By John L Esposito
Last year, at a European meeting of intelligence officials from the US and Europe, a Swiss participant commented on a proposed referendum on minarets. He was sure it would go nowhere since, as he said, Switzerland is a very pluralistic society; its Muslim population is relatively small and there are few mosques with minarets.
Enlightened Switzerland has now become part of an "Enlightened Liberal Europe" that is increasingly not all that liberal.
The stunning Swiss vote - 57 per cent - approving a referendum to ban minarets, should not have been all that surprising, considering the growing power of Islamophobia.
In both Europe and the US, right-wing politicians, political commentators, media personalities, and religious leaders continue to feed a growing suspicion of mainstream Muslims by fuelling a fear that Islam, and not just Muslim extremism, is a threat.
In the aftermath of attacks in the US and Europe, the relevance and viability of multiculturalism as a policy was challenged by those who charged that such an approach contributed to domestic terrorism.
They argued that such a policy helped in retarding Muslim assimilation and civic engagement, perpetuated foreign loyalties, and provided a space for militant radicals.
Integration versus assimilation
The process of integration, in which immigrant citizens and residents could retain their religious and ethnic differences, was rejected by many, in particular the far-right in Europe, who demand total assimilation.
Modern-day prophets of doom have predicted that Europe will be overrun by Islam - transformed by the end of the century into "Eurabia".
The media, political leaders, and commentators on the right warn of a "soft terrorism" plot to take over the US and Europe.
Bernard Lewis, a Middle East historian and adviser to the Bush administration on its failed Iraq policy, received widespread coverage when he chided Europeans for losing their loyalties, self-confidence, and respect for their own culture, charging that they have "surrendered" to Islam in a mood of "self-abasement," "political correctness," and "multi-culturalism".
Daniel Pipes, a columnist, political commentator and relentless Muslim critic who wrote an article called "The Muslims are coming. The Muslims are coming", also declared: "Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene ... All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most."
European Muslim mosaic
Fortunately, many Muslim and Christian leaders, and major European politicians and human rights experts have condemned the minaret ban, and the Vatican has denounced it as an infringement of religious freedom.
However, the surprising gains made by Geert Wilders' Freedom Party in the Netherlands, the Danish People's Party, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), Hungarian Jobbik, and the British National Party in the recent European parliament elections emboldened many of their leaders to applaud the Swiss vote and encourage similar prohibitions.
Wilders, the leader of the anti-Muslim Freedom Party in the Netherlands, who previously warned that mass deportation of millions of Muslims from Europe may be necessary, called for a vote to stem the "tide of Islamisation" in the Netherlands.
The far-right persistently refuses to face a 21st century reality - to acknowledge and accept the fact that Muslims are part of the mosaic of their nations.
Islam is now a European religion, and, in fact, the second largest religion in many European countries. No longer predominantly first generation immigrants, many are second and third generation citizens.
Despite the acts and continued threat from a very small but dangerous minority of extremists, the majority of Muslims, like their non-Muslim fellow compatriots, are loyal citizens.
The Swiss ban, like some other European countries' policies, highlights a failure of Western liberalism and raises fundamental questions about religious discrimination and freedom of religion.
While there are only four minarets in Switzerland, a country that is home to approximately 400,000 Muslims, supporters of the referendum mindlessly charge that the minaret is a political symbol of militant Islam.
This makes about as much sense as saying that church steeples symbolise militant Christianity.
Dangerous precedent
So, where do we go from here?
Western political and religious opinion-makers and the media will need to resolutely address the dangers of Islamophobia as aggressively as they do other forms of hate speech and hate crimes, ranging from racial discrimination to anti-Semitism.
European Muslims will need to continue to speak out publicly, demanding their rights as European citizens and residents and also denouncing religious discrimination and violence as well as limits placed on constructing churches in the Muslim world.
Globalisation and an increasingly multicultural and multi-religious West tests the mettle of cherished democratic principles and values.
Islamophobia, which is becoming a social cancer, must be recognised and be as unacceptable as anti-Semitism, a threat to the very fabric of our democratic, pluralistic way of life.
The continued threat and response to global terrorism coupled with the resurgence of xenophobia and cultural racism have contributed to threaten the fundamentals of liberal democracies in the West and their Muslim citizens in particular.
The fine line between distinguishing between the faith of Islam and those who commit violence and terror in the name of Islam, between the majority of mainstream Muslims and the acts of a minority of Muslim extremists and terrorists, must be maintained.
Blurring these distinctions risks the adoption of foreign and domestic policies that promote a clash rather than co-existence of cultures. They play into the hands of preachers of hate (Muslim and non-Muslim), religious and political leaders, and political commentators whose rhetoric incites and demonises, alienates and marginalises.
John L Esposito is a professor of Religion and International Affairs, professor of Islamic Studies and founding director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
He is the editor-in-chief of the six-volume The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, and has written more than 35 books including 'Who Speaks for Islam?', 'What a Billion Muslims Really Think', and 'The Future of Islam'.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Source: http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/12/2009124171829382892.html
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Halabja gas attack survivor reunited with mother
A man who as a baby survived a chemical attack on the Iraqi city of Halabja in 1988 has been reunited with his mother.
Ali Pour was taken to Iran by Iranian soldiers who stormed the Kurdish city days after the gas attack by Saddam Hussein's forces.
Mr Pour, now 21, had to wait for the results of a DNA test before it could be determined whose son he was.
His mother, whose husband and six other children had all died in the attack, fainted when she heard.
Five thousand people were killed in the Halabja attack, considered one of the worst atrocities of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Five other families were waiting to hear from a judge whether Mr Pour was their missing son, but Fatima Mohammed Salih, 58, was found to be his real mother.
"I'm in a dream," Mr Pour said as he comforted her, according to Associated Press news agency.
Mr Pour had been adopted by an Iranian woman and named Ali.
He grew up in eastern Iran speaking Persian, although he always knew he was from Halabja.
Co-operation between the Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish regional governments led to this week's reunification - the first time a long-lost son of Halabja is known to have been reunited with his family.
Mr Pour, know as Zimnaku to his birth mother, has said he plans to stay in the region to study and learn the local language.
He is proud of his Kurdish identity, and is going to move in with his mother, he said.
"I wonder if it is a dream or a gift from God," his mother said.
Forty-one people - children at the time of the attack, are still registered as missing, the assistant chief of the Directorate of the Martyrs of Halabja said, according to AP.
As a four-month-old baby, Ali Pour managed to survive three days after the gas attack while his family died around him.
His mother remembers the gas burning her children, collapsing herself and then waking in a Tehran hospital.
An Iranian woman offered to adopt him.
When Mr Pour's adoptive mother died in a car accident four months ago, he said: "I felt lonely and I felt a strange feeling calling me to return to the arms of my relatives.
"I decided to go back."
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8397547.stm
Ali Pour was taken to Iran by Iranian soldiers who stormed the Kurdish city days after the gas attack by Saddam Hussein's forces.
