BONN The City of Dialogue
-Walter Schmidt, Germany
If you want to visit Hama Arba Diallo, you
first have to get past the Secretary-general of the United Nations-to be more precise, you
have to make your way past the poster of a smiling Kofi Annan opposite the lift door.
Diallo hopes the UN’s top civil servant will soon visit Bonn in person. The former
foreign minister of Burkina Faso heads the Secretariat of the UN Convention to Combat
Desertification, UNCCD, which has been based in the city since 1999 and which is often
simply and not very appropriately referred to in German as the "Desert
Secretariat". Desertification entails much more than just the development and growth
of deserts. It also involves the erosion of agricultural land by recurrent droughts and
the over exploitation of forests, arable land and pasture. From his base in Bonn, 63 year
old Diallo, a specialist for environmental and developmental issues in Africa, and his 80
colleagues are endeavoring to overcome an immense problem. According to UNCCD statistrics,
some 250 million people are directly affected by desertification in more than 100, usually
poor countries "Ten million hectares of soil are lost around the world every
year", states the political scientist. The Executive Secretary receives visitors in
his spacious office, to which the UN flag beside his desk lends a rather official air.
Outside, an opulent green garden surrounds Haus Carstenjen and its more sober
outbuildings. Only a stone’s throw away, the Rhine flows past the foothills of the
Siebengebirge.
Small city with an international
profile:
Although far away from the nearest desert,
Diallo feels he is in just the right place in Bonn. He came here with his team just under
four years ago. "Ever since, we have been discovering just how much Bonn has to
offer", explains Diallo. He is not only happy that he found an "extremely
beautiful location" here. Although not very large with 310,000 inhabitants, the city
is also able to offer a great deal in terms of federal government ministries and the 150
governmental and non-governmental organizations that focus on the problems of the
developing countries. Among others, these include the German Development Service, DED, and
the InWEnt organization for training and development. The federal ministry of environment,
Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety and the federal ministry for Economic Cooperation
and Development were among those that were not relocated to Berlin, but remained in Bonn.
That makes working with them "easy and uncomplicated".
Bonn has coped with the relocation of large
parts of the government surprisingly well—not least because of the many new jobs that
have been created here by the Deutsche Telekom and a number of smaller businesses in
associated industries. However, the loss of the title "Capital City" still
ocassionally hurts. For a long time, the inhabitants of Bonn were able to read satirical
comments in the newspapers like those about how the former political center could console
itself with the United nations "bat secretariat" established there in 1996.
"We are a running gag at the time," says Andreas Streit, the Executive Secretary
of the Agreement on the Conservation of Bats in Europe, EUROBATS.
As the Federal Government commissioner for UN
affairs in Bonn, Harald Ganns has to be a professional optimist when it comes to the
international success of the former capital city. "In two or three years we will have
600 to 700 UN employees in Bonn", predicts the diplomat, and adds it is quite
possible that the strategically important 1000 mark will also be reached in the not too
distant future. The UN itself first used the term "critical mass" to describe
what would happen when the figure of 1,000 UN employees was reached. From then on,
"superordinated structures" would be created linking all the Bonn UN offices
together—for example, not only a central security service, but also a common
accounting system. Ganns is pleased that all the UN offices will eventually be moved
together—onto the planned UN campus surrounding the former plenary halls of the
German Bundestag and the former office buildings of the parliamentary deputies.
There is already a lot of evidence that
United Nations employees feel very much at home in Bonn. The future working conditions at
the UN campus could well compete with those at other UN locations says Ganns. Bonn offers
both short travelling distances and a high level of security compared with a large
metropolis. Together with neighboring Cologne, it has an attractive range of cultural
events. Also, the former capital city has a large number of people who appreciate a
colorful community of cultures. Among his colleagues, reports Andreas Streit, EUROBATS
head, the tolerance and helpfulness of the Bonn’s inhabitants receive "unanimous
praise". The city authorities undertake "enormous efforts" to make it
easier for new comers to settle in.
This is something the academics who will work
at the recently established UN University research and training center for environment and
human security, UNU/EHS, in Bonn will soon be able to find out for themselves. To Bonn,
this branch of the UN university is "another important component of its development
as a city with an international profile", says Mayor Barbel Dieckmann, SPD. She is
likely to be equally pleased if the city succeeds in attracting two more UN organizations:
the secretariat of the convention on the PIC procedure for certain hazardous chemicals and
pesticides in international trade, PIC; and the secretariat of the convention on
persistent organic pollutants, POPs.
