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FCG International Lifetime Achievement Award 2006: SAMI NAÏR

“This decision was taken because of his fight for the recognition of the human rights of immigrants; because of his humane and social globalization which is not exclusively economic; because of his 20 years of analysis of conflicts caused by migratory movements and inequalities. His Algerian origins made him especially sensitive to the building of bridges of union and connections between two worlds, two different conceptions: North and South, which he transmitted through his contributions published in the means of communication, his essays and books, his teaching career and his advisory work to public and private institutions”. According to the jury that met in Valladolid on July 14, 2006, chaired by Mr. Carlos Escudero de Burón y González, President of the Carlos III Foundation; Mr. Antonio Catalán Díaz, President of AC-Hotels; Mr. Julio Fermoso García, President of Caja Duero Savings Bank, Mr. Antonio Méndez Pozo, Editor of the Diario de Burgos newspaper, President of Grupo Promecal and President of the Chamber of Commerce of Burgos; Mr. Emilio Ybarra Aznar, Deputy Board member of ABC newspaper.

SAMI NAÏR - Biography

Sami Naïr, born in Belfort (France) on 23rd August 1946 to a family of Algerian origin, is one of the most outspoken voices of European progressiveness.  His extensive Academic training allowed him to cover broad fields within the world of the Social and Human Sciences.

Professor Naïr is a philosopher, sociologist, political analyst and a professor of Political Science at the University of Paris VIII as well as at the Carlos III University in Madrid. To his lecturing profession, we must also add his professional commitment to numerous universities in Latin America, Europe and the Maghreb.

The decade of the seventies was one of the most intense in the life of this humanist.  Along with his work as a lecturer at Sorbonne, he simultaneously started the magazine Modern Times with Simone de Beauvoir in the 1970s and 1980s.  He was a follower of the intellectual current of Lucien Goldmann, author of The Hidden God.  At that time Sami Nair was writing The Dialectics of Totality and The Theory of Revolution in Lenin’s Works. He also worked as an advisor to the French Government’s Interior Ministry in 1997, during which he was mainly committed to integration and development themes.  Lionel Jospin named him Inter-Ministerial Delegate for International Co-Development and Migration during his socialist government.  He was also the President of the Citizens’ Movement.

He has been a Member of the European Parliament and a full member of the Commission of Foreign Affairs for the Rights of People, Common Security and Defense Policy, as well as President of the Delegation for the Relationship with the Mashrek countries and Gulf states.

His Algerian origins made him especially sensitive to trying –in some way- to build a bridge to unite and connect the two worlds, two different concepts that have been reconciled in his being in a harmonic way and that he has transmitted -beyond doubt- in his contributions to the means of communication.  In his more than half a century of life, Naïr has written ten books.  Among his rich and fruitful production the following titles stand out:

In the Name of God (1995)

The Mediterranean Today: Between Dialogue and Rejection (1995).

A Civilization Policy, in collaboration with Edgar Morin (1997)

Immigration explained to my Daughter (1999).

Open Wounds (2000).

The Toll of Life (2000).

The Empire Facing The Diversity of the World (2003).

They will come …: migrations in hostile times (2006).

His fight for the recognition of the rights of immigrants has been recognized through the awarding of several international prizes, such as the La General de Granada International Cooperation Award in 2001.

Following twenty years of the analysis of conflicts caused by migratory movements, Sami Naïr states that we must prevent integration from being viewed in terms of “culture and identity”.  “The receiving society is mistaken if it encloses immigration in a minority statute, because it will therefore enclose it within a specific role within society.  That attitude will inevitably lead to racist drifts,” states the French political analyst.

In his view, the main aim of immigrants in not to live together under some peculiar features but to “disappear as an immigrant to become a citizen with full rights in the receiving country.” “To consider the immigrant only through a cultural lens and at assume his ability or inability to adapt from his culture of origin is a totalitarian behavior of the receiving society.”

However, Sami Naïr’s most outstanding ability is that of a communicator. His articles in the written press (El País, Libération, Le Monde, El Mundo newspapers) in favor of a humane and social globalization, and not exclusively an economic one, or against the war in Iraq, have placed him in the front line of committed journalism on a European level.

Among the most common topics in his work in the written press, we find the migratory flows, its deepest causes, its history and the current situation as well as possible solutions that the governments should apply to channel the phenomenon, considering its human dimension and thus transforming it into a tool to bring wellbeing and progress to the countries in the South; the inequalities between the North and the South, the “complex” and “deep” concept of globalization as a process for the spread and investment of capital to benefit the first world, and in a special way, to benefit the multi-national companies; the “fundamental” role that Europe can play in changing the world order; the image  of Islam in the West; and the unilateralism of United States politics in the last decade.