Mr Pour, now 21, had to wait for the results of a DNA test before it could be determined whose son he was.
His mother, whose husband and six other children had all died in the attack, fainted when she heard.
Five thousand people were killed in the Halabja attack, considered one of the worst atrocities of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Five other families were waiting to hear from a judge whether Mr Pour was their missing son, but Fatima Mohammed Salih, 58, was found to be his real mother.
"I'm in a dream," Mr Pour said as he comforted her, according to Associated Press news agency.
Mr Pour had been adopted by an Iranian woman and named Ali.
He grew up in eastern Iran speaking Persian, although he always knew he was from Halabja.
Co-operation between the Iranian and Iraqi Kurdish regional governments led to this week's reunification - the first time a long-lost son of Halabja is known to have been reunited with his family.
Mr Pour, know as Zimnaku to his birth mother, has said he plans to stay in the region to study and learn the local language.
He is proud of his Kurdish identity, and is going to move in with his mother, he said.
"I wonder if it is a dream or a gift from God," his mother said.
Forty-one people - children at the time of the attack, are still registered as missing, the assistant chief of the Directorate of the Martyrs of Halabja said, according to AP.
As a four-month-old baby, Ali Pour managed to survive three days after the gas attack while his family died around him.
His mother remembers the gas burning her children, collapsing herself and then waking in a Tehran hospital.
An Iranian woman offered to adopt him.
When Mr Pour's adoptive mother died in a car accident four months ago, he said: "I felt lonely and I felt a strange feeling calling me to return to the arms of my relatives.
"I decided to go back."
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8397547.stm
Thursday, December 3, 2009
My compatriots' vote to ban minarets is fuelled by fear
The Swiss have voted not against towers, but Muslims. Across Europe, we must stand up to the flame-fanning populists
By Tariq Ramadan
It wasn't meant to go this way. For months we had been told that the efforts to ban the construction of minarets in Switzerland were doomed. The last surveys suggested around 34% of the Swiss population would vote for this shocking initiative. Last Friday, in a meeting organised in Lausanne, more than 800 students, professors and citizens were in no doubt that the referendum would see the motion rejected, and instead were focused on how to turn this silly initiative into a more positive future.
Today that confidence was shattered, as 57% of the Swiss population did as the Union Démocratique du Centre (UDC) had urged them to – a worrying sign that this populist party may be closest to the people's fears and expectations. For the first time since 1893 an initiative that singles out one community, with a clear discriminatory essence, has been approved in Switzerland. One can hope that the ban will be rejected at the European level, but that makes the result no less alarming. What is happening in Switzerland, the land of my birth?
There are only four minarets in Switzerland, so why is it that it is there that this initiative has been launched? My country, like many in Europe, is facing a national reaction to the new visibility of European Muslims. The minarets are but a pretext – the UDC wanted first to launch a campaign against the traditional Islamic methods of slaughtering animals but were afraid of testing the sensitivity of Swiss Jews, and instead turned their sights on the minaret as a suitable symbol.
Every European country has its specific symbols or topics through which European Muslims are targeted. In France it is the headscarf or burka; in Germany, mosques; in Britain, violence; cartoons in Denmark; homosexuality in the Netherlands – and so on. It is important to look beyond these symbols and understand what is really happening in Europe in general and in Switzerland in particular: while European countries and citizens are going through a real and deep identity crisis, the new visibility of Muslims is problematic – and it is scary.
At the very moment Europeans find themselves asking, in a globalising, migratory world, "What are our roots?", "Who are we?", "What will our future look like?", they see around them new citizens, new skin colours, new symbols to which they are unaccustomed.
Over the last two decades Islam has become connected to so many controversial debates – violence, extremism, freedom of speech, gender discrimination, forced marriage, to name a few – it is difficult for ordinary citizens to embrace this new Muslim presence as a positive factor. There is a great deal of fear and a palpable mistrust. Who are they? What do they want? And the questions are charged with further suspicion as the idea of Islam being an expansionist religion is intoned. Do these people want to Islamise our country?
The campaign against the minarets was fuelled by just these anxieties and allegations. Voters were drawn to the cause by a manipulative appeal to popular fears and emotions. Posters featured a woman wearing a burka with the minarets drawn as weapons on a colonised Swiss flag. The claim was made that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Swiss values. (The UDC has in the past demanded my citizenship be revoked because I was defending Islamic values too openly.) Its media strategy was simple but effective. Provoke controversy wherever it can be inflamed. Spread a sense of victimhood among the Swiss people: we are under siege, the Muslims are silently colonising us and we are losing our very roots and culture. This strategy worked. The Swiss majority are sending a clear message to their Muslim fellow citizens: we do not trust you and the best Muslim for us is the Muslim we cannot see.
Who is to be blamed? I have been repeating for years to Muslim people that they have to be positively visible, active and proactive within their respective western societies. In Switzerland, over the past few months, Muslims have striven to remain hidden in order to avoid a clash. It would have been more useful to create new alliances with all these Swiss organisations and political parties that were clearly against the initiative. Swiss Muslims have their share of responsibility but one must add that the political parties, in Europe as in Switzerland have become cowed, and shy from any courageous policies towards religious and cultural pluralism. It is as if the populists set the tone and the rest follow. They fail to assert that Islam is by now a Swiss and a European religion and that Muslim citizens are largely "integrated". That we face common challenges, such as unemployment, poverty and violence – challenges we must face together. We cannot blame the populists alone – it is a wider failure, a lack of courage, a terrible and narrow-minded lack of trust in their new Muslim citizens.
Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen, is professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University. His most recent book is What I Believe
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/nov/29/swiss-vote-ban-minarets-fear
By Tariq Ramadan
It wasn't meant to go this way. For months we had been told that the efforts to ban the construction of minarets in Switzerland were doomed. The last surveys suggested around 34% of the Swiss population would vote for this shocking initiative. Last Friday, in a meeting organised in Lausanne, more than 800 students, professors and citizens were in no doubt that the referendum would see the motion rejected, and instead were focused on how to turn this silly initiative into a more positive future.
Today that confidence was shattered, as 57% of the Swiss population did as the Union Démocratique du Centre (UDC) had urged them to – a worrying sign that this populist party may be closest to the people's fears and expectations. For the first time since 1893 an initiative that singles out one community, with a clear discriminatory essence, has been approved in Switzerland. One can hope that the ban will be rejected at the European level, but that makes the result no less alarming. What is happening in Switzerland, the land of my birth?
There are only four minarets in Switzerland, so why is it that it is there that this initiative has been launched? My country, like many in Europe, is facing a national reaction to the new visibility of European Muslims. The minarets are but a pretext – the UDC wanted first to launch a campaign against the traditional Islamic methods of slaughtering animals but were afraid of testing the sensitivity of Swiss Jews, and instead turned their sights on the minaret as a suitable symbol.
