without regard to the country of origin of the author. We have done this even in cases where some of us have disagreed strongly with the policies of that country, and we will continue this practice. We believe it is essential that all parties involved make every effort to separate social and political differences from their participation in scientific research and publication. The pursuit of scientific knowledge needs to transcend such issues. Sincerely, Martin Blume Editor-in-Chief - ------------------------------------------------ - -----Original Message----- From: "Daniel Amit" <[email protected] To: "martin blume" <[email protected] Date: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 Dr Blume, Editor in Chief American Physical Society Dear Dr Blume Thank you for you letter of April 8. I would have liked to be able to share the honorable sentiments you express in your letter as well as your optimism in the future role of science and the scientific community. To be frank, and with much sadness and pain, after 40 years of activity and collaboration, I find very little reason for such optimism. What we are watching today, I believe, is a culmination of 10-15 years of mounting barbarism of the American culture the world over, crowned by the achievements of science and technology as a major weapon of mass destruction. We are witnessing man hunt and wanton killing of the type and scale not seen since the raids on American Indian populations, by a superior technological power of inferior culture and values. We see no corrective force to restore the insanity, the self-righteousness and the lack of respect for human life (civilian and military) of another race. Science cannot stay neutral, especially after it has been so cynically used in the hands of the inspectors to disarm a country and prepare it for decimation by laser guided cluster bombs. No, science of the American variety has no recourse. I, personally, cannot see myself anymore sharing a common human community with American science. Unfortunately, I also belong to a culture of a similar spiritual deviation (Israel), and which seems to be equally incorrigible. In desperation I cannot but turn my attention to other tragic periods in which major societies, some with claims to fundamental contributions to culture and science, have deviated so far as to be relegated to ostracism and quarantine. At this point I think American society should be considered in this category. I have no illusions of power, as to the scope and prospect of my attitude. But, the minor role of my act and statement is a simple way of affirming that in the face of a growing enormity which I consider intolerable, I will exercise my own tiny act of disobedience to be able to look straight into the eyes of my grandchildren and my students and say that I did know. With regard Daniel Amit PS I intend to distribute our exchange as much as possible. I authorize and pray that you do the same. - -- This message comes to you from the Canada Activist e-mail list To unsubscribe, send a blank e-mail to: [email protected] More info: http://www.activist.ca/view.php?id=0-1123 - ------------------------------------------------------- - -- Aaron J. Seigo GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43 KDE: The 'K' is for 'kick ass' http://www.kde.org http://promo.kde.org/3.1/feature_guide.php -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE+oa031rcusafx20MRAgEgAJ4uEypT69q7UwHJr/9quviFRhZI8gCcCiTd H4kzrFezpf7616gxVNsazFM= =5Gs4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Kde-cafe mailing list - [email protected] http://ofb.biz/lists/listinfo.cgi/kde-cafe DISCLAIMER: The views expressed on this mailinglist are the personal opinions of the author and do not represent OfB.biz: Open for Business, KDE or the author's employer.