Thinker Sami Naïr claims that globalisation “cannot be reduced solely to the economy: the economy has been globalised but the policy is still based on the geopolitical game of great nations”. Naïr’s words have been heard this Monday in the investiture ceremony as ‘honoris causa’ of the University of Valencia. Principal Esteban Morcillo has qualified Naïr as “a personality of international reference”. The ‘laudatio’ has been read by Javier de Lucas, Full University Professor of Legal Philosophy.
The event has been held at the Paranimf of the historical building of La Nau, with the assistance of many members of the university community and of the Valencian policy, culture and civil society. During the session titles were awarded to the new doctors of the University of Valencia.
Sami Naïr’s first words have honoured the memory of the Second Republic, on a date as 14 April: “Coinciding in Valencia with this anniversary is a privilege for me, because my heart has beaten with the history of the II Spanish Republic, the Republic which wanted to restore the equality and which made the educational transmission, through its magnificent network of Republican teachers, one of its main aims; this Republic which, threatened, abandoned by the democratic states in the name of the State reason, had the support of thousands of caring brigades, coming from the whole world. I feel, through the invisible threads of history and memory, linked to the pedagogic dream of the Spanish Republic.
In the first part of his speech, the European thinker of Algerian origin has focused on the relationship between the current crisis and globalisation: “We have gone from internationalisation to globalisation of the economy, but the power system continues being the one of the 20th century. To say it in a more elliptical way: the economy has been globalised but the policy is still based on the geopolitical game of great nations, and this fundamentally explains the weakness of that being political to that being economic”. “Globalisation cannot be only reduced to the economy”, he concluded.
Then, the speech has focused on a field, the one of migrations and multiculturalism, which is considered a benchmark: “We need a serious immigration policy: it must be based on a patient strategy of integration, based on the respect for rights and duties; a political justice of border management, respecting the human rights of foreigners, immigrants and refugees; and, finally, a strategy of strong and caring co-development, based on the immigrants settled in the host country which favours the economical solidarity, through the immigrants themselves, with the countries of origin.
Naïr has added: “I think that we are all conscious that a new era of long rage has been opened, in which it is increasingly necessary a new human linkage, because we, human beings, do not have enough to live only as consumers, a kind of corks floating on the surface of the commercial ocean”.
The full speech is at:
http://www.uv.es/rectorat/discursos/honoris/saminair/LectioSamiNairVAL.pdf
For his part, Principal Esteban Morcillo has qualified Sami Naïr as “a personality of European and international reference, and a true Master in the deepest sense of this term, a teacher, didascalic, who has not shied away from extending the social value of knowledge to political tasks”.
In his speech, the Principal has taken the opportunity to defend the values of the public universities, and its commitment to the European integration. He has also claimed that the Spanish public universities will soon issue a statement “against the measures which, affecting the university community, threatening the current model of public university built over decades under governments of different political orientations”.
The Principal’s speech is available at:
http://www.uv.es/rectorat/discursos/honoris/saminair/DiscursRectorSamiNair.pdf
In the ‘laudatio’, Javier de Lucas has pointed out that Sami Naïr is one of the European intellectuals of reference. “Someone whose opinion is requested and attended in topics which relate to real concerns and priorities, though not little confusion exists about them. Someone whose voice is recognised in crucial discussions about the present and the future of the European Union, the critique of the neoliberal model of globalisation, or about the viability conditions of our democracies.
The ‘laudatio’ can be fully read at:
http://www.uv.es/rectorat/discursos/honoris/saminair/LaudatioSamiNair.pdf
De Lucas has stated that the defence of the immigrants’ rights is for Sami Naïr “the light which has to guide us in the debate about identity, racism and multiculturalism, as well as the discussion about integration and citizenship in the companies which receive immigration.
Sami Nair (Tlemcen, Argelia, 1946) is Full University Professor of Political Sciences of the University of Paris VIII; director of the Andalusian Mediterranean Centre, of the Pablo de Olavide University; and director of the IEREM (European-Mediterranean Institute of Studies and Research).
He is Doctor in political philosophy from the Sorbonne in 1973, and Doctor in literature and human sciences, also from the Sorbonne in 1979, he has taught in the universities Carlos III of Madrid, Pablo de Olavide, Lausanne (Switzerland), Bogotá and of Pasto (Colombia), Oran (Algeria), in the Wesleyan University (United States) and in the University of Valencia.
He has received the Emilio Castellar awards for Safeguarding Liberties; Cristóbal Gabarrón Foundation of human career, of International Trial Terenci Moix 2012 and LiberPress 2012. French State Chancellor in extraordinary service, he has been editor-in-chief of the magazine “L’Evènement Européen” (The European Event), and coordinator of the magazine “Les temps modernes” (The modern Times), and columnist in the Spanish newspaper “El País”.
Last update: 10 de april de 2014 07:00.
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