रॉबर्ट एफ. केनेडी जूनियर के अरबों पर बयान से उठी निंदा

राष्ट्रपति स्वास्थ्य सचिव रॉबर्ट एफ. केनेडी जूनियर ने सोमवार को ग्रैंड रैपिड्स, मिशिगन में चुनावी कार्यक्रम में अरबों के विज्ञान, गणित और साहित्य में योगदान को नकारते हुए बयान दिया। उन्होंने रिपब्लिकन उम्मीदवार माइक रॉजर्स का समर्थन किया, जो अरब-अमेरिकी डेमोक्रेट उम्मीदवार अब्दुल एल-सेड के खिलाफ मिडटर्म चुनाव में मुकाबला कर रहे हैं।

इस कथन के अनुसार, दुनिया में अरबों की संख्या पाँच सौ मिलियन है, पर वे विज्ञान नहीं बनाते, नोबेल पुरस्कार नहीं जीतते, फील्ड्स पुरस्कार नहीं जीतते, वुल्फ पुरस्कार नहीं जीतते, और साहित्य नहीं बनाते।

“There’s five hundred million Arabs in the world. And yet they don’t produce science. They don’t win the Nobel Prize. They don’t win the Fields Prize. They don’t win the Wolf Prize. They don’t produce literature.” — Robert F Kennedy Jr, US Health Secretary

इस बयान को नस्लवादी, इस्लामोफोबिक और तथ्यात्मक रूप से गलत कहा गया। आधुनिक और ऐतिहासिक अरब नवाचारों को उजागर करते हुए आलोचकों ने तर्क दिया कि अरबों ने विज्ञान और साहित्य में महत्वपूर्ण योगदान दिया है।

अरबों के योगदान

इस्लामिक गोल्डन एज (750–1258) के दौरान अरबों ने चिकित्सा, गणित और साहित्य में महत्वपूर्ण योगदान दिया। नीचे कुछ प्रमुख योगदानों की सूची दी गई है।

• 1st-4th centuries: The numerals 0-9, which originated in ancient India, were adopted by Arab mathematicians who spread them across the world. They displaced Roman numerals as a more advanced number system in mathematics.
• 8th century: Arab and Persian mathematicians were studying the ancient Indian concept of zero in mathematics in Baghdad, long before the Europeans.
• 813-833: Muḥammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi – one of those studying the number 0 – is often referred to as the “father of algebra” as he was the first to treat the method as a separate mathematical discipline in his work, Al-Jabr. This method provided the first linear and quadratic equations, still used as a core part of mathematical study today.
• 965-1040: Ibn al-Haytham, known as the “father of modern optics”, explained the role that light entering the eye plays in human vision. He was born in Basra in Iraq, but spent most of his working life in Cairo attending to noble families.
• 936-1013: Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi, called “the father of modern surgery”, was considered the greatest surgeon in the Middle Ages. He wrote a 30-volume encyclopaedia detailing medical practices and designed and illustrated many surgical instruments. Born in Azahara, in Andalusia, he was known as Abulcasis in Europe.
• 9th century: Fatima al-Fihri founded the University of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco. It is often cited as the oldest continually operating university.
• 1213-1288: Ibn al-Nafis described pulmonary circulation – the process by which blood passes through the lungs – several centuries before Europeans understood it. He wrote more than 110 volumes of work on surgery, ophthalmology and philosophy while working as a chief physician in Egypt.
• 915-965: Abu al-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi, regarded as the greatest poet in the Arabic language, was Yemeni and grew up immersed in Bedouin Arabic culture. He wrote in classical Arabic and many of his verses became sayings used in everyday Arabic.
• 1100-1165: Muhammad al-Idrisi was a geographer known for making the Tabula Rogeriana, one of the most accurate and detailed medieval world maps, and a high point of Islamic geography. He was born in Ceuta in Morocco.

पुरस्कार विजेता अरब

आधुनिक समय में अरबों ने कई नोबेल, फील्ड्स और वुल्फ पुरस्कार जीते हैं। नीचे कुछ प्रमुख विजेताओं की सूची है।

• 1960: Nobel Prize for Medicine – Peter Medawar won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for work on acquired immune tolerance, which underpins organ transplantation. He was born in Brazil to a Lebanese father.
• 1966: The Fields Medal – Michael Atiyah won the Fields Medal, the most prestigious award for mathematics, in 1966. He was born in London to a Lebanese father and Scottish mother. Educated in Egypt, he spent much of his childhood in Cairo and Khartoum.
• 1988: Nobel Prize for Literature – Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his body of work, including the Cairo Trilogy, which the Swedish Academy said formed “an Arabic narrative art that applies to all mankind”. He is still the only winner of the prize who wrote in Arabic.
• 1990: Nobel Prize for Chemistry – Elias James Corey won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for developing retrosynthetic analysis. He is an American of Lebanese descent.
• 1993: Wolf Prize for Chemistry – Egyptian Ahmed Zewail won the Wolf Prize for Chemistry. The Wolf Prize is an international award which has been presented to living scientists and artists every year in Israel by the Wolf Foundation since 1978.
• 1999: Nobel Prize for Chemistry – Zewail also won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for pioneering femtochemistry, which is the study of chemical reactions on extremely short timescales. He also won the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 1993.
• 2005: Nobel Peace Prize – Egyptian scientist Mohamed ElBaradei shared his Nobel Prize with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which he led.
• 2018: Wolf Prize for Chemistry – Omar M Yaghi, born in Jordan to a Palestinian refugee family, won the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 2018 for work on metal-organic frameworks. He shared the prize with Japan’s Makoto Fujita. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) condemned his acceptance of the award because the prize is awarded by an Israeli foundation.
• 2023: Nobel Prize for Chemistry – Moungi Bawendi won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots. He was born in France to a Tunisian father, but based in the US.
• 2025: Nobel Prize for Chemistry – Yaghi also won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for developing metal-organic frameworks. These are crystalline materials with large internal cavities that can capture and store gases, harvest water from air, and trap pollutants. He shared the prize with Susumu Kitagawa from Japan and Richard Robson from Australia.

प्रतिक्रिया

वैकल्पिक वैज्ञानिक पिटर होटेज ने कहा कि मध्ययुगीन अरब वैज्ञानिकों ने अरस्तू, हिप्पोक्रेट्स और गैलेन को जीवित रखा ताकि वे पुनर्जागरण तक पहुँच सकें। यह कथन मध्ययुगीन अरब वैज्ञानिकों के योगदान को उजागर करता है।

मीडिया होस्ट मेहदी हसन ने बयान को नस्लवादी बताया और ओमार यागी को उद्धृत किया, जिन्होंने पिछले वर्ष नोबेल रसायन विज्ञान पुरस्कार जीता। अमेरिकन-इस्लामिक रिलेशन्स काउंसिल ने केनेडी को हटाने की मांग की, यह कहते हुए कि उनका बयान अरब अमेरिकियों के प्रति घृणा बढ़ाता है। काउंसिल ने कहा कि यह बयान सार्वजनिक कार्यालय के लिए अयोग्य है।

स्रोत: Al Jazeera