Androids do dream of electric sheep

The following public appeal was sent to the Bebras’ challenge organization:

Dear all,

I am Fotis. I studied Computer Science in the University of Crete and I have been teaching ICT in Greece for these last 22 years. Some years ago, on behalf of the Hellenic Union of Informatics (HUI), I had submitted an application to organize a Bebras contest in my country [https://bebras.gr/]. Eventually though, the University of the Aegean took up the project, since they had applied earlier. Nevertheless, some of us in the aforementioned Union (HUI) also helped with one way or another, at least during the short period that the Greek membership last. Anyway, I fear that if today I was asked to help bring the marvelous Bebras contest to Greece, I would have said no. Below, I wish to explain the reasons for such a refusal.

At first, I was puzzled to see that you have decided to suspend the membership of Russia and Belarus in the Bebras International initiative. In other words, as we read here: https://www.bebras.org/node_73.html, schools from the Russian Federation and Belarus will not be allowed to participate in absolutely any of Bebras contests or other events, e.g. attending workshops, or will not even be listed in various statistics published by Bebras.

I admit that I fail to understand why anyone would punish teachers and – even worse –children from Russia or Belarus for crimes which the political leaders of these countries have committed. Nevertheless, let me pretend, for argument’s sake, that I support the ban. So, in such a case, don’t you think that you should also ban Turkey (for example) as they did invade Cyprus in 1974 and have occupied the northeastern part of the island (about 1/3 of the area of Cyprus) since then? They have recently invaded Syria too (Aleppo), which in turn is another provisional member of Bebras [https://www.bebras.org/countries.html]. Moreover, I cannot avoid noticing that both Israel and the State of Palestine are still provisional members of Bebras, although the Israeli army shot dead more than 230 Palestine civilians last year [https://is.gd/DbU8gv] (with 40+ children amongst them).

Another example similar to the above is the co-existence (as distinct nations) of China and Taiwan, being full members of Bebras, with schools from both countries allowed to participate in the contests. Finally, I’ll only remind you that Saudi Arabia, i.e. a monarchy where public decapitations take place on a weekly basis, where women are treated like lesser beings (“untermensch” was the term used by the NSDAP) and which has invaded and continues to bomb Yemen, is also a provisional member!

So, I end up wondering again: Who has the right to condemn children for the sins that adults in power commit? Nobody I think. I do of course understand that the opinion of a single person cannot weigh enough to change your mind; yet I‘m sure that most of my colleagues (as teachers) would have shared my beliefs had they been aware of these changes in Bebras memberships. In fact, I shall communicate the above to people of Cyprus, at least. You see, we speak the same language and they have enough bitter experience of invasions. Anyway, I really had to make the above appeal and so I did…

Kindest regards,

Fotis E. Alexakos

ICT teacher

Greece