Reflections on the Human Condition - Api-fellowships.org

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to the next stage of publishing the finalized papers as
proceedings for wider distribution.
On a personal note, I would like to thank the API
C o m m i t t e e f o r g i v i n g m e t h i s h o n o r , t r u s t
a n d confidence to serve as the Director of this year’s
Workshop. My association with the API Fellowships
Program began in 1999 when Mr. Tatsuya Tanami
from The Nippon Foundation visited us at IKMAS to
discuss with the then IKMAS Director, the late
Professor Ishak Shari, and a few others about the
feasibility of the project and IKMAS role in it. Though
Ishak did not have the good fortune to see the API
Fellowship Program evolve into what it is today, as he
passed away prematurely in June 2001, I am sure he
would have been happy to see it grow and still remain
true to its founding ideals. Thus, when my friend,
Professor Ragayah Haj. Mat Zin who succeeded Ishak
as IKMAS Director, and who also serves on the API
International Selection Committee, approached me
early this year to take the responsibility as the 4 th API
International Workshop Director, I readily accepted it
but with feelings of nostalgia. I see my responsibility as
a way of paying tribute to the memory of my late friend,
Ishak, whose concern was to realize the ideals that the
API Fellowship was established, that is, to inspire and
commit public intellectuals to a lifelong cause of justice
and the betterment of society. I hope as public
intellectuals we all will live up to this expectation to
realize what Ishak expounds in his professorial inaugural
lecture as “The Earth for All Humanity”.
Finally, I would like to wish all the Workshop
participants every success. I am sure we will have a
fruitful, interesting and thought-provoking Workshop.
Thank you.
Ref lections on the Human Condition: Change, Conflict and Modernity
The Work of the 2004/2005 API Fellows