10 March 2000
To: ASL Council
Report of ASL Committee on Logic in Europe, Sy Friedman, Chair
          with cover letter from Friedman

Dear Tony,

Below is a letter that the ASL Committee has prepared, with our recommendation to the Council. As you will see, we were split 3-3 on whether to move the meeting; I am sorry if you were hoping for us to at least have a majority view! We worked quite a lot on isolating the issues involved. I hope that the letter will be useful to the Council as it makes its decision.

As you know, Jan Krajicek is on the Council and can keep you informed of how things stand with speaker invitations to LC01. Please let me know if there is more that you wish me to do at this point. Of course I will refocus on this immediately after the Council makes its decision.

Good luck with what will surely be an interesting debate. Should the Council wish to have more inside information about the political situation in Austria, I can recommend contacting Martin Goldstern (martin.goldstern@tuwien.ac.at) or Matthias Baaz (baaz@logic.at), who are Austrian and follow the news very carefully.

All the best, sy

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Dear ASL Council:

The ASL Committee on Logic in Europe has voted 3-3 on the question of whether to recommend relocation of the 2001 ASL Summer Meeting. Though we are therefore not making a clear recommendation, we hope nonetheless that the arguments we have uncovered will be helpful to the Council in its discussions. We urge the Council to make its decision soon, to either allow time for the Viennese to plan the meeting, or for us to find a new location for it. (We have no proposal for an alternative location.) In addition, we would like to make some suggestions for actions to be taken in the wake of either of the Council's possible decisions.

We are all very concerned about the division that this issue is causing within the logic community, as evidenced by the letter of Anand Pillay, with more than 75 signatories. We do not see evidence that the political situation in Austria will be better by the time of August, 2001, and therefore it is possible that many will choose not to attend. We all agree that we should not simply ignore what is happening in Austria, and that there surely should be situations in which the ASL should decide to relocate a meeting. At the same time, we are all concerned that the ASL have a consistent policy that it can live with in the future, without creating serious problems for the choice of future meeting locations.

Our disagreements center around the following questions:

1. Is the situation in Austria extreme enough to warrant relocation?

Though we are all shocked by things that Haider has said, some of us note that the Austrian government has not actually done anything yet, and feel that there is not enough evidence of racism within the Austrian government or Austrian society to justify a boycott. Others feel that the mere presence of the Freedom Party in the government is sufficient reason to disassociate with Austria.

2. Is the possibility that many will not attend reason enough to move the meeting?

Some of us feel that we should definitely avoid having a meeting that will lead to division within the logic community. Others feel that it would be wrong to relocate a meeting unless there are strong reasons of principle to do so, and in addition that we should not create a precedent that will complicate future decisions about meeting location. We are concerned about the potential scientific success of the meeting; as we are confident in the ability of the Vienna group to do an excellent job, this is a question of who will attend. At the moment, the large majority of those invited to speak have accepted; we urge the Council to ask Jan Krajicek to inform them if this changes.

3. Is it better to express our opposition to the new government by cancelling the meeting, or by organising a protest during the meeting, in Vienna?

Some of us feel that it is most effective to withdraw completely, as our presence in Austria is already a form of support for the current government. Others feel that the only way to get ourselves noticed is to hold the meeting in Vienna and to organise there a form of protest, which can be covered by the Austrian media.

4. Is it fair to our Austrian colleagues to move the meeting?

Some of us feel that the current situation in Austria provides insufficient grounds to hurt our Vienna colleagues, who are prepared to put considerable effort into running a meeting which includes a special tribute to the distinguished history of Vienna logic. Others, though also very concerned about our Austrian colleagues, feel that we should move the meeting and at the same time do something to compensate the Austrian logicians for this, for instance by offering special grants to enable young Austrian logicians to travel abroad.

We should also like to suggest:

If the meeting is moved, the Council should make a public statement about its reasons for relocating, and express the wish to meet in Austria again, under better circumstances, in the future. The Council should widely publicize its disapproval of the Austrian government. And it should have the ASL consider providing grants for young Austrian logicians to travel abroad.

If the meeting is to stay in Vienna, the Council should encourage the Viennese logicians to plan an appropriate form of protest at the meeting, and to keep the logic community informed about developments within Austria. It should encourage members of the ASL to attend the meeting, and generally to maintain contact with Austrian colleagues. It should ask the Organising Committee to avoid funding from the present Austrian government or from any institution associated with the Freedom Party. And the Council's decision should not be changed, unless there are new developments in Austria of the most extreme kind.

ASL Committee on Logic in Europe
Marat Arslanov
Zoe Chatzidakis
Sy Friedman, Chair
Victor Harnik
Peter Koepke
Albert Visser

 

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