Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute
The Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute/l’Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau is a Paris-based organization created in 2003, whose declared values are 'the civilization of freedom, a democratic Europe and the strengthening of the European-American partnership'. [1]
The institute is chaired by neoconservative French writer and journalist Michel Gurfinkiel[2]. Writer Anne-Elisabeth Moutet served as deputy chairperson until 2012.
Director of the US-based anti-Muslim Middle East Forum think tank, Daniel Pipes was one of the institute's board members.
Contents
Background
The think tank's website in December 2009 described the institute's philosophy:'
- Europe, while heading toward greater unity and integration, is drifting away from the United States of America.
- It is a dangerous development for Europe and for democracy worldwide. The new, enlarged, Europe needs America just as America needs the new, enlarged, Europe. And the Euro-American partnership - the West - is the political, strategic and economic cornerstone of freedom in the world as a whole".
- We need to reverse this trend.
- The question is not so much to salvage Euro-American relations, but to build a stronger Euro-American partnership and alliance.
- The Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute (JJRI), an organization for pro-West political action in Europe, is established in Paris, France. It is named after the Swiss-French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the theorists of democracy in the 18th century, who as such exerted a strong influence on the American and French revolutions.[3]
Links to the British Henry Jackson Society
The Henry Jackson Society website links to the institute in its list of favoured think tanks[4]. In 2004 its strap line slogan was: 'A Project for Democratic International Relations and for the Security of Europe'[5], a slogan not far removed from the full title of the Henry Jackson society ('project for democratic geopolitics').
Views on the US
Anne-Elisabeth Moutet the deputy chairperson of the institute observed in 2008 that:
- Popular culture is aggressively anti-American. Americans are seen as warmongers. This is something that has been allowed to spread because it was very easy to express contempt of America. I don't know how it can be fixed even if Obama is elected[6].
2006 Paris Riots
Commenting on the Paris riots of 2006 the institute's director Michel Gurfinkiel stated:
- 'Still, it would be wise not to write off entirely the possibility of a green-red alliance. There is a historical precedent in the spread of Islam itself, in the 7th century. It is well known that the newly founded religious empire from Arabia overran in less than two decades the two mightiest powers of the time, the Christian Byzantine Empire and the Mazdean Persian Empire. What is less well known is that the Arab expansion coincided, in both places, with a deep ethnic, religious, and social crisis. In fact, the Arabs didn't outright conquer Palestine, Syria, Anatolia, Egypt, North Africa, Iraq, and the Iranian plateau. They struck alliances with the local rebels: the Copts and the Syriacs, the Nestorians and the Donatists, the Jews and the Mardakites, with those who spoke neither Greek nor Persian and shared neither the beliefs of the basileus nor those of the shah. Even the green flag of Islam was borrowed from non-Arabs: It was originally the symbol of rebellion in Byzantium, the equivalent in its day of the red flag in ours'.
- 'Can history repeat itself, and fundamentalist Islam subdue Europe in the 21st century with the help of European extremists? Will the green flag and the red flag wave side by side? Buses are burning in France and nobody, so far, seems to know how to stop that'[7].
People
Circa 2004-2009
- Michel Gurfinkiel - Executive Chairman | Valerie Hoffenberg - Director | Anne-Elisabeth Moutet - Deputy Chairman and Treasurer | Charles Meyer - General Counsel[8]
Board
Douglas Davis, circa 2009[9]
Comite Executif - Executive Committee - Circa 2012
Michel Gurfinkiel, Président | Charles Meyer | Anne-Elisabeth Moutet[10]
Conseil-Board- Circa 2012
Devon Cross | Douglas Davis | Roger Kaplan | André Kaspi | Michel Korinman | Armand Laferrère | Jürgen Liminski | Zvi Mazel | Laurent Murawiec (z"l) | Daniel Pipes | Richard Rossin | Yves Roucaute | Ilios Yannakakis | Ken Weinstein | Yoram Ettinger [10]
Experts-Fellows - Circa 2012
Alain Robert Coulon | Anneliese Graschy | John M. Metzler | Jonathan S. Paris[10]
Affiliations
Contact
- The Jean Jacques Rousseau Institute / Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- 40, rue Paul-Valéry
- 75116 PARIS, France
- + 33 1 5301 0747
- U.S. voice/fax: +1-212-504-8348
- contact@jjri.org
- www.jjri.org [Web adress given in 2009]
- Former website circa 2004-2009: http://www.geocities.com/jjrinst/
- Current website: http://jjri.net/
Notes
- ↑ Qui Sommes-nous?, JJRI, accessed 23 September 2016.
- ↑ Michel Gurfinkiel, The return of l'histoire; the New Anticapitalist party breathes (poisonous) life into the French left, The Weekly Standard, 06-October-2008, Accessed via Nexis UK 10-December-2009
- ↑ JJR Institute, Homepage, JJR Institute, Accessed via Webarchive 10-Decmber-2009
- ↑ Henry Jackson Society, Think Tanks, Henry Jackson Society, Accessed 10-December-2009
- ↑ JJRI Homepage, retrieved from the Internet Archive of 3 November 2004 on 8 June 2012
- ↑ Madeline Brand, Obama Favored Abroad, but Some Are Skeptical, National Public Radio (NPR), 11-September-2008, Accessed via Nexis UK 10-December-2009
- ↑ Michel Gurfinkiel, Another French Revolution?, The Weekly Standard, 27-November-2006, Accessed 10-December-2009
- ↑ JJRI About Us retrieved from the Internat Archive of 3 November 2004 on 8 June 2012
- ↑ Douglas Davis The UN-Who is Goldstone to Judge?, JJRI, 24 October 2009, accessed 8 June 2012.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 JJRI Qui Sommes Nous - About Us, accessed 8 June 2012