Every European country has its specific symbols or topics through which European Muslims are targeted. In France it is the headscarf or burka; in Germany, mosques; in Britain, violence; cartoons in Denmark; homosexuality in the Netherlands – and so on. It is important to look beyond these symbols and understand what is really happening in Europe in general and in Switzerland in particular: while European countries and citizens are going through a real and deep identity crisis, the new visibility of Muslims is problematic – and it is scary.
At the very moment Europeans find themselves asking, in a globalising, migratory world, "What are our roots?", "Who are we?", "What will our future look like?", they see around them new citizens, new skin colours, new symbols to which they are unaccustomed.
Over the last two decades Islam has become connected to so many controversial debates – violence, extremism, freedom of speech, gender discrimination, forced marriage, to name a few – it is difficult for ordinary citizens to embrace this new Muslim presence as a positive factor. There is a great deal of fear and a palpable mistrust. Who are they? What do they want? And the questions are charged with further suspicion as the idea of Islam being an expansionist religion is intoned. Do these people want to Islamise our country?
The campaign against the minarets was fuelled by just these anxieties and allegations. Voters were drawn to the cause by a manipulative appeal to popular fears and emotions. Posters featured a woman wearing a burka with the minarets drawn as weapons on a colonised Swiss flag. The claim was made that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Swiss values. (The UDC has in the past demanded my citizenship be revoked because I was defending Islamic values too openly.) Its media strategy was simple but effective. Provoke controversy wherever it can be inflamed. Spread a sense of victimhood among the Swiss people: we are under siege, the Muslims are silently colonising us and we are losing our very roots and culture. This strategy worked. The Swiss majority are sending a clear message to their Muslim fellow citizens: we do not trust you and the best Muslim for us is the Muslim we cannot see.
Who is to be blamed? I have been repeating for years to Muslim people that they have to be positively visible, active and proactive within their respective western societies. In Switzerland, over the past few months, Muslims have striven to remain hidden in order to avoid a clash. It would have been more useful to create new alliances with all these Swiss organisations and political parties that were clearly against the initiative. Swiss Muslims have their share of responsibility but one must add that the political parties, in Europe as in Switzerland have become cowed, and shy from any courageous policies towards religious and cultural pluralism. It is as if the populists set the tone and the rest follow. They fail to assert that Islam is by now a Swiss and a European religion and that Muslim citizens are largely "integrated". That we face common challenges, such as unemployment, poverty and violence – challenges we must face together. We cannot blame the populists alone – it is a wider failure, a lack of courage, a terrible and narrow-minded lack of trust in their new Muslim citizens.
Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen, is professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University. His most recent book is What I Believe
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/nov/29/swiss-vote-ban-minarets-fear
In fear of 'Eurabia'?
By Mark LeVine
The images were clearly intended to get out the vote, and judging by the 57 per cent "yes" vote to ban the construction of minarets in Switzerland on Sunday, they worked all too well.
They included the depiction of minarets piercing through the Swiss flag; minarets on top of the flag, with a menacing, niqab-wearing Muslim woman in the foreground.
One could be forgiven for imagining that the Muslims were at the gates of Vienna, or even Lucerne, threatening to overrun Christian Europe. And of course, for the proponents of the ban, that is precisely the situation Europe faces today.
For centuries, the peoples of Europe have defined their continental identity against the threat of Islam. So much so that it is hard to imagine a European identity that does not have Islam as its foil.
There are, of course, good historical reasons for this.
From the eighth century Europe was in fact surrounded by Muslims to the East and South, who ruled much of the Eastern continent for the next millennium.
Of course, except in the wildest dreams of jihadists, Europe will not be taken down by Muslim swords today. But for right-wing fear mongers, the contemporary Muslim threat is just as nefarious, only the weapon is different.
The ultimate 'other'
That Muslim woman in the now infamous poster is not just the ultimate 'other' - totally impenetrable to the Western gaze in a social space where topless women are de rigeur on billboards, magazines, TV commercials and the beach - but, the niqab or burka-wearing Muslim woman is believed to stand for all Muslim women, who, it is assumed, possess little or no control over their own bodies.
And because of this, she is as dangerous as the H1N1 virus currently scaring people across the continent. Underneath her niqab lies a human bomb - not a suicide vest, but a baby; lots of babies, if you believe the hype.
All these Muslims babies threaten to transform the fundamental identity of Europe as a "Western," "modern," "secular-yet-Christian" space - the very antithesis of what most Europeans imagine Muslims to be.
In some sense, of course, the return of a robust Muslim presence in Europe would be a return to history, to a time when a good share of Europe was Muslim. But that is a history few Europeans hearken to. In fact, Europe's first post-Cold War conflict, in the Balkans, was driven in good measure by just this fear.
Beneath the fear, however, lies that undeniable reality that the combination in Europe of very low indigenous (meaning white and Christian) birth rates and increasing immigration of Muslims with higher birth rates means that the percentage of Muslims will continue to grow.
They will not, however, become a majority in Europe under any conceivable scenario in the coming decades.
In fact, the actual demographic trends show a decline in birth rates by Muslim women as they become settled into Europe, which corresponds to the declining birth rates across the Muslim world (many of whose governments have initiated aggressive family planning programmes).
Indeed, as Muslim women live in Europe, learn the languages, get educated and join the workforce, they become more "European" - or more accurately, like women globally, who, if they have the resources and freedom to control their reproduction, choose to have smaller families.
Of course, if they are marginalised and, along with their male counterparts, not given sufficient chance to become a functioning part of their new societies, this process will happen more slowly, if at all, creating a self-fulfilling cycle of recrimination and disintegration.
From Europe to 'Eurabia'?
Either way, it is clear that Europe is going to become more Muslim in the coming decades. The question is whether in the process it will become more Islamic - that is, publicly religious and impacted by Muslim religious symbols and practices - and which version of Islam will define the emerging European Islam.
Will it be a "Euro-Islam" that respects core liberal values of tolerance, openness and respect for the rule of law, or a "Ghetto Islam" that produces subcultures that are largely isolated and hostile to the European self-image (one which, it must be remembered, largely excludes Muslims in the first place)?
The fear mongers behind the rising tide of Islamophobia in Europe argue that the continent is on the way to becoming "Eurabia" - that is, taken over by a Muslim tide and losing its core Europeanness in the process.
It is hard to know how many Europeans buy into this argument. But, while it is rarely a good idea to generalise, the majority would likely prefer Muslims to assimilate into their host societies, to shed the outward appearances of difference, and not integrate - a process that inevitably changes the host culture as well, as it takes on elements of the newer arrival and, inevitably, loses some of its traditions in the process.
Picture-postcard Europe
It is not surprising that in Switzerland the focus would be on minarets.
More than most countries, Switzerland defines itself by its visual aesthetic. It is the picture postcard of Europe, with nothing out of place, the quintessential European destination.
Never mind that Swiss Muslims are among the least conservative in Europe and that the call to prayer is already banned in Switzerland; the presence of more minarets would call out to the Swiss, saying: "We are here and we're not going anywhere. And we're not just going to assimilate to your culture. We intend to keep core parts of ours as well."
