Petitie

Gyöngyöspata, March 12, 2011
Members of Szebb Jövoert surround the house of a Roma family

Onder de kop: “Philosophy Under Attack in Hungary” roept Brian Leiter via zijn blog op een petitie te ondertekenen m.b.t. de academische vrijheid in Hongarije. Deze actie sluit aan bij die van Jürgen Habermas in Duitsland: “Wir machen uns Sorgen” samen met de ex-minister voor cultuur Julian Nida-Rümelin. Ook in Frankrijk is deze oproep verschenen:

“Hongrie: Le CIPh apporte son soutien à la
philosophe Agnès Heller et à ses confrères”.

We kunnen het weten, het revanchisme en nationalisme zijn in Hongarije springlevend. Het duidelijk succes van de Hongaarse tegenhanger van de PVV, Jobbik, is er het bewijs van. Laszlo Kornitzer noemde het een alarmsignaal en Imre Kertész zei in een artikel uit 2009 al: “In Ungarn haben Antisemiten das Sagen”.

Tussen haakjes, u weet toch wie de grote held van Wilders is? Dan hoeven we daar verder geen woorden meer over vuil te maken.

In de Libération viel de volgende alarmkreet te lezen:

« Ce que l’Union européenne voulait empêcher, et ce que beaucoup
croyaient impossible, prend chair : une démocratie antilibérale est en train de naître à l’intérieur des frontières de l’Europe. […] Si des droits fondamentaux sont bafoués dans un pays, cela humilie tous les
Européens. »

Een appel aan het Europese parlement en de commissie, ondertekend door o.a. Václav Havel, Petr Uhl, Arpád Göncz, Miklós Haraszti, György Konrád en Adam Michnik, opposanten van het communisme, waarvan een aantal jaren gevangen hebben gezeten. Vergeten we in dit verband ook de stem van György Konrád niet: “Erinnerung an 1933”.

De oproep van Leiter…

Hands off the Hungarian Philosophers!

“Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! “Have courage to use your own reason!”- that is the motto of enlightenment.”

The above words of Immanuel Kant have lost nothing of their relevance and prove that a society that values independent thinking is in acute need of philosophy. Without independent thinking and action no significant scientific or artistic accomplishments can be achieved. But without the responsibility of independent decision-making we cannot be moral beings.

A society that respects itself needs philosophy and needs those people who, either professionally or out of simple interest, are the friends of wisdom. Those who can think even without the tutelage of others.

The hate and smear campaign that is going on now against Hungarian philosophers questions even these values and strives to devaluate them in the eyes of public opinion. The great sums of money received through grants that they allegedly should not have won serve as the basis of the vicious and unfounded attacks. The media connects several otherwise separate research projects and claims that „Heller and Co. have researched away half a billion”. This is a lie and slander.

The anomalies of the grant system, which is not the fault of those competing for these grants, are responsible for this situation, and it is a fatal distortion of the truth to shift responsibility on the researchers. The researchers have produced very valuable accomplishments in exchange for all the grants won.

All Hungarian cultural and scientific grants could be brought into disrepute through such an arbitrary point of view. With this the value of the scientific research is questioned – without any real competence in those questions judged.

The attack on significant figures of Hungarian philosophy is also an attack on Hungarian science and culture, and no one can stand by idly who cherishes these values, regardless of one’s political beliefs.
We ask all Hungarian and international intellectuals, scholars, and artists to express their solidarity with the slandered philosophers by signing this petition.

We also call upon all those who want to live in a society where independent thinking is valued to protest against this shameful course of action against thinkers of integrity with their signatures.[/size]