November 7, 2001

Your Excellency, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Salem Al Qassimi, new friends in the Sociological Association, colleagues from AUS and other participating universities, and other distinguished guests.

I appear before you as the representative of the junior partner in this new joint venture. We were honored to have been invited by the Sociological Association of the UAE to become partners in the publication of their well-established journal. I wish to thank in particular Mr. Obaid Al Room, former president of the association, Mr. Bilal M. Bilal, current president, and the Editor-in-Chief Dr. Mohamed Al-Mutawa for the confidence that you showed in our young university in entering into this agreement. We are grateful for your trust in our capabilities. I renew today our pledge to live up to your expectations and fill our part of the bargain.

On more than one occasion in the course of my career, I have been a part of professional societies that started new journals. I know from painful experience how much hard work and how much time it takes to build up the confidence of good authors and to build up a faithful readership among the right constituencies. Only some one who has lived through all of that can fully appreciate the achievement represented in the fact that the Association is today bringing out its 71st issue.

I have the greatest admiration for those being honored today for their role in establishing the JSA and for bringing it up to the level of international recognition that it enjoys today.

Of course the hand of His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan is felt in this room even though he could not be with us today. His Highness charged AUS with being a true university, which included the mandate to produce new scholarship and to participate in the international dialogue among scholars. This is of course part of his ambitious project to stimulate a renaissance of scientific and cultural scholarship throughout the Arab world. The JSA and AUS are instruments for pursuing that noble agenda.

The opportunity to cooperate with the UAE Sociological Association gave us an opening to contribute to the growth of good scholarship in a way that would have been hard for us to do on our own.

From our side, I hope that the joint participation of AUS will assist the JSA to broaden its circulation abroad and to increase the pool of good contributors. There is of course a larger significance to the JSA beyond the merely academic. Standing here as we do at a very somber moment in the history of the contemporary world puts the role of the journal in a new perspective. It is a particularly acute time in the relationship between the Middle East and the West. The rest of the world desperately needs to understand better the complexities and subtleties of the societies of this area. You and I know the extent of this need better than many of our fellow citizens. I hope that the JSA can become a vehicle for carrying informed dialogue between intellectuals in the Arab/Muslim world and intellectuals in the West. As part of this work, we can do much to promote broader knowledge of the sociology and economics and political systems and civic life of this most remarkable young nation, the United Arab Emirates.

Unfortunately many of those who most need this information and an authentic interpretation of this information don't read Arabic. This dual language journal can be a means for achieving among its readership a better understanding of the peoples of the Gulf, their culture and their aspirations.

Once again, thank you for taking AUS into partnership on this significant journal.

Let me thank my AUS colleagues who represent us in this joint venture. They include Vice Chancellor Abdel Hamid, Dean Robert Cook, Professor Al-Musawi, Professor Fox and Professor Al-Foul. A special word is reserved for Professor Nada Mourtada whose indefatigable exertions and remarkable intellectual energy are already a legend in both organizations.

In closing I repeat my thanks to His Highness for his continuing patronage of scholarly enterprise like this journal, and I repeat my belief that AUS working with the Sociological Association can help to achieve the Ruler's vision of a cultural renaissance in the Arab World.

Thank you.

Roderick S. French
Chancellor
American University of Sharjah