Although today Bonn’s placename signs
also bear the adjunct "federal city", some are already asking whether it might
not be possible to replace this with "UN city". A municipal spokeswomen
confirmed that this is "currently under discussion". It would be excellent
advertising for Bonn and also allow the annual celebrations at MARKTPLATZ in honor of
United nations day on October to become the city’s true yearly festival and perhaps
the mini-metropolis would then no longer be so sad about most ministries’ move to
Berlin.
The author is a freelance journalist and
lives in Bonn. Text courtesy: Deutschland E4 N1/2003 Feb-March. Source Embassy of Germany
in Kathmandu.
INTERVIEW GIVEN BY M.
DOMINIQUE DE VILLEPIN, FRENCH MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, TO "LCI"
Q. Yes or no, are you hoping for a
British-American coalition victory in Iraq? I’m asking you this question because last
week you addressed the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, and the
British press is criticizing you precisely for evading this question, so what’s your
answer?
THE MINISTER- Yes, I was
surprised by the question since the answer seemed so obvious to me. A war is always
tragic, and often unpredictable, and of course, we’re on the side of our allies,
we’re on the side of the law, the side of peace. We’ve said this clearly
throughout the past long months, but now we’re in a different situation, there is a
war, and in the war, obviously, we’re at the side of our allies, the United States
and Britain.
Q.- What’s the situation
regarding your relations with Jack Straw, and France’s relations with Tony Blair?
THE MINISTER- On the issue
we’re talking about – the reconstruction – France and Britain are both
urging the need to give the United Nations a central role. President Chirac talked at
length to Tony Blair over the weekend, I myself talked to Jack Straw, whom I’m going
to be meeting in a few days’ time.
Q.- Does that mean it’s going to
be possible to end what has, after all, been a serious fallout with London?
THE MINISTER- I believe that today both
countries are conscious of the risks being incurred in this region. And we’re mindful
of the need both to ensure the security of all those who are going to intervene in Iraq
and take account of the Iraqi people’s actual situation at the moment. The UN is
quite obviously the best-placed body to do this. And with our British friends, I believe
we have a common approach, it’s moreover that of the majority and of all the European
Union member countries, and the one shared by the whole international community.
The Americans are now committed with hundreds of thousands of
men: so there are an extremely large number of time; they have security imperatives and,
since they have the most confidence in their own forces, they want to keep total control
of these operations. But we feel that, precisely because the way the security of any
action in the reconstruction effort in Iraq is ensured has to be legitimate, we must
tackle this reconstruction phase extremely cautiously and prudently. So the aim must be
the very speedy recognition of Iraq’s unity, integrity and sovereignty. We need a
legitimate Iraqi government very quickly to take up the reins in that country and we need
the United Nation to support, legitimize, organize and coordinate the international
community’s action.
Q.- But how can one avoid both the creation of
[anti-American and anti-Western] reactions and the break-up of country whose territorial
integrity you’re seeking to maintain and which we know full well, as history shows,
has always needed a very strong power to keep it together?
THE MINISTER- Maintenance of a military
presence on the ground and the exercise of the authority and political power by the United
Nations are in no way incompatible. The problem is to decide how to coordinate this
system, and this is precisely the whole purpose of the work we’re doing at the United
Nations, which we’re going to do in the next few days with the European Union, what
we shall possibly do with our American friends since, as you know, Colin Powel is coming
to Brussels at the end of the week.
Q.- the mini defence summit which is going to take
place in Brussels at the end of April at Belgium’s initiative will bring together
France, Belgium and Luxembourg [plus Germany]. Is there any point in pursuing a common
defence without Britain?
THE MINISTER- it’s a first stage, the
aim is to explore ideas and lay the groundwork for the future Defence Europe. It’s
the fruit of initiatives taken jointly by6 France and Germany as part of their
contributions to the Convention on the Future of Europe, it’s the fruit too of
initiatives taken by our Belgian friends. We want to mover forward. This initiative is a
process, one which we’ll obviously have to build on, open up. We must move forward,
bring together everyone who wants to be involved. Europe must to a far greater extent be
capable of ensuring its security. We have to make an extra effort and, from this point of
view, I believe that all four States you’ve referred to are clearly keen to press
ahead with the task. And judging by the positions taken by the various countries, I
realize that many other Europeans obviously desire to do the same. So a process has been
triggered, it will have to be developed, consolidated.
EXCERPTS ONLY, Paris, 1 April 2003, Text
courtesy: France embassy in Kathmandu.
France, land of
mathematicians
By Emmanuel Thévenon, France
Little known by the general public, the
French school of mathematics is the heir to a long tradition and occupies one of the very
top positions in the world.
