That's not the whole story, though. I would make a guess that a sizeable
majority of Cilip members tend towards my own opinion that the war was an
immoral and untimely affair and that we and our Iraqi equivalents have paid
high prices for toppling a vile and dangerous tyrant, of which looted
libraries and museums really only of longer-term concern.
However, this is a guess and I am equally certain that somewhere in the
membership you will find all shades of opinion, plus a significant number
whose opinions are coloured or stunned altogether by having relatives out
there and at continuing risk. Royal charter or not, it is dangerous
professionally and economically for membership organisations to stray
beyond their finite professional remit into macropolitical areas. With
mobs roaming the streets, religious fanatics pouring through the breach
caused by American ignorance of how they are perceived abroad, no
electricity, virtually no clean water and a Turkish government to the north
getting twitchy at the sight of so many Kurds having so much fun, I don't
honestly think Cilip has as much of relevance to contribute as the average
1960s student union had to the apartheid debate.
Cilip can't afford to haemorrhage mmbers, and it can't afford to predispose
the government to lump us in with the Usual Suspects when the time for it
to say some unwelcome truths about its (and our) core professional
concerns. We are not short of avenues to make our views known,
individually and collectively, but in my view Cilip isn't one of them.
Tony McSean
Whose message expresses his own personal views and not those of the BMA,
the BMJ Publishing group or, sadly, the political party in which he was
active for 25 years
john pateman
<johnpateman9@HOT To: [log in to unmask]
MAIL.COM> cc:
Sent by: Subject: Re: CILIP PLEDGES SUPPORT FOR INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS TO
Chartered Library RESTORE IRAQI LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SERVICES
and Information
Professionals
<LIS-CILIP@JISCMA
IL.AC.UK>
29/04/03 10:00
Please respond to
Chartered Library
and Information
Professionals
If CILIP can intervene politically now in the debate on the reconstruction
of Iraq, why could they not have intervened politically in terms of STOP
THE
WAR and NOT IN OUR NAME? If the Royal Charter stops CILIP from effectively
representing the views of its members, then it should be got rid of. Who
wants to be associated with a feudal anachronistic institution in the 21st
century?
>From: Charles Oppenheim <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Chartered Library and Information Professionals
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: CILIP PLEDGES SUPPORT FOR INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS TO RESTORE
>IRAQI LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SERVICES
>Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 09:47:44 +0100
>
>I would have thought that such a statement/lobbying suggested by Pateman
>is
>contrary to CILIP's Royal Charter, but I leave it to the constitutional
>experts to comment on that....
>
>Charles
>
>Professor Charles Oppenheim
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