Centre for Civic Education (CCE) welcomes the first signed statement, out of four that University of Montenegro (UoM) issued in an attempt to question the credibility of the CCE and its employees. We do appreciate the progress made at least in part that from now on they will find a “scapegoat” for the sake of public defense of the indefensible.
However, it remains unclear on which basis does the Chairman of the Scientific Board of the UoM, Vladimir Pešić, answer when as much as the day before, the rectorate argued that they have nothing to do with the contentious PhDs and professors.
In the UoM statement not a single fact from the study “Academic honor the Montenegrin way – plagiarisms in Montenegro and their (non) prosecution” not from yesterday’s CCE press release is denied. Thus, it is difficult to continue to argue and maintain a decent level of communication in a collision with intolerance, misogyny and commissioner logic that comes from UoM, and where there is no grain of science and scientific truth, but it all comes down to the terrestrial attempts to label the interlocutors.
If it was different maybe professor Pešić could answer to some of the questions, as follows:
• With what kind of scientific research did you, professor Pešić, conduct to come to the label that you attach so deliberately to me personally and to the CCE?
• Do you think that after 15 years of out public work, which has a strong stamp in Montenegro and significant international recognition, you could prevent us from opening the questions, by accusing us that anything we do is motivated by money?
• And based on what do you asses that we should stop publically talking about the cases of Vlahović, Babović, Rakočević? Or any other related issues indicating that UoM does not have the will nor the integrity to resolve them in a nonselective manner and in public interest?
• Do you believe that when someone reads your public response and vocabulary it contains, UoM can go up or down on the list of universities that are free and highly ranked? And do you think that money is the only factors of importance when it comes to the quality of the university or will be that there is something in fostering critical thinking in the academic area, although it can be a strange echo in the minds of managers of UoM?
• Finally, professor Pešić, is this answer really the best you could produce to all that CCE arguably, with documents and relevant sources, noted in its study? If so, then we are even more concerned about the capacities of UoM.
And, not to forget, professor Pešić, send our regards to Mrs Radmila Vojvodić, rector of UoM. You know why. And so does Montenegrin public.
Daliborka Uljarević, executive director