Following the disinformation campaign conducted in the press about the cancellation of the meeting around Stéphane Hessel, Monique Canto-Sperber, director of the Ecole Normale Superieure (rue d'Ulm ) the record straight. Where we measure the magnitude and ease of media manipulation, the cynicism of people who enjoy the respect due to their profession, their knowledge and their union office for lying shamelessly, knowing where are the winds that carry their voices, and unfortunately also the vulnerability of Stéphane Hessel, each of which may therefore find that he preferred to join his indignation rather than posturing forgers restore calm partly true.
Why I canceled a pro-Palestinian rally. ENS could not support a boycott university. - There is much discussion in the press in recent days, the cancellation of the meeting that Stéphane Hessel was held Tuesday, January 18 at the Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS), which I am the director. Some deplore the pressures that would have carried the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) on the direction of the ENS, others believe they see freedom of expression violated. In the uproar of indignation and sincere faith in bad mixed together, can we hear the facts and reasons?
I decided to cancel the reservation of the room provided for this meeting, ten days before the date it was scheduled. I decided alone. If a similar situation arose again, I would act the same way. Je n'ai eu aucun contact avec le CRIF. Au moment où j'ai pris cette décision, j'ignorais les démarches entreprises par plusieurs personnalités. Quiconque souhaitait savoir ce qui s'était vraiment passé n'avait qu'à me le demander. Mais les faits ou les explications se sont vite trouvés dépourvus d'intérêt. Une rumeur était lancée, et elle progressait en roue libre sur Internet, et même dans nos journaux d'information.
Voici les faits. À la mi-décembre 2010, une demande de réservation de salle émanant d'un chercheur de l'ENS m'a été soumise. Il s'agissait de réunir autour de Stéphane Hessel des normaliens et quelques personnalités to discuss freedom of expression. In this application, of course I gave my consent. Stéphane Hessel will always be welcomed into our school to share his ideas and discuss with our students. I had many occasions to tell him.
January 7, friends sent me the announcement of the meeting as circulated widely on many sites. I regret that none of the articles that have devoted so many columns to comment on my decision has seen fit to reproduce the poster. Everyone could see that it was by no means an internal meeting between our school and students Stéphane Hessel, but a rally organized by the collective Palestine.org Peace Justice, which supports, among others, the boycott of Israeli academics. The appeal widely distributed foreshadowed substantial assistance and totally outside the school. I immediately decided to cancel the room reservation.
I was wrong about the exact nature of this meeting, which is itself only a ground for annulment. The ENS is a research and teaching. She is also a forum for debate, reflection and criticism. It houses many circles of Political Studies. Y are often organisées des réunions sur des sujets liés à l'actualité, y compris celui du Moyen-Orient, avec le souci d'une pluralité minimale de points de vue et le souhait d'un approfondissement dans la connaissance et la réflexion.
Ceux qui étudient et enseignent à l'ENS sont souvent engagés dans la réflexion politique, en cela ils prolongent la tradition de notre école. Mais ils n'avancent pas masqués, ils annoncent clairement la nature de la réunion qu'ils souhaitent organiser (interne, ou bien ouverte au public) et discutent avec nous de la façon dont nous pouvons, et parfois ne pouvons pas, l'accueillir. En particulier, nous ne souhaitons pas la tenue à l'école the meeting without debate, where does that confirm the statement of a number of views.
I add an assembly like the one that promised to be highly probable, at least that's how I felt - wrongly or rightly, I am ready to debate - led to clashes; in such a case, we would absolutely not have the means to ensure security. Hear invoke security reasons often smile, it is easy to see a convenient pretext to produce. But all who are in charge of a place that welcomes the public know how the concern for security has become haunting, and no warden can not reasonably take the risk, however small, of a serious incident has reason to fear.
We immediately communicated this decision to the researcher who had booked the room. We have explained to him why. We offered our help to quickly find another place in Paris to hold the meeting. We have also provided her many contacts.
That fact, though insignificant at first glance. This episode, however, caused a cascade of articles and stances, often ignorant of what I just reported. I recognized the expression of delights proven to adopt the posture of victim and an escalation of judgments revealing. Thus, two national secretaries of the Union of Magistrates speak in an article in the cancellation, at the request of the CRIF, a conference-debate to be held at the Ecole Normale Superieure "(the presumption innocence is in bad shape in our country even if the judges deem not investigate).
Thus although several philosophy professors, alumni of the ENS, which some, at least I thought, are my friends, are outraged that the CRIF imposes its views. Edifying spectacle to see these teachers "And the night falls on me" , which, in a ruling authority that justifies their view of their past political commitment, call to order the director of their beloved school. They seriously accuse him of not understanding that in the mind of Stephane Hessel stood, not a right-thinking, both critical and very dogmatic, but the creative breath of thought and powerful vision of fighting for freedom ?
I add, because this forum gives me an opportunity that ENS ties of a precious scientific perspective with academics and Israeli research teams. No public meeting calling for the break will occur with my agreement to the ENS.
past week, we speak of the Ecole Normale Superieure in the press, and that about the cancellation of the booking of a room. What do we have instead addressed the changes in our school and the role it will play today in thinking about the elite sectors, on the opening lessons for research and innovation and the ability to have an establishment that can selectively recognize talent? Why did we not mention the battle waged by SLA for the defense of values related to knowledge, research and quality of the transmission, now well abused?
Yet the stakes are high because it is addressing the most dangerous form of social relegation present in our society and also to remember that cultures without knowledge and without study of the cultures rapidly become sleepwalkers. Speaking for several days of freedom of expression, should we not first defend the safest condition: access to an education capable of forming free spirits and critics and the refusal of the oligarchy knowledge? There are real victims, but victims without a voice, so they are ignored. - Monique Canto-Sperber , philosopher, director of the Ecole Normale Superieure (rue d'Ulm), text published in Le Monde 28 January 2011.
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