Thus the referendum slogans calling for a halt to the "Islamisation of Switzerland". The minaret, as a highly visible sign of Islam's presence, becomes a "spearhead" of that Islamisation, "the symbol of political-societal power claim of Islam" as the website of the Swiss People's Party (SVP), the party behind the vote, describes it.
Never mind that most of the claims by the minaret ban's backers about Islam and the demographic threat are inaccurate. Islam, in their view, cannot exist without asserting unique claims to social and ultimately political power, which is why it is an existential threat by its very presence.
Muslims cannot just be; they have to convert others, and the voice of the muezzin "proclaiming down from the minaret" is the most powerful manifestation of this. Or so the backers of the minaret ban imagine.
Even Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, Switzerland's justice minister, admitted that the result "reflects fears among the population of Islamic fundamentalist tendencies," as if one cannot be Islamic without being fundamentalist.
This is the underlying problem in the debate over minarets, hijabs, or yet more troubling, attempts by European Muslims to establish separate courts and laws aligned with their interpretation of sharia to cover personal status issues.
At best, it says Muslims are willing to integrate, not assimilate into European society.
Comparisons to anti-Semitism
In the aftermath of Sunday's vote, many commentators, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, are comparing Islamophobia in Europe today to the anti-Semitism that plagued the continent in the first half of the 20th century.
While understandable, such comparisons miss the fundamental difference between the position of Jews in Europe then and Muslims in Europe today.
Jews had lived in Europe for centuries and, despite anti-Jewish sentiments among huge swaths of Europe's population, were very much a part of their societies' cultures, economies, and increasingly politics.
Indeed, in Germany it was precisely the increasing full participation of Jews in so many parts of national life that made them such an existential threat.
They were Europe's most intimate 'other', inside the very fabric of European identity and increasingly, impossible to tell from "real" Europeans.
As such they became a lethal virus that, in the Nazi logic, had to be eradicated to restore the purity of the race.
The situation for Muslims today is very different.
Muslims are still relatively new to most European societies; at most a couple of generations old. As one Fox news report put it after a riot in Muslim neighbourhoods of the Swedish town of Malmö, they are "outsiders who are already inside" European societies.
What is worrying is that as a new generation of European Muslims come of age and move deeper inside European culture, economies and politics, the fears and prejudices against them will surely grow, especially if, as in Germany of the 1930s, the economic situation continues to deteriorate.
Mass violence against Muslims comparable to that visited against Jews is unimaginable. But as Muslims become, welcomed or not, part of the European fabric, the prejudices against them could begin to take on some of the form of the anti-Semitism that plagued pre-war Europe.
The larger picture
Ultimately, the vote to ban minarets, like other anti-Islamic legislation, is a symptom of a larger problem within contemporary European societies.
It is not just that Europeans are increasingly inhospitable to Muslims and other immigrants. These sentiments reflect the fraying of the social fabric of Europe more broadly, particularly of countries that have had strong recent traditions of social solidarity and welfare.
The larger implications have not been touched on in most of the commentary and reporting in the multi-lingual Swiss media, or the European press more broadly.
Instead, papers such as the German language Neue Zürcher Zeitung, described the vote as a revolt of "the people over the elites" and emphasised the need for rulers to "listen to the people" (a terminology which, in German at least, has alarming historical connotations).
The French language Le Temps questioned: "How can you dialogue when you're crushed by the weight of stereotypes?"
The answer is that people are increasingly scared that their social safety nets are fraying and that life is inexorably going to become harder. And they want quick solutions, not long and complicated dialogues.
And herein lies the real problem underlying the vote. It is not merely about Islam. It is also about the solidification of neo-liberalism economically and conservatism politically across the continent, and ultimately, about globalisation more broadly.
Together, the political, economic and social dynamics are creating a situation in which governments are less able to deliver the high level of services that post-war Europeans have gotten used to, at the moment that ideologically, people are increasingly unwilling to look out for their fellow citizens' welfare as they did previously - when, of course, they also happened to look, speak and act much more like them.
Sweden, where I'm currently living, has long had one of Europe's most generous welfare states, which is coming under severe strain just as the Muslim population is growing rapidly.
But as a priest who works with immigrants pointed out to me, the unwillingness of Swedes in the wealthy town of Vellinge (to cite one example), to allow a home for child war refugees from Muslim countries in their town owes not merely to a fear or loathing against Muslims.
In the "new" and increasingly ineqalitarian Sweden, the emerging wealthy class living comfortably in low tax areas like Vellinge are equally unwilling to pay high taxes to support their fellow Swedes.
Of course, it is much easier to blame it on the Muslims and to continue to push them away even as they find their way inside Europe.
But if history is any guide, Europeans will start out blaming the 'inside other' for their problems, but it will not be too long before their anger, and violence, turns on each other.
Mark LeVine is currently visiting professor at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University, Sweden. His most recent books include Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books, 2009) and Reapproaching Borders: New Perspectives on the Study of Israel-Palestine (Rowman Littlefield, 2008).
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Source: Al Jazeera
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Biofuels scientist offered work to country
by Jonathan L. Mayuga (Correspondent)
13-March-2006 BusinessMirror
When Norman Secreto discovered there was high ethanol potential in molasses he didn't think twice about pursuing a thesis that would impact on the people and the economy.
Soon enough, the 22-year-old chemist found ways to extract high ethanol content from strains of molasses which can be used in the production of ethanol products - including alcohol and fuel.
Ethanol can be used as an additive for gasoline to mitigate the steadily increasing fuel process. It can also provide a cleaner and environment-friendly alternative to imported fossil fuels.
Norman got as far as his thesis, distinguished by having determined the highest percentage of ethanol (12 percent against the existing record of 9 percent) that can be extracted from molasses - and both his teachers at UP Los Baños and private firms looking to apply his discovery are excited.
But the brilliant young scientist is dead, victim of a recent freak accident. He fell last week from a jeep where he was hanging on the running board, on his way to a retreat in Mount Makiling. He suffered fatal blow on the skull.
His professor and thesis adviser Dr. Fidel Rey Nayve said Norman's experiment would have been the most significant scientific discovery in ethanol production and would have made him the youngest, sought-after biofuels scientist in the country today.
Norman, however, did not live long enough to enjoy the recognition - or perhaps even the monetary rewards, which would have been useful to his family in General Santos City.
"He was so young," laments Nayve. "He could have done more for the country."
Nayve described Norman as their "workhorse", doing much of the job with enthusiasm and high spirits.
"He was very patriotic. He dedicated his work to the Filipino people," he said.
Despite his humble origins and the oft-repeated admonition of people for him to do well for he can provide for a family of six children where he was the eldest sibling, Norman's sense of duty to country was overwhelming.
In the acknowledgement page of his agriculture engineering thesis: "Evaluation of Distillery Slops as Medium Component in Molasses-based Ethanol Fermentation Using Biotech Yeast Strains," Norman wrote:
"To my countrymen, the Filipino people, who subsidized my schooling in this University; may you reap the true worth of the taxes you paid when I graduate. It is my pleasure to serve you all in my own little ways…Mabuhay ang Pilipino! I keep on praying…Babangon ang Pilipinas."
