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OCR for page 54
yet ~ do think that severe repression (and we have heard it) is not
just imprisonment, is not just torture, is not just internal exile, is
not just disappearance, but is also the fact that you do not have the
opportunity to learn.
~ am a physicist and therefore not really qualified to speak about
that, but to me, the human curiosity, if not satisfied, is a very basic
neglected human need.
So, ~ think if you ask this question, you have to ask yourself, have
we, as a scientific community, spent enough effort in understanding
its importance? These are days in which we have been overjoyed
that Professor Sakharov is back in Moscow. We should not forget
that he wrote, in 1968, a book that is not read as much as it deserves
to be. In Progress, Coexistence, and Intellectual Freediom, he says:
"Intellectual freedom is essential to human society, freedom to obtain
and distribute information, freedom for openminded and unfearing
debate, and freedom from pressure by officialdom and prejudices."
There are some political overtones in that statement.
(Laughter)
But, basically, it addresses the issue. Only a short five years
ago, Sakharov said something about the worldwide character of the
scientific community assuming particular importance when dealing
with problems of human rights. "By its international defense of
persecuted scientists, of all people whose rights have been violated,
the scientific community confirms its international mandate, which
is so essential for successful scientific work and for service to society.
Well, our scientific societies, be they national ones or be they
international ones, come in contact with these issues all the time and
especially at the present time the International Council of Scientific
Unions is trying to come to some formulation that will take into
account some of the things that Professor Mohamed has mentioned.
So, ~ am saying nothing new to you; ~ have a message that is
much less polemical, perhaps, but ~ hope that it fits in with what my
two colleagues have to say. Thank you.
COMMENTS
[ipman Bers
The human rights movement is sometimes accused of taking a
parochial, purely "Western" approach, stressing "politically rights,
like freedom of speech or freedom from arbitrary arrest and from
Representative terms from entire chapter:
assuming particular
