A very humble and quiet question (2)
------------------------------------
I have a very humble and quiet question:
Why should we read in this basically SCIENTIFIC net such nonsense and
political issues as "Sanyakhu-Sheps Amare's" note?
From the Moderator:
AFRO-NETS is a moderated network and each message going out to the sub-
scribers has to be approved by the moderator. It is easy to remove spam
(advertisements), administrative requests etc. but more delicate if it
comes to scientific questions, which have political dimensions. The
topic of "Mbeki vs. the AIDS Establishment..." that has so far led to
15 contributions on AFRO-NETS is a typical example. As a moderator I
would not have liked to see a discussion "whether HIV causes AIDS",
though it might be a 'scientific' question, but appreciated the discus-
sion of the political dimension of the AIDS problem.
There is no "pure science" without political consequences as we have
seen in the past (nuclear power, medical research in Nazi Germany
etc.). Therefore scientists have to be aware of the political dimen-
sions of their research. That is the main reason why AFRO-NETS can't do
without politics.
On the other hand Dr. Balint Gabor Sandor is right in reminding us that
AFRO-NETS is basically a scientific network, meant for discussion of:
* Advocacy for health research & development in Africa
* Priority setting
* Capacity building
* Resource mobilisation
* Evaluation
* Dissemination of results
* Utilisation of research findings
* Networking
It should also serve as a forum for announcing meetings, training
courses and other events of interest to the subscribers.
In Sanyakhu-Sheps Amare' s contribution the author of the article was
obviously somebody else, whom I normally should have asked to separate
the AIDS topic from the land question in Zimbabwe. The alternative was
to reject the contribution completely, which could easily be seen as
censorship due to some embarrassing statements made in the article.
I decided to let the contribution pass unaltered and wait for the reac-
tion of our subscribers. There was another response asking for more
moderation (i.e. rejection of the article). It is obviously not so easy
to navigate between moderation and censorship.
Best regards,
Dieter Neuvians
mailto:neuvians@harare.iafrica.com
P.S. with a click of a mouse you can move unwanted messages into
the trash bin.
--
Send mail for the `AFRO-NETS' conference to `afro-nets@usa.healthnet.org'.
Mail administrative requests to `majordomo@usa.healthnet.org'.
For additional assistance, send mail to: `owner-afro-nets@usa.healthnet.org'.