Nayve admits he had a soft spot for his brilliant chemistry student. The eldest of six children, Norman belonged to a poor family like his teacher.
"He was very studious. He knew that his family is depending on him to finish his studies," says Nayve.
Nayve was able to study college of scholarship offered by the state university to deserving students in the countryside. "I didn't intend to study at UPLB because we were poor. I'm from Bicol. Even if I pass the UP College Admissions Test (UPCAT), we would not be able to afford the costs of my college education," Norman's professor said.
Nayve's mother, way back in the late 1970s, was a plain housewife while his father was an employee of a bottling company. When 20 application forms were raffled off by their school to 200 students, he was lucky to "win" one application form, prompting him to fill it up and take the test for UPCAT.
Like him, Norman had to work to be able to study - despite the fact that being a state university student entitled them to a lot of benefits, including free tuition and allowance as state scholars.
Norman graduated in 2005. He worked for a computer college before transferring to the UP Rural High School in Los Baños, where he taught mathematics last November.
Nayve says Norman continued to be involved in his biotech team, doing most of the work in their biofuels program. "He really supervised it closely, that's why the results came out well."
Norman's experiment was considered a breakthrough in ethanol production. Norman was able to produce ethanol at 12-percent volume per volume (v/v), even in medium containing 40-percent distillery slops.
The thesis, which he shared with Nayve, and fellow researchers Irene Gabrido, Francisco Elegado and Catalino Alfafara, was presented at the 27th Annual Scientific Meeting of the National Academy of Science and Technology in July 2005.
It focused on the current thrust of the government to expand the use of nonoil energy and fuel sources, especially biofuel.
Norman used the simplest strategy of producing yeast strains that produce ethanol.
He explained that the expected increase in ethanol production will be accompanied by the increase in distillery slops generation, which is the main waste in the distillery industry.
Distillery slops is a major environmental concern because of their high biological oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD).
Using the best combination of slops and yeast strain with bioreactor, Norman was able to determine potentially superior yeast strains among 10 local yeast isolates he used for the experiment.
He concluded that high ethanol production at 12-percent v/v was possible even in medium containing 40-percent distillery slops, after one of the strains performed much better - perhaps better than most currently used industrial yeast strains.
Impressed by Norman's dedication to the experiment, Nayve sees a big a possibility for industry players using the thesis in the production of ethanol - both alcohol and fuel.
Although the results of the thesis have not yet been fully validated by industry players, Nayve is confident the result of the experiment is valid and will boost production of ethanol in the country in the future.
"This is a very important discovery. He got such a potent strain for use in ethanol production," Nayve says.
13-March-2006 BusinessMirror
When Norman Secreto discovered there was high ethanol potential in molasses he didn't think twice about pursuing a thesis that would impact on the people and the economy.
Soon enough, the 22-year-old chemist found ways to extract high ethanol content from strains of molasses which can be used in the production of ethanol products - including alcohol and fuel.
Ethanol can be used as an additive for gasoline to mitigate the steadily increasing fuel process. It can also provide a cleaner and environment-friendly alternative to imported fossil fuels.
Norman got as far as his thesis, distinguished by having determined the highest percentage of ethanol (12 percent against the existing record of 9 percent) that can be extracted from molasses - and both his teachers at UP Los Baños and private firms looking to apply his discovery are excited.
But the brilliant young scientist is dead, victim of a recent freak accident. He fell last week from a jeep where he was hanging on the running board, on his way to a retreat in Mount Makiling. He suffered fatal blow on the skull.
His professor and thesis adviser Dr. Fidel Rey Nayve said Norman's experiment would have been the most significant scientific discovery in ethanol production and would have made him the youngest, sought-after biofuels scientist in the country today.
Norman, however, did not live long enough to enjoy the recognition - or perhaps even the monetary rewards, which would have been useful to his family in General Santos City.
"He was so young," laments Nayve. "He could have done more for the country."
Nayve described Norman as their "workhorse", doing much of the job with enthusiasm and high spirits.
"He was very patriotic. He dedicated his work to the Filipino people," he said.
Despite his humble origins and the oft-repeated admonition of people for him to do well for he can provide for a family of six children where he was the eldest sibling, Norman's sense of duty to country was overwhelming.
In the acknowledgement page of his agriculture engineering thesis: "Evaluation of Distillery Slops as Medium Component in Molasses-based Ethanol Fermentation Using Biotech Yeast Strains," Norman wrote:
"To my countrymen, the Filipino people, who subsidized my schooling in this University; may you reap the true worth of the taxes you paid when I graduate. It is my pleasure to serve you all in my own little ways…Mabuhay ang Pilipino! I keep on praying…Babangon ang Pilipinas."
Nayve admits he had a soft spot for his brilliant chemistry student. The eldest of six children, Norman belonged to a poor family like his teacher.
"He was very studious. He knew that his family is depending on him to finish his studies," says Nayve.
Nayve was able to study college of scholarship offered by the state university to deserving students in the countryside. "I didn't intend to study at UPLB because we were poor. I'm from Bicol. Even if I pass the UP College Admissions Test (UPCAT), we would not be able to afford the costs of my college education," Norman's professor said.
Nayve's mother, way back in the late 1970s, was a plain housewife while his father was an employee of a bottling company. When 20 application forms were raffled off by their school to 200 students, he was lucky to "win" one application form, prompting him to fill it up and take the test for UPCAT.
Like him, Norman had to work to be able to study - despite the fact that being a state university student entitled them to a lot of benefits, including free tuition and allowance as state scholars.
Norman graduated in 2005. He worked for a computer college before transferring to the UP Rural High School in Los Baños, where he taught mathematics last November.
Nayve says Norman continued to be involved in his biotech team, doing most of the work in their biofuels program. "He really supervised it closely, that's why the results came out well."
Norman's experiment was considered a breakthrough in ethanol production. Norman was able to produce ethanol at 12-percent volume per volume (v/v), even in medium containing 40-percent distillery slops.
The thesis, which he shared with Nayve, and fellow researchers Irene Gabrido, Francisco Elegado and Catalino Alfafara, was presented at the 27th Annual Scientific Meeting of the National Academy of Science and Technology in July 2005.
It focused on the current thrust of the government to expand the use of nonoil energy and fuel sources, especially biofuel.
Norman used the simplest strategy of producing yeast strains that produce ethanol.
He explained that the expected increase in ethanol production will be accompanied by the increase in distillery slops generation, which is the main waste in the distillery industry.
Distillery slops is a major environmental concern because of their high biological oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD).
Using the best combination of slops and yeast strain with bioreactor, Norman was able to determine potentially superior yeast strains among 10 local yeast isolates he used for the experiment.
He concluded that high ethanol production at 12-percent v/v was possible even in medium containing 40-percent distillery slops, after one of the strains performed much better - perhaps better than most currently used industrial yeast strains.
