Posts Tagged ‘Jeff Weintraub’

A nice quote from Jeff Weintraub on European hypocrisy:

For example, when it comes to the Middle East, Europeans always seem to believe that they are not only right but morally superior, too, despite the frequent cynicism, smugness, superficiality, bigotry, fecklessness, and moral irresponsibility of their views and policies on these and other matters.

Jeff Weintraub: What they really think of us (contd.)

“Are you going to school?”

Then the man pulled Shamsia’s burqa from her head and sprayed her face with burning acid. Scars, jagged and discolored, now spread across Shamsia’s eyelids and most of her left cheek. These days, her vision goes blurry, making it hard for her to read.

But if the acid attack against Shamsia and 14 others — students and teachers — was meant to terrorize the girls into staying home, it appears to have completely failed.

Today, nearly all of the wounded girls are back at the Mirwais School for Girls, including even Shamsia, whose face was so badly burned that she had to be sent abroad for treatment. Perhaps even more remarkable, nearly every other female student in this deeply conservative community has returned as well — about 1,300 in all.

Jeff Weintraub: The bravery of Afghan schoolgirls.

Die Autokratie in Russland konsolidiert weiter ihren uneingeschränkten Herrschaftsanspruch, jüngstes Opfer ist die Europäische Universität in St. Petersburg geworden. Jeff Weintraub schreibt hierzu folgendes:

The European University in Saint Petersburg has been the object of strident public attacks, and now it has been shut down on the basis of what looks to everyone like a transparently fraudulent pretext. [...]

The EUSP deserves the strongest possible international support from everyone committed the principles of academic & intellectual freedom and the defense of political liberty.

Weiter weist Weintraub auf eine Onlinepetition hin:

There is also a petition aimed at the international academic & intellectual community as a whole–academics, students, and other scholars & intellectuals: Letter of Support for European University at St Petersburg. Please read it and consider adding your signature.

Mehr über den Angriff auf die akademische Freiheit auf der Seite von Jeff Weintraub.

Nachtrag: Mittlerweile wurde eine Webseite (auf Englisch) gegen die Schließung der Universität ins Netz gestellt: Save the European University at St Petersburg. Siehe hierzu auch die Selbstdarstellung der Webseite.