NJCU Lecture Series
Renowned Dignitary Clovis Maksoud speaks before NJCU Audience
By: Michael Palomino
Issue date: 12/15/09 Section: News
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Ambassador Maksoud, a former ambassador for the League of Arab States at the United Nations and currently the director of the American University's Center for the Global South, spoke for roughly ninety minutes before an enthusiastic crowd of NJCU students and faculty.
The event kicked off with opening remarks by the Vice President of the Division of University Advancement, Khatmeh Osseiran-Hanna, whose department hosted the event. She was followed by Acting Assistant Dean, William J. Maxwell College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Political Science, Dr. Francis Moran.
Before introducing the evening's guest speaker, Dr. Moran discussed the desperate state of affairs in the developing world, citing several sobering statistics, but went on to celebrate both the NJCU and Jersey City community "for their diversity with respect to their significant Arab-American community.
Speaking as the representative of Center for the Global South, a think-tank dedicated to analyzing the critical issues for developing nations - collectively known as the Global South - Ambassador Maksoud spoke of and identified the challenges facing the world, including the United States and the Middle East, in the 21st century.
For the ambassador the answer boiled down to two points: combating poverty and encouraging diversity.
"We have to plant the seeds of future correctives of the imbalances that exist between south and north, and imbalances that exist within the south and north," which as an Arab spokesmen, Maksoud claims personal insight into those imbalances: "Arabs are a rich nation of poor people."
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