The decision of the Normale of Pisa is “profoundly wrong because universities do not side with one side or the other, universities do not go to war. The university has a very powerful weapon, scientific research, training, which is an important and powerful weapon for peace.”
The Minister of University and Research, Anna Maria Bernini, enters into the controversy that has been stirring the university world for a few weeks on the Palestinian issue and criticizes the choice of the Normale and other universities to reconsider the academic agreements with Israel.
With respect to new demonstrations in universities “we will continue to maintain the same line”, Bernini assured Tg1, “universities are places where any opinion can be expressed, even the most radical, with a single, essential and insurmountable limit: no violence “. “The situation”, he observed, “is delicate because a very vocal minority wants to confuse criticism, even legitimate criticism of Netanyahu’s policies, with Israel and the Israeli people. They are two different things and anyone who wants to confuse them risks entering into a dimension of anti-Semitism or anti-Western sentiment”.
In recent days, the Normale announced its decision to denounce ongoing collaborations with Israeli universities regarding some civil technologies which, however, according to the University, could be used by Israel in the ongoing conflict. Hence the request to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs “to reconsider” the notice issued on 21 November 2023 in implementation of the Italy-Israel industrial, scientific and technological cooperation agreement.
The director of the Normale, Luigi Ambrosio, clarifies that the motion of the Academic Senate of 26 March does not, however, speak of interruptions of collaborations (“which we do not have”) and clarifies that the motion aimed at the interruption of scientific relations with Israeli universities, although presented in the Senate, it was not even put to the vote.” Ambrosio adds that “in this historical moment we believe it is necessary and urgent to promote not only internal reflection, inspired by Article 11 of the Constitution, regarding the risk of so-called “dual use”, civil but potentially also military, of some scientific and technological. It is from this perspective that we have asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to carefully reconsider calls for cooperation with all foreign states which cover not only the strictly scientific area, but also the industrial and technological one, starting from the one issued in recent months in within the scope of the Italy-Israel agreements, in order to offer guarantees in this sense to the scholarly community, today and in the future”.
#Bernini #Universities #war #sides #side
– 2024-04-02 09:44:30