Impressed by Norman's dedication to the experiment, Nayve sees a big a possibility for industry players using the thesis in the production of ethanol - both alcohol and fuel.
Although the results of the thesis have not yet been fully validated by industry players, Nayve is confident the result of the experiment is valid and will boost production of ethanol in the country in the future.
"This is a very important discovery. He got such a potent strain for use in ethanol production," Nayve says.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Biofuels scientist offered work to country
By Jonathan L. Mayuga, Business Mirror Correspondent
Business Mirror; March 13, 2006
When Normand Secreto discovered there was high ethanol potential in molasses, he didn’t think twice about pursuing a thesis that would impact on the people and the economy. Soon enough, the 22-year-old BS Chemical Engineering graduate found ways to extract high ethanol content from strains of molasses which can be used in the production of ethanol products - including alcohol and fuel. Ethanol can be used as an additive for gasoline to mitigate the steadily increasing fuel process. It can also provide a cleaner and environment-friendly alternative to imported fossil fuels.
Normand got as far as his thesis, distinguished by having determined the highest percentage of ethanol (12 percent against the existing record of 9 percent) that can be extracted from molasses - and both his teachers at UP Los Baños and private firms looking to apply his discovery are excited. But the brilliant young scientist is dead, victim of a recent freak accident. He fell last week from a jeep where he was hanging on the running board, on his way to a retreat in Mount Makiling. He suffered a fatal blow on the skull.
His professor and thesis adviser, Dr. Fidel Rey Nayve, said Normand’s experiment would have been the most significant scientific discovery in ethanol production and would have made him the youngest, sought-after biofuels scientist in the country today.
Normand, however, did not live long enough to enjoy the recognition – or perhaps even the monetary rewards, which would have been useful to his family in General Santos City. “He was so young,” laments Nayve. “He could have done more for the country.”
Nayve described Normand as their “workhorse”, doing much of the job with enthusiasm and high spirits. “He was very patriotic. He dedicated his work to the Filipino people,” he said.
Despite his humble origins and the oft-repeated admonition of people for him to do well for he can provide for a family of six children where he was the eldest sibling, Normand’s sense of duty to country was overwhelming. In the acknowledgement page of his chemical engineering thesis: “Evaluation of Distillery Slops as Medium Component in Molasses-based Ethanol Fermentation Using Biotech Yeast Strains,” Normand wrote:
“To my countrymen, the Filipino people, who subsidized my schooling in this University; may you reap the true worth of the taxes you paid when I graduate. It is my pleasure to serve you all in my own little ways…Mabuhay ang Pilipino! I keep on praying…Babangon ang Pilipinas.”
Nayve admits he had a soft spot for his brilliant chemistry student. The eldest of six children, Normand belonged to a poor family like his teacher. “He was very studious. He knew that his family is depending on him to finish his studies,” says Nayve.
Nayve himself was able to study college through a scholarship offered by the state university to deserving students in the countryside. “I didn’t intend to study at UPLB because we were poor. I’m from Bicol. Even if I pass the UP College Admissions Test (UPCAT), we would not be able to afford the costs of my college education,” Normand’s professor said.
Nayve’s mother, way back in the late 1970s, was a plain housewife while his father was an employee of a bottling company. When 20 application forms were raffled off by their school to 200 students, he was lucky to “win” one application form, prompting him to fill it up and take the test for UPCAT.
Like him, Normand had to work to be able to study - despite the fact that being a state university student entitled them to a lot of benefits, including free tuition and allowance as state scholars. Normand graduated in 2005. He worked for a computer college before transferring to the UP Rural High School in Los Baños, where he taught mathematics last November.
Nayve says Normand continued to be involved in his BIOTECH team, doing most of the work in their biofuels program. “He really supervised it closely, that’s why the results came out well.”
Normand’s experiment was considered a breakthrough in ethanol production. Normand was able to produce ethanol at 12-percent volume per volume (v/v), even in medium containing 40-percent distillery slops. The thesis, which he shared with Nayve, and fellow researchers Irene Gabrido, Francisco Elegado and Catalino Alfafara, was present at the 27th Annual Scientific Meeting of the National Academy of Science and Technology in July 2005.
It focused on the current thrust of the government to expand the use of nonoil energy and fuel sources, especially biofuel. Normand used the simplest strategy of producing yeast strains that produce ethanol. He explained that the expected increase in ethanol production will be accompanied by the increase in distillery slops generation, which is the main waste in the distillery industry.
Distillery slops is a major environmental concern because of their high biological oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD). Using the best combination of slops and yeast strain with bioreactor, Normand was able to determine potentially superior yeast strains among 10 local yeast isolates he used for the experiment. He concluded that high ethanol production at 12-percent v/v was possible even in medium containing 40-percent distillery slops, after one of the strains performed much better - perhaps better than most currently used industrial yeast strains.
Impressed by Normand’s dedication to the experiment, Nayve sees a big a possibility for industry players using the thesis in the production of ethanol - both alcohol and fuel.
Although the results of the thesis have not yet been fully validated by industry players, Nayve is confident the result of the experiment is valid and will boost production of ethanol in the country in the future. “This is a very important discovery. He got such a potent strain for use in ethanol production,” Nayve says.
Business Mirror; March 13, 2006
When Normand Secreto discovered there was high ethanol potential in molasses, he didn’t think twice about pursuing a thesis that would impact on the people and the economy. Soon enough, the 22-year-old BS Chemical Engineering graduate found ways to extract high ethanol content from strains of molasses which can be used in the production of ethanol products - including alcohol and fuel. Ethanol can be used as an additive for gasoline to mitigate the steadily increasing fuel process. It can also provide a cleaner and environment-friendly alternative to imported fossil fuels.
Normand got as far as his thesis, distinguished by having determined the highest percentage of ethanol (12 percent against the existing record of 9 percent) that can be extracted from molasses - and both his teachers at UP Los Baños and private firms looking to apply his discovery are excited. But the brilliant young scientist is dead, victim of a recent freak accident. He fell last week from a jeep where he was hanging on the running board, on his way to a retreat in Mount Makiling. He suffered a fatal blow on the skull.
His professor and thesis adviser, Dr. Fidel Rey Nayve, said Normand’s experiment would have been the most significant scientific discovery in ethanol production and would have made him the youngest, sought-after biofuels scientist in the country today.
Normand, however, did not live long enough to enjoy the recognition – or perhaps even the monetary rewards, which would have been useful to his family in General Santos City. “He was so young,” laments Nayve. “He could have done more for the country.”
Nayve described Normand as their “workhorse”, doing much of the job with enthusiasm and high spirits. “He was very patriotic. He dedicated his work to the Filipino people,” he said.
Despite his humble origins and the oft-repeated admonition of people for him to do well for he can provide for a family of six children where he was the eldest sibling, Normand’s sense of duty to country was overwhelming. In the acknowledgement page of his chemical engineering thesis: “Evaluation of Distillery Slops as Medium Component in Molasses-based Ethanol Fermentation Using Biotech Yeast Strains,” Normand wrote:
“To my countrymen, the Filipino people, who subsidized my schooling in this University; may you reap the true worth of the taxes you paid when I graduate. It is my pleasure to serve you all in my own little ways…Mabuhay ang Pilipino! I keep on praying…Babangon ang Pilipinas.”
