News | Sunday, 21 June 2009

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Dahrendorf, leading sociologist and Dom Mintoff’s critic, dies

James Debono
Leading German sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf, the man who denounced Dom Mintoff’s educational policies and “creeping totalitarianism”, passed away on Thursday at the age of 80.
Dahrendorf was invited to become chairman of the Commission of the Royal University of Malta shortly after Mintoff’s election in 1971.
But Dahrendorf soon fell out with Mintoff, denouncing the workers’ students scheme as one producing “either unhappy workers or under-qualified students, or both.”
Under this scheme, students were obliged not only to have the necessary qualifications but also to alternate periods of work with periods of study. Entry to University became determined not only on the basis of qualifications, but also on preference of employers. And a special ‘Students Selection Board’ ultimately decided which student-workers were to be chosen.
The much maligned system also meant that various courses were halted, leading to the closure of the faculties of arts and sciences.
President Emeritus Edward Fenech Adami, who had personally met Ralf Dahrendorf in the 1970s, described him as a “very distinguished sociologist” who “was also very relevant to politics,” in his role as advisor to various European governments including the Maltese government.
“I recall his incisive criticism of the workers student scheme in the London Times Educational Supplement,” Dr Fenech Adami told MaltaToday.
Despite his fall-out with Mintoff, Dahrendorf had a key role in strengthening Maltese-German ties through the German-Maltese circle. He met the circle during a visit to Malta in 1971 when he occupied the post of Under Secretary of State of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Through his direct intervention the Circle started receiving financial assistance from the German government of the Federal Republic, which funds go towards the propagation of the German language and culture. Dahrendorf has been the Circle’s honorary patron since then.
In his famous book ‘Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society’ (1959) Dahrendorf claimed that power was at the root of differences in class, splitting society into “order takers” and “order givers”.
Dahrendorf lived in Britain for many years, where he was a member of the upper house of parliament, the House of Lords.

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