Mathematics are everywhere. They invade
medical imaging, the economy, banking, the pharmaceuticals industry, biology... They are
omnipresent but secret. When they take Météor, a driverless line on the Paris metro,
users never imagine for a single moment that its design required the efforts of 150
mathematicians for five years... Few French people also know that their country is
considered to be the third strongest in mathematics on the planet, behind the United
States and Russia.
This excellence is part of a long history,
which began with Viète, in the 16th century. It then continued with Descartes (17th
century), Fermat (17th century), Lagrange (18th-19th centuries), Laplace (18th-19th
centuries), Galois (19th century)... and culminated with one of the greatest
mathematicians of all time:
Henri Poincaré (1854-1912), probably the
last to have had complete knowledge of mathematics and their applications.
The Bourbaki Group
"This ancient French tradition"
explained the great mathematician, Jean Dieudonné (1906-1992), a few years before his
death, "remained practically uninterrupted up to our time, except in the period that
followed the First World War: indeed, a number of young academics from all disciplines
were killed. (...) It was the founding of the Bourbaki group that made it possible to
reestablish a tradition that was in the process of disappearing."
In 1939, the first volume of Nicolas
Bourbaki's work appeared. Under this pseudonym hid a collective founded by former students
of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, famous for their taste for secrecy. The
"many-headed monster", as Gérard Tronel, president of the French Committee of
World Year of Mathematics nicknamed it, took the subject back to its starting point. The
aim was to rank its component parts in a logical order, and to discuss them with a precise
terminology in The Elements of Mathematics, a work which is still not complete. With
little influence outside our borders, the group was very powerful in France until 1968.
And although several announcements have reported its death, Nicolas Bourbaki continues his
quest: its members still organize a prestigious seminar, which meets three times a year at
the Poincaré Institute in Paris.
In contrast to its German counterpart, its
great pre-war rival, the French mathematical community did not emerge completely stifled
from the Second World War. On the contrary, greatly stimulated by the intellectual
excitement that the Bourbakists and a few independent thinkers, such as Jean Leray,
continued to sustain, France was, when peace returned, to accumulate honours. Most
notably, between 1950 and 1966, it picked up one third of the Fields medals4. This award,
is awarded every four years to researchers under the age of forty. Laurent Schwartz was
declared the winner in 1950 for his "theory of distribution", Jean-Pierre Serre,
in 1954, for his work in pure mathematics, René Thom become famous for his "theory
of catastrophes" in 1958. In 1966, it was the turn of the genius, Alexander
Grothendieck, a specialist in algebraic geometry, a few years before his decision to give
up mathematics for ever and to live as a hermit.
The Paris region, a veritable
"Mathematics Valley"
The 1970s were more difficult, with the
government significantly reducing the number of appointments in higher education. It was
not until the late 1980s that more enviable staffing levels were restored. With 3,000
researchers in the universities and 300 at the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific
Research), France today, in proportion to its population, has the largest number of
mathematicians in the world. The Paris region, a veritable "Mathematics Valley",
is also one of its greatest assets. Indeed, the Ile-de-France is home to several hundred
researchers, graduates of the traditional Parisian breeding grounds of the Ecole
Polytechnique and the Ecole Normale Supérieure, both founded under the Revolution, as
well as the Pierre-et-Marie-Curie (Paris VI), Denis-Diderot (Paris VII) and Orsay
universities, together with the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (see box) at
Bures-sur-Yvette in the Paris region, a research institute as unusual as it is
distinguished. These efforts ultimately bore fruit: in 1982, Alain Connes carried off the
Fields medal for his research in algebra. He was followed, in 1994, by Jean-Christophe
Yoccoz and Pierre-Louis Lions, for their work in applied mathematics, a field in which the
French long lagged behind.
Nonetheless, despite a rather enviable
international position, the French school of mathematics is facing the third millennium
with a little apprehension. In a discipline in which the most productive period for
researchers is before the age of forty, there is a shortage of young mathematicians. This
imbalance of the generations will be even more marked in the years 2005-2010, when almost
half the teachers in higher education will retire. Fortunately, the job market is becoming
international and since the 1990s a great many vacant posts are now filled by foreigners,
especially from Eastern Europe. "What worries us more," explains Marc Brunaud,
professor at the Parisian university of Jussieu, "is above all the relative loss of
influence of mathematical research in the training of engineers and business executives.
If this situation persists, it risks, ultimately, to limit France's capacity for
innovation, which is vital to our economy."
Emmanuel Thévenon, Journalist |
