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4 |
The Present State and Outlook for Research and Scholarship
in the Third World |
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How much does this persisting and, perhaps, growing disparity
matter ?One might be tempted by reflection on the successes
of East and South East Asian stars in the competition for economic
development to conclude that it does not much matter, at least
for a longish time. These are countries whose successes would
appear to depend largely on the diffusion of well-known technologies
or the migration of industries to take advantage of low labour
costs; they are not countries (excepting Japan, of course) that
are world leaders in scientific or even technological research.
One might argue further that the openness to international markets
and foreign investment that appears necessary in present conditions
makes less important the possession of national scientific and
technological competences than they have appeared to be in more
autarchic pasts. |
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We take such views to be plausible in the strict sense, i.e.,
as falsely persuasive. Certainly, the progress of the developing
countries will not depend on original scientific and technical
discoveries that they make and exploit for themselves. An MIT
economist recently observed in the Boston Globe that
"Belgium is rich, not because it has invented a lot of technology,
but because it has the human capital and social institutions
that allow it to employ technology invented in other countries".
If we add the recent calculation that Belgium's GDP is greater
than that of all of Africa South of the Sahara excluding South
Africa, we have an impressive measure of the importance of the
"human capital and social institutions" that make possible the
productive utilisation of things invented elsewhere. This capacity
to absorb new ideas and techniques has many elements, but certainly
among them is a professional community of scientists and technologists
that is able to stay abreast of and assess the burgeoning new
knowledge in many fields. The purveyors of technical assistance
learned not long after Point Four was proclaimed that the transfer
of knowledge would do no good until there were those equipped
to understand it and put it to use. And it was quickly found
too that knowledge and techniques from elsewhere needed adaptation
and specification when they were used in new situations; hence
a realisation, in agriculture, the health sciences, economics
and other fields that effective outcomes depended on local research,
and hence on people and institutions capable of carrying it
out. |
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There is ample evidence that the successes of the "East Asian
Tigers" have depended on their capacity to educate (and to attract
back from abroad) strong scientific and technological communities;
and we may suppose that in this respect as in others they offer
models for other developing countries. There may be legitimate
debate about the balance between basic and applied science and
technology appropriate at different stages of development. The
complaint has commonly been heard that scientists and scholars
in the developing countries set their ambitions too much on
international professional recognition, to the neglect of the
research needs in their own countries. The studies of the Harvard
Committee we cited earlier generally contradicted this view,
finding more weaknesses in basic than applied research, and
seeing this imbalance as unfavourable to the local generation
of national professional communities that successful development
requires. In sum, we conclude that the lagging of the developing
countries -and the Muslim countries in particular ?in scientific
productivity is a serious constraint on their potentials for
development. |
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There is another reason for concern about the lagging scientific
productivity of the developing countries. That prospering and
rising nations will feel discomforts from being undistinguished
importers of science and other kinds of culture seems probable.
Nineteenth century Americans may have been coarsely indifferent
to the sneer, "Who reads an American book -" One wonders if
in 2000 or 2010 Koreans or Pakistanis or certainly Malaysians
would shrug off a charge that "no one" reads a Korean or Pakistani
or Malaysian book, however piously multicultural the world may
become. Insistence on the basic right to equal status for peoples
from all cultural backgrounds has been a pillar of our international
system. And in recent years, particular emphasis has been put
on cultural distinctiveness around the world, as democracies
have tried to be multicultural and more nations have found their
voices.But the maintenance of a cultural distinctiveness in
the modern world cannot be hermetic. It must be sustained in
interaction with other cultures, and be subjected to their values.
Thus both the International Islamic University in Malaysia and
the new Jordanian university seek to be distinctively Islamic
but competent and engaged in modern secular knowledge. They
are behaving as other universities in other nations and traditions
seek to do, though perhaps with the special intensity that the
sense of Islam's world importance and brilliant history gives.
Certainly within the Muslim world, a concern for achieving intellectual
distinction recognisable in modern, international terms may
be expected to persist strongly during the next decades, whatever
the economic and political fate of Muslim countries. |
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