Nayve admits he had a soft spot for his brilliant chemistry student. The eldest of six children, Normand belonged to a poor family like his teacher. “He was very studious. He knew that his family is depending on him to finish his studies,” says Nayve.
Nayve himself was able to study college through a scholarship offered by the state university to deserving students in the countryside. “I didn’t intend to study at UPLB because we were poor. I’m from Bicol. Even if I pass the UP College Admissions Test (UPCAT), we would not be able to afford the costs of my college education,” Normand’s professor said.
Nayve’s mother, way back in the late 1970s, was a plain housewife while his father was an employee of a bottling company. When 20 application forms were raffled off by their school to 200 students, he was lucky to “win” one application form, prompting him to fill it up and take the test for UPCAT.
Like him, Normand had to work to be able to study - despite the fact that being a state university student entitled them to a lot of benefits, including free tuition and allowance as state scholars. Normand graduated in 2005. He worked for a computer college before transferring to the UP Rural High School in Los Baños, where he taught mathematics last November.
Nayve says Normand continued to be involved in his BIOTECH team, doing most of the work in their biofuels program. “He really supervised it closely, that’s why the results came out well.”
Normand’s experiment was considered a breakthrough in ethanol production. Normand was able to produce ethanol at 12-percent volume per volume (v/v), even in medium containing 40-percent distillery slops. The thesis, which he shared with Nayve, and fellow researchers Irene Gabrido, Francisco Elegado and Catalino Alfafara, was present at the 27th Annual Scientific Meeting of the National Academy of Science and Technology in July 2005.
It focused on the current thrust of the government to expand the use of nonoil energy and fuel sources, especially biofuel. Normand used the simplest strategy of producing yeast strains that produce ethanol. He explained that the expected increase in ethanol production will be accompanied by the increase in distillery slops generation, which is the main waste in the distillery industry.
Distillery slops is a major environmental concern because of their high biological oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD). Using the best combination of slops and yeast strain with bioreactor, Normand was able to determine potentially superior yeast strains among 10 local yeast isolates he used for the experiment. He concluded that high ethanol production at 12-percent v/v was possible even in medium containing 40-percent distillery slops, after one of the strains performed much better - perhaps better than most currently used industrial yeast strains.
Impressed by Normand’s dedication to the experiment, Nayve sees a big a possibility for industry players using the thesis in the production of ethanol - both alcohol and fuel.
Although the results of the thesis have not yet been fully validated by industry players, Nayve is confident the result of the experiment is valid and will boost production of ethanol in the country in the future. “This is a very important discovery. He got such a potent strain for use in ethanol production,” Nayve says.
Of ethanol and scientists’ options: A page from Prometheus Bound
By J.M. Bo
Published Mar 2006 in The UPLB Horizon
As the country reeled from the multiple increases slapped on gas and oil products after world oil prices surged to record-high levels, everyone went into action mode: law makers rushed legislation, government agencies created ad hoc bodies to address the issue, offices issued energy savings advisories, and homemakers pinched on their budget.
In the University, about two years earlier, the Environmental Biotechnology Program (EBP) of the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (BIOTECH) had reinvigorated its activities under the former Biofuels Program which had lain dormant after the energy crisis in the 1980’s. BIOTECH had at the time isolated HBY3, an indigenous and high-alcohol producing yeast.
But as BIOTECH scientist and EBP Leader Fidel Rey Nayve said, BIOTECH was only able to go as far as testing HBY3 at the industry level when petroleum prices plunged and biofuels research became a victim of fad-based research funding. So the world heaved a sigh of relief when petroleum prices fell and BIOTECH had no choice but to shelve biofuels research as funding dried up. One country (Brazil), however, refused to forget the lessons of the oil crisis, proceeded with dogged determination, and is now the world’s foremost producer and exporter of ethanol.
Meanwhile, BIOTECH’s HBY3 was not left entirely in a dusty corner. Under unknown circumstances, it was pirated and used by the distillery industry to produce ethanol for alcoholic beverages. As Dr. Nayve sadly related, BIOTECH did not get anything from HBY3. “We had no intention of keeping the yeast strain or any technology for that matter to ourselves. What we just wanted is for BIOTECH to get financial returns (royalties) from them,” he said. To emphasize his point, he intimated that this year, BIOTECH’s core budget is only P100,000 per program, that when divided among five projects of the EBP, will leave only a measly P20,000 for each! This amount may not even be enough to cover the cost of media, i.e., yeast-extract, peptone, or bacto-agar!
According to Dr. Nayve, what is happening in BIOTECH is an offshoot of the low level of support that our government allocates to research and development. He said that industrialized countries allocate up to 3% of their GNP to scientific R&D while the Philippines allocated a pathetic 0.14% of its GNP during the same period (2000-2002). Dr. Nayve said that what supports BIOTECH are the external projects and its income generating services. The royalties from HBY3 would have contributed much towards enabling its researchers to continue with their research work.
And continue with the research work on bioethanol is what Dr. Nayve’s team at EBP will do. There are a lot of things going for the research team including the renewed interest in fossil fuel alternatives that are not import dependent, are sources of clean energy, and could generate rural employment to boot. Moreover, the country is endowed with renewable sources of bioethanol such as sugarcane and sugar refinery waste, sweet sorghum, cassava, lignocellulosic materials such as corn stover, grasses, and leaves. The list can go on.
Probably the most important component in bioethanol research are the human resources, the committed researchers who despite the lure of better-paying jobs, are staying on in the University for love of country. Dr. Nayve is only one himself in the BIOTECH team, although how long he and the rest will hold out considering the frustrating work conditions and lack of opportunities in the country , we can only guess and await with bated breath.
The BIOTECH team recently achieved a milestone in their research in bioethanol through the findings of a BS Chemical Engineering graduate, Normand Secreto, who worked on his thesis under Dr. Nayve and Dr. Catalino Alfafara’s tutelage and with the help of fellow researcher Irene Gabrido. Normand was able to identify a yeast that worked better than HBY3. If HBY3 was able to get an 8-9% volume per volume (v/v) concentration of ethanol from molasses in the bioreactor experiment, this yeast initially attained an 11% v/v concentration in the flask experiment, and later a 12% v/v concentration in the bioreactor experiment.
What is more remarkable about Normand’s research was that he was able to attain these levels of ethanol concentration not from a conventional medium but from a molasses medium containing 40% distillery slops. What is the significance of this in distillery waste management? This means that distillery slops can actually be recycled to produce ethanol!
