The State of the Arts of Mathematics in France

Children don´t like mathematics in school, and it´s not only their fault. Actually, the biggest share of this disgrace is due to the old methodologies and lack of understanding, at the institutional level, about the importance of this domain to everyday life.

The series: Conversation sur les mathématiques is part of a collection of publications aimed to outline various scientific domains and their relevance for the everyday life and institutional politics. It reunites dialogues between experts in a domain of study on topics related not only to theoretical and conceptual approaches but also to common relevance.

For instance, why mathematics are important for the everyday life? For instance, for being able to manage your costs and savings, or medical reasons or for setting up your business? What distinguishes a certain policy in the field from a country to another? What are the geopolitics of mathematics nowadays? What happened to France and what are the consequences of the daily decline of the educational measures in this field? What are the failures of communication between the French mathematicians and other scientists?

I´ve read this book of dialogues - among mathematicians with very complex life trajectories - as a long intellectual story, with fascinating insights into the everyday struggles of the scientific elites. I can´t wait to read the other conversations on other theoretical topics as well.

Rating: 4 stars

The Poles of Tehran

From the early 1940s until the end of WWII, Iran hosted between 114,000 and 300, refugees from Poland, that come on the way from Siberia via Uzbekistan. They arrived to the port city of Bandar e-Anzali and they settled in Tehran, but also in Isfahan and other locations like Ahvaz. Most of them left either back to Poland, after the war, or left for New Zealand or UK, but there were also a few - some hundred - that stayed there, settled and eventually married.

Some of the stories of those refugees are the topic of a documentary movie made by the film director and author Khoshrow Sinai, who died this August of Covid 19, The Last Requiem available for free on YouTube (it lasts 1h35). He gathered testimonies of the then refugees between 1971-1983, to which archive films and photos were added.  He is not the only one to cover this topic, among those who documented this Exodus being the photographer Gholam Abdol-Rahimi. 

The wandering started once Poland was occupied by the Germany, with hundred of thousands of people running - sometimes on foot - to the Soviet Union, where they were sent to camps in Siberia. Malnourished and maltreated, some were able to go out and reached Iran, where according to the testimonies they were welcomed with open heart, fed and hosted by the locals. ´They made us feel humans again´, says one of the person interviewed then. Many were sent back to the front but there were many who temporarily or for good worked here, as nannies or music teachers. Polonia, a former bar and restaurant in the centre of Tehran, was a meeting point not only for the local Polish but also by the American and British soldiers stationed in the capital. Sinai is wandering though the Christian cemetery in Tehran or visiting the local church trying to understand what they feel and how they feel now about their past. 

At the time of the production, given the so-called ´friendly´ relations between USSR and Poland, the movie was not distributed in the country, as it openly approaches the hardships the Poles had to suffer on behalf of the Russians. After the end of the Cold War though, Sinai was awarded a high Polish state distinction for his contribution to the understanding of this specific chapter of common history.

Among those hundreds of thousand of refugees, there were also around 1,000 Polish Jews that were saved from the Nazis while being offered temporary refuge in Iran. The survivors, calling themselves ´Tehrani´, do still reunite once the year in Israel to celebrate their escape through Iran. Unfortunately, this topic is not approached in the movie, but in those demented times we live now, it is a good reminder that, in fact, the kindness of the people can easily overpass the craziness of the political regime in power in Tehran. 

Book Review: China´s Next Strategic Advantage. From Imitation to Innovation

 

China´s Next Strategic Advantage. From Imitation to Innovation by George S. Yip and Bruce McKern is an useful introduction to doing business in China, especially for multinational companies. It helps at a great extent - but mostly at a theoretical level - to understand the details of mergings and business management in this country, as well as the state policies in the field of development and innovation.

It combines the features of a business guidance book based on a variety of case studies from various industries. For someone interested in doing business in China, this book can help at a significant extent. For those already operating on the ground, not so much, as they are probably well acquainted already with the limitations of a party system that is present through its structures in any middle-sized entreprise as well as the frequent harassment foreigners operating in the mainland especially are targeted (both legally as physically with police officers visiting them late at night apparently for some regular documents checking). I personally think that such aspects cannot be ignored, especially in a book that has to do with the business developments aimed at a foreigner audience.

Rating: 3 stars