Although slops are not toxic, the volume that is generated by distilleries, estimated at 10-15 liters for every liter of ethanol produced, is enough to clog up rivers, kill our fishery and even the tourism industry, as well as obliterate our coastal resources. The slops deprive the bodies of water with oxygen that every living thing they host needs in order to survive. As Normand and Dr. Nayve’s team worked on increasing ethanol concentration, they anticipated that the volume of distillery slops will increase and aggravate the distillery waste management problem. So why not make the problem a part of the solution? And make it they did!
With Dr. Nayve’s team, Normand was poised to expand the tests on the high ethanol yielding yeast at the industry level when a freak accident snuffed out his young and promising life (see related story on this page). Dr. Nayve says that Normand was such a loss to the team, being the very dedicated and focused researcher that he was.
Although short, Normand’s life clearly had a purpose and his demise may just be equally meaningful. It could fast track the industry-research linkage that Dr. Nayve’s team was planning to enter into to further confirm their findings on the promising yeast strain. For starters, it brought the attention of a distiller, who, after reading Normand’s story that was published in a newspaper, expressed interest in funding further research on the promising yeast strain’s potential to produce ethanol. Dr. Nayve, however, is approaching linkages with caution because he does not want to lose this yeast strain to piracy. He expressed his anxiety about having to take care of intellectual property issues and wished that this will be taken care of by more knowledgeable people or units.
Fad-based if not low support for R&D, inadequacy in addressing intellectual property issues... these are just two long-festering issues that have made it harder for our scientists to practice in the country. The few ones who opted to stay may just bail out from frustration that their work would ever create the impact that they desire to see. Will our generation ever live to see our scientists and researchers contentedly practicing their craft in the country, not forever looking at other options where the grass is greener?
Published Mar 2006 in The UPLB Horizon
As the country reeled from the multiple increases slapped on gas and oil products after world oil prices surged to record-high levels, everyone went into action mode: law makers rushed legislation, government agencies created ad hoc bodies to address the issue, offices issued energy savings advisories, and homemakers pinched on their budget.
In the University, about two years earlier, the Environmental Biotechnology Program (EBP) of the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (BIOTECH) had reinvigorated its activities under the former Biofuels Program which had lain dormant after the energy crisis in the 1980’s. BIOTECH had at the time isolated HBY3, an indigenous and high-alcohol producing yeast.
But as BIOTECH scientist and EBP Leader Fidel Rey Nayve said, BIOTECH was only able to go as far as testing HBY3 at the industry level when petroleum prices plunged and biofuels research became a victim of fad-based research funding. So the world heaved a sigh of relief when petroleum prices fell and BIOTECH had no choice but to shelve biofuels research as funding dried up. One country (Brazil), however, refused to forget the lessons of the oil crisis, proceeded with dogged determination, and is now the world’s foremost producer and exporter of ethanol.
Meanwhile, BIOTECH’s HBY3 was not left entirely in a dusty corner. Under unknown circumstances, it was pirated and used by the distillery industry to produce ethanol for alcoholic beverages. As Dr. Nayve sadly related, BIOTECH did not get anything from HBY3. “We had no intention of keeping the yeast strain or any technology for that matter to ourselves. What we just wanted is for BIOTECH to get financial returns (royalties) from them,” he said. To emphasize his point, he intimated that this year, BIOTECH’s core budget is only P100,000 per program, that when divided among five projects of the EBP, will leave only a measly P20,000 for each! This amount may not even be enough to cover the cost of media, i.e., yeast-extract, peptone, or bacto-agar!
According to Dr. Nayve, what is happening in BIOTECH is an offshoot of the low level of support that our government allocates to research and development. He said that industrialized countries allocate up to 3% of their GNP to scientific R&D while the Philippines allocated a pathetic 0.14% of its GNP during the same period (2000-2002). Dr. Nayve said that what supports BIOTECH are the external projects and its income generating services. The royalties from HBY3 would have contributed much towards enabling its researchers to continue with their research work.
And continue with the research work on bioethanol is what Dr. Nayve’s team at EBP will do. There are a lot of things going for the research team including the renewed interest in fossil fuel alternatives that are not import dependent, are sources of clean energy, and could generate rural employment to boot. Moreover, the country is endowed with renewable sources of bioethanol such as sugarcane and sugar refinery waste, sweet sorghum, cassava, lignocellulosic materials such as corn stover, grasses, and leaves. The list can go on.
Probably the most important component in bioethanol research are the human resources, the committed researchers who despite the lure of better-paying jobs, are staying on in the University for love of country. Dr. Nayve is only one himself in the BIOTECH team, although how long he and the rest will hold out considering the frustrating work conditions and lack of opportunities in the country , we can only guess and await with bated breath.
The BIOTECH team recently achieved a milestone in their research in bioethanol through the findings of a BS Chemical Engineering graduate, Normand Secreto, who worked on his thesis under Dr. Nayve and Dr. Catalino Alfafara’s tutelage and with the help of fellow researcher Irene Gabrido. Normand was able to identify a yeast that worked better than HBY3. If HBY3 was able to get an 8-9% volume per volume (v/v) concentration of ethanol from molasses in the bioreactor experiment, this yeast initially attained an 11% v/v concentration in the flask experiment, and later a 12% v/v concentration in the bioreactor experiment.
What is more remarkable about Normand’s research was that he was able to attain these levels of ethanol concentration not from a conventional medium but from a molasses medium containing 40% distillery slops. What is the significance of this in distillery waste management? This means that distillery slops can actually be recycled to produce ethanol!
Although slops are not toxic, the volume that is generated by distilleries, estimated at 10-15 liters for every liter of ethanol produced, is enough to clog up rivers, kill our fishery and even the tourism industry, as well as obliterate our coastal resources. The slops deprive the bodies of water with oxygen that every living thing they host needs in order to survive. As Normand and Dr. Nayve’s team worked on increasing ethanol concentration, they anticipated that the volume of distillery slops will increase and aggravate the distillery waste management problem. So why not make the problem a part of the solution? And make it they did!
With Dr. Nayve’s team, Normand was poised to expand the tests on the high ethanol yielding yeast at the industry level when a freak accident snuffed out his young and promising life (see related story on this page). Dr. Nayve says that Normand was such a loss to the team, being the very dedicated and focused researcher that he was.
Although short, Normand’s life clearly had a purpose and his demise may just be equally meaningful. It could fast track the industry-research linkage that Dr. Nayve’s team was planning to enter into to further confirm their findings on the promising yeast strain. For starters, it brought the attention of a distiller, who, after reading Normand’s story that was published in a newspaper, expressed interest in funding further research on the promising yeast strain’s potential to produce ethanol. Dr. Nayve, however, is approaching linkages with caution because he does not want to lose this yeast strain to piracy. He expressed his anxiety about having to take care of intellectual property issues and wished that this will be taken care of by more knowledgeable people or units.
Fad-based if not low support for R&D, inadequacy in addressing intellectual property issues... these are just two long-festering issues that have made it harder for our scientists to practice in the country. The few ones who opted to stay may just bail out from frustration that their work would ever create the impact that they desire to see. Will our generation ever live to see our scientists and researchers contentedly practicing their craft in the country, not forever looking at other options where the grass is greener?
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